Ole Miss’s run defense completely crumbled in Gainesville, exposing a weakness Pete Golding finally had to confront. A week after taking down LSU, the Rebels ran into a Florida Gators offense that ignored the hype and punched them straight in the mouth. LSU tried to throw against Ole Miss’s secondary and failed, but Jon Sumrall saw the real flaw on tape and went after their light front line.

The Gators handed Ole Miss a brutal 52-28 beating in The Swamp, a collapse Golding bluntly called a good, old-fashioned whipping. Florida didn’t bother with fancy plays; they just ran right through broken tackles and soft coverage. It completely killed the Rebels’ momentum and showed everyone that Golding’s defense has a glaring hole up front.

“Yeah, I think so,” Golding said after the game when asked if his defense could fix these issues. “I think there’s points in time that you got to make decisions right, and you got to make a decision that you know, ‘What? I’m not okay with that,’ and that’s not okay.”

This is what LSU missed. Kiffin knew Ole Miss was vulnerable on the ground, but the Tigers tried to drop back and throw against Ole Miss’s light secondary coverage. Sumrall took a different route. Seeing that Golding pulled extra defenders into coverage to stop big plays, Florida did not bother throwing deep. They lined up in heavy sets and ran the ball straight at a light defensive front that could not hold its ground.

For a defensive specialist like Golding, getting run over like this hurts deeply. The 42-year-old built his reputation on tough, disciplined defenses before taking over as Ole Miss head coach when Kiffin left for LSU. Against Florida, his squad struggled with simple wrap-up tackling, breaking the exact promises of defensive toughness made before the season started.

Linebacker Keaton Thomas led the defense in tackles, tallying 11. Of these, three were solo. He also recorded a pass breakup along with Jaylin Crawford. Against the LSU Tigers, Sharif Denson and Tah’j Butler led with eight tackles each. Luke Ferrelli added five and Keaton Thomas four.

With star Kewan Lacey out with a shoulder injury, the Rebels’ running backs were unremarkable, unlike Florida’s Jadan Baugh and Duke Clark. The two combined for 268 yards and four touchdowns. The duo alone put up over 50 points for the Gators. Golding said that this loss is good practice to evaluate themselves. He said that the tapes from this game would serve as a reminder to clean up.

“That starts at the stop for us, and we put some things on tape that we’ve got to clean up, and we’re going to continue to get exposed as long as they’re on tape,” he further said. “But I think it’s a good time for the bi-weekly for us to really evaluate how we’re doing it.”

He then shared what questions the squad must answer to themselves first to buckle up for the next game after this loss. “The guys that are doing it, are they doing it consistently enough? Do we have some guys that we need to look to play better football?” he added. “So, I told our group, I love our group. I think they’re wired the right way.”

The Rebels had arrived in Florida hoping to build on their Week 3 victory. In his opening statement, Golding shared an exchange between him and Kiffin which would do him good if he applied it to himself.

“I just left the locker room,” he began recounting the moment after the game was won. “And I told him after the LSU game, ‘Man, look, this is one game. This doesn’t define your season. This is a what have you done for me lately business. And it’s no different for tonight. You know, the sun’s going to come up tomorrow.’” 

Golding is right. It is just one game. The Rebels can make a successful U-Turn and rise above this away game. Will they? That is the question.