Jamal Roberts Runs Through the Hype as No. 25 Missouri Buries No. 8 Florida 45-17

Seven days ago, Florida was the best story in the SEC. The Gators hung 52 on No. 4 Ole Miss in the Swamp, jumped 13 spots in the AP poll and got off to their best start in seven years. People were saying Florida was back.

Then they went to Columbia, and Missouri made the whole idea look silly.

No. 25 Missouri beat No. 8 Florida 45-17 on Saturday at Faurot Field. After it was tied 10-10 late in the first half, Missouri scored the next 35 points. Jamal Roberts ran for 211 yards and three touchdowns. Austin Simmons threw for 340 yards and two more. By the fourth quarter, a homecoming crowd was mocking the Gators with the chomp, and Missouri had the most complete performance of Eli Drinkwitz's tenure.

The plan: take away the one thing Florida does best

Florida came in averaging 532.8 yards a game. Jadan Baugh was the engine. He was the nation's second-leading rusher with 11 touchdowns in four games and five straight 100-yard outings, plus some early Heisman talk.

He got 12 yards on his first carry. Then Missouri shut him down. Baugh carried 11 more times for exactly one yard and finished with 13 yards on 12 attempts. That isn't a slow day. That's a game plan built to take away one player, and it worked from start to finish.

Missouri was doing it without starting edge rushers Darris Smith and Langden Kitchen, both out with lower-body injuries. Defensive tackle Sterling Webb played out of position and said stopping Baugh "was a point of emphasis this week." Drinkwitz explained the formula simply: "Tough teams stop the run, run the ball and cover kicks. And that's exactly what we did today."

With Baugh stuck, Aaron Philo had to carry the offense, and he couldn't. He threw a career-high 34 passes, completed 21 for 197 yards and was sacked three times. Florida finished with 325 total yards, about 200 under its average.

Simmons picks apart a short-handed secondary

On the other side, Florida's defense was in trouble before kickoff. Veteran safety Bryce Thornton hurt himself in pregame warmups and couldn't play. Cornerback Dijon Johnson left with an ankle injury. Young players and backups ended up covering Missouri's receivers, and Simmons kept finding them.

He was 16-of-21 for 238 yards and two touchdowns in the first half alone. A 47-yard strike to Donovan Olugbode made it 10-3. Philo answered with a 12-yard touchdown to Dallas Wilson with 4:26 left in the half to tie it at 10, and that was the last time this felt like a game. Simmons found Caleb Goodie Jr. for the receiver's first career touchdown. After Florida went three-and-out, Missouri got the ball back with 1:33 left, and Blake Craig hit a 50-yard field goal as time expired. Missouri led 20-10 at halftime.

Simmons finished 23-of-30 for 340 yards. Cayden Lee caught eight passes for 110 yards. Florida also played without receiver Vernell Brown III, who'd led the team with 17 catches, 271 yards and two receiving touchdowns before straining his right knee. That made the gap between the offenses even bigger.

The swing: 35 straight points and two Roberts runs

Missouri took the second-half kickoff and Roberts finished the drive with a short touchdown run. The defense forced a quick punt, and Craig made a 52-yard field goal. Missouri led 30-10, and it already felt over.

Then Roberts made it a blowout. On the second-to-last play of the third quarter, he spun out of a pileup and ran 76 yards before getting shoved out at the Florida 2. He scored on the first snap of the fourth quarter, and a two-point conversion made it 38-10. A couple of minutes later, he broke an 80-yard touchdown run for good measure.

"Seeing Jamal bounce off all those tackles and break free, it's something I haven't seen," Simmons said.

Roberts gave the credit to his offensive line. "For us to play as a unit, to dominate the line of scrimmage, that's our identity," he said. "That's something that we've been wanting to prove since Week 1. We proved that today."

Missouri finished with 560 yards. Florida's only points after halftime came on a 42-yard touchdown pass from backup Tramell Jones Jr. to TJ Abrams with 47 seconds left.

What it means for Drinkwitz, and the history he says he doesn't care about

The numbers are a big deal for Missouri. The win ended a nine-game losing streak against ranked opponents. It was Drinkwitz's first regular-season win over a top-10 team in 11 tries at Missouri, and the program's first top-10 win since the 2023 Cotton Bowl against Ohio State. A week earlier, Missouri collapsed late at Mississippi State. This was a big response.

Drinkwitz didn't want to talk about the history. "It's a good win against a really good team today. That's all it was," he said. "Nobody in our locker room could care less about that. I couldn't care less about that." He was much warmer talking about the people in the stands: "What an awesome win for our community, for our state and more importantly for our team."

Missouri is 4-1 and 1-1 in the SEC. Texas A&M comes to Columbia next week.

Florida's first loss under Sumrall comes with a warning

For Florida, this was the first loss of the Jon Sumrall era, and he didn't hide from it. "Embarrassing performance in every phase," he said. "Starts with the coaching, starts with me." In comments carried by the Associated Press, he was even shorter: "They deserved the win. We earned the loss."

Sumrall had warned about this. During the 4-0 start he kept saying the secondary had to play better, and he called Missouri the most physical team Florida had seen. Both turned out to be true on the same afternoon. The Gators were penalized eight times for 80 yards. They've now lost four of their last five trips to Faurot Field, and this was the first of those that wasn't close.

The players weren't panicking. "We got hit in the mouth," linebacker Myles Graham said. "Sometimes it happens, but we will not let it define us or our season." Philo said he'd seen this group come together before and expects it to happen again.

Florida is 4-1 and 2-1 in the SEC, with South Carolina next. In this SEC, beating Ole Miss one week means nothing the next. Missouri spent Saturday making that point to the only people who'd started to believe otherwise.