5 Key Quotes from Jon Sumrall After Florida's Loss to South Carolina

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The 16th-ranked Florida Gators, for the second straight week, were flat-out dominated, this time with a 38-19 loss to South Carolina in the Swamp.

After the loss, first-year head coach Jon Sumrall took to the podium, breaking down Florida's defensive struggles, lack of explosive offense and the future with the Gators set to face No. 1 Texas next week and No. 2 Georgia the week after.

Here are five key quotes from Sumrall after the loss.

"Disappointing football today by us. No excuse for it."

Sumrall kept his opening statement to the post-game press conference short and to the point.

"Disappointing football today by us. No excuse for it," he said. "Not many words that are going to make any of it right. We have to go back to work and improve. I'm frustrated with every part of what we did today. It starts with me. I've got to do a better job of getting this team ready to play to its best.

"Today's not anywhere near where we need to perform. So many things to clean up. Just not a good football performance by us."

"We have a long way to go, clearly."

Florida's defensive woes continued as South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers diced the Gators up for 279 yards and four touchdowns passing and another touchdown rushing. The Gamecocks also converted 10 of its 16 third-down attempts, with multiple touchdowns coming on third down.

Despite three sacks, the pass rush struggled to get to Sellers, and Florida's pass defense was non-existent with another takeaway-less game.

"There's no magic to fixing it. We have to go back to work," Sumrall said. "We have to play in, play out. I've told the team just now and I've told them really all year, on defense you have to assume you're the challenged player every play. You have to assume that you're the target every play. And we have a long way to go, clearly."

"We didn't win at the line of scrimmage."

Once again, Florida's high-powered rushing attack looked dead, with star back Jadan Baugh rushing for just 59 yards and a garbage-time touchdown. Florida managed just 120 yards on 38 carries as the offensive line struggled to control the line of scrimmage.

The passing attack was not much better, with Aaron Philo unable to push the ball down the field as the Gators relied on screens and short passes for most of the afternoon. The offensive line did not help, giving up three sacks for 24 yards.

"I felt like for the majority of the day, their defensive front won the battle at the line of scrimmage over us in the run and the pass game," Sumrall said. "Like when we wanted to get into obvious drop-back pass situations, it was bad too. And I think they've got good players, but we have to help our guys play better."

He added: "In the SEC, you're going to get challenged every week. It doesn't change. It's been the same every week we've played. There's been a physical challenge on the other side. We have not answered the bell for that the last two weeks, and that's disappointing."

"We've been exposed in a pretty substantial way."

You can't say Sumrall did not warn everyone.

After a win over Ole Miss two weeks ago, Sumrall made it clear that Florida was nowhere near a perfect product and that the Gators would be humbled quickly if they don't improve. Safe to say they've been humbled twice since then.

Sumrall, describing how uneasy he was after the win over the Rebels, echoed how much Florida "has not arrived."

"Now we clearly haven't arrived the last two weeks because we've been exposed in a pretty substantial way. And this conference will do it to you," he said. "But I think sometimes, and I said this last week as well, sometimes when you're winning, it masks maybe the things that are not going right or that you're not doing well."

The lack of explosive plays offensively, which Sumrall said comes and goes, have not helped the last two weeks, either. Sumrall did say that he believes Florida is the same team it was two weeks ago, but not in a good way.

"We're the same football team. We haven't gotten better and improved in certain areas to maybe offset our weaknesses," he said.

"The guys playing the back end are the guys that have practiced at the highest level on the back end."

Even when Florida was winning, a major criticism has been the play of Florida's defensive backs, specifically corners Cormani McClain, J'Vari Flowers and Ben Hanks III. The criticism grew as Sellers pieced apart the Gators' secondary no matter who was playing.

Sumrall offered an explanation as to why Florida has not made many personnel changes in the secondary.

"The guys playing the back end are the guys that have practiced at the highest level on the back end," Sumrall said. "And, you know, all I know to do is go off of how guys practice. And then when they play, we evaluate it, and we always reassess who's playing and trying to give guys more opportunities if they're playing good. Right now, we do have to continue to improve."

However, the more the current group struggles, Florida may need to find a way to give other guys opportunities in the coming weeks.

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