Florida opened as a three-and-a-half-point favorite over Ole Miss in Gainesville, and the number held. The Gators ran for more than 300 yards, led 10-0 inside five minutes and still held a 24-21 edge late in the third quarter before the game broke open. Pete Golding’s postgame message was that the loss should linger: “part of the problem sometimes we move on too fast.”
Locked On Ole Miss host Steven Willis, a guest on the 24th Floor, traced it to the first four snaps. Ole Miss opened with four straight running plays, and Willis called that a square peg in a round hole. “I think this is a pass-to-run football team,” he said.
Protecting the quarterback is the costlier instinct, Willis argued. “Literally, you have to let Trinidad be Trinidad,” he said of Trinidad Chambliss, warning that pulling the quarterback run game to avoid a hit makes the offense worse. Kewan Lacy, who was out, is the one who needs shielding, Willis said. Without him, Chambliss finished as the leading rusher and JT Lindsey did not fill the gap.
He placed the loss in a wider frame. By his count only three teams in the last 30 years have won three ranked games in September — Ohio State in 2006, LSU in 2011 and Clemson in 2017 — and all three were national-title-level teams. Gainesville suggests Ole Miss is not that, Willis said, while every goal remains in front of it.
For the bye week, Willis said he would cut the call sheet to five or 10 plays and play simple one-gap man coverage instead of the pattern-matching the Alabama system asks for, then out-physical the line of scrimmage against a true freshman quarterback. The Vanderbilt waiting in Nashville, he warned, is not the Vanderbilt Ole Miss remembers.
Photo: Trinidad Chambliss throws against Florida, September 26, 2026, at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images.
Adapted from the October 3, 2026 24th Floor replay carried on Locked On Ole Miss, featuring Steven Willis, part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Watch the full episode.