GAINESVILLE — Florida’s embarrassing 45-16 loss at Missouri on Saturday didn’t just highlight the program’s culture problem and continued issues on offense. It revealed increasingly large cracks in the defense too, a troubling trend for a proud unit long considered a program mainstay.

Florida surrendered 40 points for the second consecutive week, the first time that has happened since 1971. Florida’s is now allowing 28.4 points per game, ranking 77th nationally in scoring defense and on pace to allow almost a point more a game than the previous high-mark this century, in 2007. That team had Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin to bail a young defense out. This one has one of the worst offenses in the Power 5.

Other defensive metrics are equally disquieting.

Playing a top 20 S &P+ offense for the first time all season, the Gators surrendered over 445 yards of offense and a 6.8 yards per play, their second-worst number of the season. A week ago, Georgia’s power run game averaged 9.3 yards a play. Florida also surrendered 227 yards rushing to Missouri, and now ranks 77th nationally in defending the run after two consecutive seasons in the top 10 in that area. And while Florida’s defense entered the Missouri game ranked in the top 25 nationally in “success rate” defense, a metric that takes into account field position and down and distance, that number will surely drop after multiple Missouri drives of 80+ yards, including a back-breaking 14-play, 98-yard drive in the second quarter.

The Gators also continue to struggle to produce takeaways defensively.

After starting the season with three interceptions returned for touchdowns against Michigan and Tennessee, the Gators have collected just three turnovers since the fourth quarter of the Tennessee game. While an early interception did snuff out an early Missouri drive Saturday, the Gators were unable to take the ball away again. And remarkably, Florida hasn’t recovered a fumble all season, threatening to become the first power 5 school in a decade to finish a year without a fumble recovery on defense.

The inability to produce takeaways is a significant issue, both because turnovers provide an emotional jolt for the defense and often provide a short-field or favorable field position for an offense. For a football team that struggles to sustain drives offensively, the lack of opportunism on defense is crushing.

Florida interim head coach Randy Shannon said the defense’s inability to make big plays and get off the field helped the game get away from the Gators early.

“We couldn’t get stops or make big plays on defense,” Shannon told the media after the game. “That affected our young guys in the secondary. They did a great job attacking our secondary, hitting some deep passes, and building momentum that way.”

What’s more, the strength of the Gator defense — a talented and deep defensive line — did basically nothing outside of collect snaps Saturday. They collected one hurry, for whatever that stat is worth, and tallied zero sacks or tackles for loss. It’s hard to play pass defense when your defensive line does nothing to affect the quarterback.

After two seasons where the Gators lost nearly 10 defensive players to the NFL draft, some drop in production was expected this season. Compounding the NFL departures were injuries and the credit card nine suspensions, the costliest of which was the season-ending Achilles’ injury to All-SEC safety Marcell Harris that deprived a young defense of its captain, best tackler and run-stopper before Game 1.

But even with the offense stuck in reverse in a winless October, Florida’s young defense played well enough to win in two home losses to LSU and Texas A&M. More critically, they played with great effort and energy.

That’s been missing the past two weeks, and at least one Gators defender, linebacker David Reese, has had enough.

Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Reese collected 13 tackles Saturday, one of the only bright spots on a terrible day for the program. He didn’t hold back after the game, telling the media he felt his teammates simply quit.

“I just want to say one thing: We loved every single one of our coaches that’s been through here. It’s unfortunate what’s happened to them,” Reese said. “I hate the way we represented our coaches like that today with this game. Those guys really care for us and gave us a real good plan to do what he had to do. It’s disappointing when everybody doesn’t want to come together and just play for each other. That’s sad to see.”

Florida simply isn’t good enough or deep enough on defense to play without great effort, especially on the road. Playing against power run schemes is often a matter of being disciplined enough to fit gaps and strong-willed enough to keep doing it even after your body is bruised and battered. Florida had neither discipline or emotional investment Saturday, and the results showed on the scoreboard.

Reese says it will get better.

“As a defense, we want to play better for (the coaches). We’ve still got a lot to play for. We can’t have appearances like we had today. That’s unacceptable.”

Reese is right. It is unacceptable.

Whether the defense responds will dictate whether Florida closes strong, of finishes with a whimper.