Bishop Gorman came to Florida on Saturday with a chance at the top line in the country and left it in Fort Lauderdale. Columbus, unranked in the SPIN National Top 50, beat the Gaels 33-28.
Our own board framed this game a week ago as Gorman's shot at No. 1. The Gaels were No. 2, 2-0, and the only team in the top ten with a win over another top ten team. Columbus was not in the fifty. It is now the answer to what happens when a very good Florida program gets a national opponent on its own side of the country and does not blink.
A'Mir Sears was the reason for most of it. Sears finished with three interceptions and two touchdowns, which is the kind of line that does not happen against teams like this. He transferred to Columbus from West Broward, committed to Miami on July 31, and reclassified out of the 2028 class into 2027 that same month, skipping his senior year entirely. Rivals rates him the No. 10 player in that class and the No. 2 cornerback in it. On Saturday he played both ways for four quarters and was the best player on a field that had a great many of them.
Columbus led 7-0 after a quarter and 23-15 at the half, and the shape of the night was set early. The Explorers ran the football at a Gorman defense that spent the past week being told it was among the best in the country, and it kept working. On the other side, Columbus got pressure on Ace Amina from the front and took away everything behind it. Amina had spent eight days as the reason Gorman beat St. John Bosco. He spent Saturday getting hit and throwing into a secondary that was waiting.
The one thing Gorman got loose in the first half was a 74-yard touchdown from Amina to freshman Michael Blackmond on the last play before the break, a jump over a defender and then nothing but grass. Amina also found tight end Trent Walker from nine yards out. Beyond that there was very little.
Neither team scored in the third. Columbus pushed the lead to 33-15 with under eight minutes left, and at that point it was over in every way except the clock.
Then Gorman remembered what it is. The Gaels scored, recovered an onside kick, and scored again, the second on a catch in the corner of the end zone by Azavier McDaniel, a senior cornerback committed to UNLV who spent the night playing receiver. The extra point made it 33-28 with 1:12 to go. Columbus recovered the second onside kick and ran out the clock.
The night took most of the afternoon to happen at all. Kickoff was set for 2 p.m. Eastern and did not come until three, after lightning in the area pushed back warmups twice. The game stopped again in the first quarter, with 8:21 on the clock, when the horn went off as Gorman punted. Florida rules require a delay for any strike within ten miles.
Thirteen unanswered points at the end do not undo the eighteen that came before them. Columbus was the better team on Saturday in the ways that are hardest to argue with. It ran the ball at a defense that could not stop it, and it made the best quarterback it will see this season look ordinary for three quarters. Gorman is 2-1 and will be favored in nearly everything left on its schedule. It will also spend a week answering for a game it came here to win.
