Watch out for this one

[News Bot]

One week after beating Ole Miss, Florida is Ole Miss.

I know that sounds confusing at first, but think about. Only two weeks before coming to Gainesville, the Rebels beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa and the love started flowing their way. Ole Miss rose all the way to No. 3 in the nation and many were saying this was the most talented team in the SEC and one of the most talented in the nation. All that love and all that talk abruptly ceased after the Rebels got whacked in The Swamp.

That result changed a lot for Ole Miss — and maybe more for Florida.

The Gators, who couldn’t even get a pat on the back heading into the season, are now getting a big, old bear hug from the national media — more love than they’ve seen since Urban Meyer left. Some have even started speculating that this UF team is talented enough to be mentioned as a College Football Playoff contender; that this may be the best defense in the country; that Jim McElwain could be the national coach of the year. And so on and so on.

Please, stop the lunacy. All this love for Florida could disappear Saturday night, just like it did for Ole Miss a week ago.

The Gators are facing a Missouri team that routed them the last two seasons. The Tigers have a tenacious, attacking defense that traditionally produces turnovers and is hard to score on. Missouri will try to swarm all over Will Grier and that inexperienced offensive line, force turnovers and a bunch of negative plays.

Missouri has struggled on offense (does that sound familiar?), but true freshman quarterback Drew Lock has generated a lot of buzz in Columbia after beating South Carolina in his first start last week with two touchdown passes. He enters this game with growing confidence and secure in the fact the hometown crowd will have his back.

The Gators better be careful with this one. If they turn the ball over and give up a bunch of sacks, Missouri is going to win this game. Florida’s defense also has to be focused and tackle well. If the Gators give up some big plays and lose momentum early, it’s going to be hard to get back and things could go downhill fast.

The Florida players have been assuring everyone, including themselves, that all this praise and attention they’re getting after the Ole Miss game won’t distract them or lead them to become full of themselves. It’s easy to say that, but when everyone keeps telling you how great you are, the tendency is to start believing it.

I’m tempted to pick the upset here. Certainly, I won’t be shocked if it happens because this is such a trap game for the Gators.

So, let’s just call this one very, very, very shaky pick this week.

Prediction: Florida 21, Missouri 20.

Source: GatorSports.com - Robbie's Playbook

 

[Leakfan12]

Believe me that I'm nervous about this game. I'm sure I'm not the only one. If I recall, the defense for the Gators played well but Mizzo scored mostly on defense and special teams last year. Hope that Grier continues to play well and the D shuts down the Tigers offense and make the true freshman quarterback make mistakes, the gators D is better than Spurrier's boys.

 

[Escambia94]

Face it, this will be a year where we will be nervous about every FBS game. Few people on earth expected these Gators to be 5-0. In August I predicted the Gators to be 3-2 now with losses to Tennessee and Mississippi. In September I modified my prediction and guessed either a 21-14 victory or a 10-21 loss. I predicted a 13-42 loss to Mississippi in August and again in October. The Gators are making a believer out of me, but I refuse to get ahead of myself. There is no way on earth Florida should have lost to Missouri as badly as it did two years in a row--to include a turnover festival on our home field during homecoming. Do not buy into the crap about Missouri scheduling us as homecoming pansies as a sign of disrespect. The Gators obviously earned that disrespect by not knowing how to hold onto the football, and losing despite holding the Tigers to pedestrian offensive output.

I still think the Gators can lose this game now that the Tigers have more film on Will Grier. Grier did well last week, but that was against a cocky defense and a confident offense. I predict a close one with a few turnovers, perhaps a 21-20 victory or a 20-21 loss.

 

[DRU2012]

I understand why we're all worried about this, don't trust what our own eyes seem to be telling us--that this is a different Gator team than we've been watching in its various guises over the last five years or so, failure blossoming forth from triumph, it seemed, starting in the week before the 2009 SEC Championship Game against the Tide and since, encompassing the ensuing Meyer/Addazio Lost Year and thru four years of Muschamp/pick-a-stiff.
One more abject demo of the diference(s) coaching makes (and maybe, one wonders, were all those recruiting whiffs at QB really "whiffs" after all, at least to SOME extent coaching failures too--a whole painful and regrettable can'o'worms unto itself!)...
Anyway, if Mac continues to be anywhere near as effective as he's been so far at reading, pacing and teaching his charges, bringing them thru a process I expected to take a season or two in FIVE GAMES, we'll win this one. Not that our concerns are unwarrented, can't get us beat just like we've seen all too often last few years--but we really are better than the team we face tonight. It really is just a matter of this Gator team's collective attitude, emotional state, "headspace", whatever you wanna call it, at this point: We KNOW we are GOOD, now...Long as we stay healthy, all except a coupla games on our schedule, it's mostly gonna be a matter of how we handle it.
Here's the first test of all that. I don't see that "one point either way"-thing developing unless we give the ball away relatively early-and-often, and/or Will Grier reverting to early-season "LOOKS like a lost-freshman QB" mode. We'll get into all this more on the Game Day thread, maybe, but I think it's pretty well up to "US", a well-coached team of determined players, here: We stay hungry, come in ready and taking nothing for granted, Mizzou could keep it close for a half (they have talent, pride and good coaching, after all--and a full house for HomeComing, I believe)--but after that we should pull away.