Anytime your name is being uttered in the same sentence as Tim Tebow, you're doing something right.

Emory Jones' game Saturday will have his name listed ahead of Tebow in the record book.

Jones accounted for 550 yards, breaking Tim Tebow's record of 533 against Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl. Jones was also just 18 passing yards shy of breaking the single-game passing yards mark, something his understudy, Anthony Richardson, was lobbying for him to get a chance to break.

“He chased Coach Mullen down on kickoff and told him that he wanted me to go back in. I was like, nah, go in there and play ball. I’m not really worried about the record," Jones said after the game.

Jones’ seven-total touchdowns (six passing, one rushing) today tied the Florida program record. Jones is the first Gator to throw six touchdown passes in a game since Kyle Trask accomplished the feat vs. Arkansas on Nov. 14, 2020.

It's been a rollercoaster of a season for Jones but his second to last game in The Swamp this season is one for the record books.

A historically bad South Carolina team beat the University of Florida in historically embarrassing fashion, which led to the embarrassing mid-season dismissal of defensive coordinator Todd Grantham but that didn't end the histrionics or embarrassment Saturday.

The Gators' defense allowed an undersized, out-manned, 4-5 FCS football team to come into their home and run the score up on them in the first half. The Bulldogs went into the locker room leading the game 42-35.

"Yeah, we had some choice words and we came out and we played better in the second half," linebacker Mohamoud Diabate said. "I don't care who you're playing, you've got a name on your back. You have a logo on your helmet, so you've got to represent that logo, represent that name with everything you can, whether you're playing Samford, whether you're playing Tuskeegee University, I don't care. You go out there and you play."

Diabate cleaned up the message when he retold it to reporters after the game but whatever he did say had the intended effect. After allowing 42 points and 385 yards in the first half the Gators held Samford to 10 points and 175 yards in the second half.

We're still waiting for a full 60 minutes from the defense this season.

It looked like we'd be talking to Scott Stricklin rather than Dan Mullen after the game today.

Seriously, the first half was a disaster for the Gators. Samford, a 4-5 FCS team came in and scored touchdowns on five of its first six drives. Samford’s 52 points are most ever scored by an FCS team against an SEC team and the 122 points scored between the two teams are the most combined total points in The Swamp.

Dan Mullen wasn't interested in hearing about it being a "disappointing loss."

"It’s hard to win, it is hard to win in the game of football," Mullen said after the game. "And when you face adversity, we’ve faced plenty of adversity and not come out on the right end of it, so I don’t want to say that so it’s kinda disrespectful to our guys, their guys, and the game of football.”

A win is a win and the Gators celebrated that way in the locker room. Personally, I don't have a problem with the players or coaches celebrating a win. It had been 35 days, five long weeks and two coaches being fired since the Gators were able to celebrate. You only get 12, maybe 13 opportunities to feel the elation of a win. Should the game have been that close? Absolutely not and the players know that.

Florida's offense wasn't the issue but 70 points doesn't feel as good when the other team hangs half a hundred in your home stadium.

A win is a win but this won't lessen the ire fans currently hold towards their head coach, nor should it. Losing this game would likely have cost Mullen his job and there are still massive issues that need to be fixed. Namely, recruiting.

Florida has a long way to go to catch up to Georgia, who is steamrolling the Gators on the recruiting trail on their way to another top-ranked class. Mullen needs to worry about winning the next two games but he also should be getting a short list of coaches to replace the two he already dismissed and take a hard look at the rest of his staff to see who deserves to come back.

It's hard to say you "survived" a game where you scored 70 points but Florida survived Samford on Saturday and the win helped Mullen survive another week at Florida.

Just a footnote, but something to clarify. You can count one (1) win a season over an FCS opponent towards your six needed for bowl eligibility. Samford was the only FCS team on Florida's schedule, so the win today will count towards Florida's bowl bid. They still have work to do, needing to beat Missouri next week or Florida State on thanksgiving weekend.