Florida football will find out how much it has improved at No. 9 Tennessee

For a night, at least, Florida football pushed a team around, playing with physicality and effort in a 24-13 win over UCF at The Swamp on Saturday.

Now, the Florida Gators (3-2, 1-1 SEC) enter the crux of their 2024 schedule with some confidence after back-to-back wins over Mississippi State and UCF. The original gauntlet of the schedule was thought to be the final five games, but with Florida State’s shocking fade into ineptitude (1-5, 1-4 SEC), the new gauntlet becomes UF’s final six conference games.

Of the six, five come against teams ranked in the top 10 of the US LBM Coaches Poll, beginning with Saturday’s matchup at No. 9 Tennessee, where UF could easily get Rocky Toppled if it doesn’t come with the right mindset. Per BetMGM, Florida enters the game as a 15.5-point underdog. A frenzied crowd of 101,195 at Neyland Stadium awaits in a rivalry game that during the 1990s often determined the SEC title.

“In this league, in the current dynamic, it’s one week,” Florida football coach Billy Napier said. “It’s like you got to get consumed with preparing. You got to prepare with some humility so that you can play with confidence.”

After dropping two of its first three by double digits to Miami and Texas A&M at The Swamp, UF’s two-game winning streak hasn’t done much to change the overall perception of the program. USA Today still rates Florida as 13th out of 16 SEC teams in its weekly power ratings, ahead of just South Carolina, Auburn and Mississippi State.

But Vanderbilt’s upset over Alabama shows that anything can happen in the SEC. No. 1 Texas (5-0) is the only unbeaten left in the SEC. The Vols lost at Arkansas last week. Kentucky upset Ole Miss 20-17 after losing at home to South Carolina. Ole Miss responded by pounding the same South Carolina team that beat Kentucky, 27-3.

Napier compared the parity that exists in…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/florida-football-much-improved-no-080535262.html

Author : The Gainesville Sun

Publish date : 2024-10-08 08:05:35

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