Friday I'm looking towards University Florida. A little more value created with the loss to Vandy. But Florida outgained Vandy 445-283 (7.0-4.6). Vandy did outrush them 175-45 (3.8-2.1) - Richardson only had 4 carries - his lowest of the year outside of E Wash. Other than the concern of rushing yards allowed and facing a strong run team in FSU this week, that Vandy result was a misleading game. Vandy had a fumbled punt recovery in the EZ for a TD, a 1p 28y TD "drive" after an INT, a 4p 3y "drive" for FG after FL was SOD at their own 12 yardline. That equals 17 of Vandy's 31 pts that their O didn't have to earn or work for.
FSU on the other hand looks unbeatable right now. I do wonder if it partially has been because the FSU D has not faced much in the way of competent offenses lately? ULL is a mid-to-lower tier Sun Belt O, Syracuse is a midpack ACC O who was averaging just 240 ypg and 18 ppg in the 3 games prior to their game with FSU, Miami had been as bad or worse than Syracuse on O, and GT is a bottom 3-type ACC O. So I wonder if FSU D while good, has had it relatively easy lately and perhaps they might not be as good vs Florida's O? FSU's run D is only ranked 7th in the ACC and Gators have a 15th ranked national rush O. In their road games this year, Florida is averaging 510 ypg and 32.7 ppg. They should challenge the FSU D. FSU D gets lots of sacks, but FL doesn't get sacked much.
Florida's D is a problem, there are a lot of young guys playing. We're picking upsets and teams that shouldn't win, so there are going to be reasons why they are dogged, in this case, by almost double digits.
Rivalry aspect ... Florida wasn't good last year either, playing with an interim HC and they won 24-21. I don't know if it at all plays a role, FSU pretty well dominated ULL, but I had wondered last week if that game might provide some insight to Napier to see players he is familiar with go against the team his current team is facing this week and be able to assist his gameplan more effectively after having seen that.
Florida has won 3 straight so no doubt this FSU team is going to be out to end that. Wake Forest and Clemson both beat FSU at the Doak this year. Clemson was up fairly big and FSU kind of clawed back to make the final look closer than how the game was played as I remember.
opcorn:
