Tennessee Volunteers (1-1) at Florida Gators (2-0)
Has there ever been a college football game where the spread was more anticipated than Saturday’s Tennessee at Florida SEC opener?
The Gators have opened as whopping 30-point favorites on WagerWeb.com.
Seriously, fans were dying to know what oddsmakers would put up for this game once Lane Kiffin, on the day he was introduced as the Tennessee coach, started trash talking about singing “Rocky Top” after his Vols beat the Gators this year. And then Kiffin later called UF coach Urban Meyer a cheater for calling a recruit while that recruit was on UT’s campus for a visit.
So most people expect Meyer to lay the wood to Tennessee this year, much like the Gators did last year to Georgia in their first meeting with the Dawgs since the Bulldog players all stormed into the end zone following their first score in the 2007 win. So last year, UF got revenge in the form of a 49-10 victory in which Meyer called two timeouts in the final minute to rub it in a little.
Kiffin’s comments were plastered all over Florida’s practice facility and locker room, although they were “officially” taken down once fall camp started. Still, many players have the comments posted in their lockers, and more than one has said the Gators will put on a “show” Saturday to teach the first-year Vols coach a lesson.
And UF has put on a show in this series of late, winning four in a row since Meyer came to town, with the last two by a combined 63 points. But 30 points is an awful lot — only five games in the history of this series have been decided by more than 30 points. And one wonders if UF is too amped up to run up the score – just worry about winning the game first.
There’s little doubt the Gators will win the game, and there’s little doubt they will score plenty of points as the lead the nation in scoring. But the UT defense is pretty solid. The Vol passing game isn’t very good behind Jonathan Crompton, who will start at QB after struggling in last week’s loss to UCLA. But Tennessee’s running game is good enough to where it should be able to keep the Florida offense off the field at least a bit.
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