Florida football running back named SEC Freshman of the Week

Florida football true freshman running back Jadan Baugh was named the SEC Freshman of the Week following his incredible performance in the Gators’ win over the Kentucky Wildcats in Week 8.

Because of Montrell Johnson Jr.‘s unavailability for the game due to an injury, Baugh served as Florida’s lead back and ran all over Kentucky’s defense.

The freshman was a workhorse on Saturday night, running for 106 yards on 22 carries and scoring a total of five touchdowns.

Baugh matched a program record set by Tim Tebow in 2007 and Trey Burton in 2010, achieving the most rushing touchdowns in a single game by a true freshman.

“Gives me confidence,” Baugh said about his performance against Kentucky. “But also gives my team, too, as in we know we could have did this as an offense and a defense. Like the defense played great today. That gave us the opportunity on offense to do what we did today.”Head coach Billy Napier gave praise to not just the offensive line, but the surrounding positions that helped make Florida’s run game successful.

“We ran it good last week, you know,” Napier said after the game. “I think here for a couple weeks in a row—look, it comes down to having a good plan, having a hat for a hat, and then got a ton of people this contribute to the run game. Not just the offensive line. The tight ends, receivers, obviously the quarterback in the middle of that as well.”

Coming up for Florida

The Gators are off next week due to their bye week. The next matchup for Florida will be against the Georgia Bulldogs on Nov. 2 in Jacksonville. That game will kick off at 3:30 p.m. ET and can be seen on ABC.

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