SO SAD: The top QB announced his departure and

Despite the fact that Todd Golden, a former Auburn assistant under Bruce Pearl from 2014 to 2016,

is coaching the Gators, Bruce Pearl stated on Friday that he hopes to “beat the pants off” Florida.

However, the Gators were the ones taking the battering on Saturday afternoon at Florida’s Stephen C. O’Connell Center, defeating the 12th-ranked Tigers 81-65 to drop Auburn to 19-5 (8-3 SEC).

Florida deserves congratulations. They were excellent and really organized. They had greater physicality. They handled the ball with great care; they did not turn it over. We didn’t play as well defensively.

There was just one theft left. We give up the ball 13 or 14 times in a game, and we score when this happens. We made just seven mistakes. Thus, our protective actions did not cause them to get disturbed.

I thought there could be more pressure on Florida to win this game if we could stay close; clearly, they had to win. Coming in with the numbers and knowing where we stand in the NET, or whatever, is the big reward on our heads. Both a huge victory and a big

They play with a lot of assurance. Though I expected both halves to start strong, I didn’t anticipate it would elude us as much as it did. Give all the credit to Florida. To hold my club accountable for not accomplishing this would be to deprive one of the league’s top five teams of their accomplishment. After going through everything and visiting nearly everyone, I believe Florida will be within the top five.