The quickest way to have your game day experience ruined is to be seated next to a “doomer.” These are the people who, at even the slightest setback, will throw a fit about the state of our football program. Calls to fire our coach, bench our quarterback or give up entirely will frequently echo from these pessimistic fans.
I call these fans “doomers” because they remind me of the “the end is nigh” insisters. They see everything through the lens of their own belief that the sky is falling. These fans sour the outlook of our program, dampening excitement and darkening the outlook of our football program.
Jon Sumrall went to Columbia, Missouri, in Florida’s first ranked road test and got absolutely demolished by the Tigers. No sugar coating here, the Gators got trounced. The No. 8 Gators were 5.5-point favorites over No. 25-ranked Missouri and lost by 28. After that embarrassing loss, doomers called for Brad White, the Gators’ first-year defensive coordinator, to be fired and for Florida to drop out of the rankings completely.
The doomers became even louder the next week when the then-No. 16 Gators were similarly blown out, this time at home, by the unranked South Carolina Gamecocks. Florida became unranked and hope was at a new low for the season.
This was not the first time a first-year Gators head coach was blown out in an embarrassing fashion during their first ranked road test. Urban Meyer’s No. 5 Florida team lost to No. 15 Alabama 31-3 in 2005. Steve Spurrier was similarly destroyed at No. 5 Tennessee in 1990 45-3 while ranked No. 9. Should UF have listened to the doomers then?
Rebuilding a football program to national prominence takes time; just because Curt Cignetti was able to do it in two years from 2024 to 2025 doesn’t mean it’s the standard. Especially since, and the Ole Miss win has seemingly made people forget this, Florida won only four games last year. Sumrall matched that total in his first four games while averaging 53.5 points per game.
An embarrassing loss doesn’t mean the season is over. One bad play doesn’t mean we are going to lose the game. Keep a solid head. The world is not ending. We will play the next play and the next game. Life will go on.
Jon Sumrall has Florida football trending in the right direction. Florida has one of the most potent offenses under offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, who masterfully utilizes pre-snap motions and maximizes playmakers such as wide receivers Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson and running back Jadan Baugh.
Recruiting is also an encouraging area for the future. The Gators currently have the sixth- best recruiting class in the country, headlined by two top-five players, interior offensive lineman Maxwell Hiller and wide receiver Easton Royal. Other exciting recruits currently committed to Florida include four-star wide receiver Elias Pearl out of Port Charlotte, Florida, and four-star defensive lineman Cahron Wheeler out of Baltimore.
Florida has also booked their second win against an AP top-10 team with a win at No. 7 Texas. This win puts the Gators back into the rankings and potentially on track to compete for a playoff spot or at least a good bowl game.
These developments call for enthusiasm. Florida fans should be optimistic until given real reasons not to be. Our coaches and players deserve an actual chance to prove themselves and implement their systems and culture into our program. No football program has ever won championships by firing their coaches at the first sign of trouble.
Being a fan doesn’t mean you have to accept everything with a smile on your face. It’s not a sin to want the Gators to return to the glory days we had under Meyer and Spurrier. It is, however, extremely annoying and tiring to deal with pessimistic, fair-weather fans. We shouldn’t accept mediocrity, but we also shouldn’t ignore the positive signs by only focusing on the negative ones.
To those upset about the recent losses, look at the bigger picture: Florida had one of its worst football seasons in over a decade last year. We hired an exciting young head coach who has the energy we’ve been missing the past five years. That alone should make you excited even if it’s not immediately resulting in on-field success.
We have already matched the victories we had the entirety of last season. If a Gators fan was told that, after seven weeks, the Gators would be 5-2, I think most of them would’ve taken that in a heartbeat. So why is it that when we achieve that goal, fans are still unhappy?
Florida is still on track to potentially double its total wins from last year. This would mean an 8-4 season and a bowl game. That would be an incredible step in the right direction. Even if we fall short of that goal, the Gators are clearly better off now than they were a year ago.
So keep that perspective in mind as the football season progresses. Let’s cheer on the boys from Old Florida in all kinds of weather and look hopefully to the future.
Contact Evan Dressel at edressel@alligator.org. Follow him on X @EvanD_Alligator.
Evan Dressel is a senior studying Political Science and Criminology. He plans to go to law school. He loves Gator basketball and football as well as the Green Bay Packers. This is Evan's first semester writing for The Alligator.
