Tucker’s Florida Record Prediction
Credit: David Bowie/Gator Country
RECORD PREDICTION: 5-7
I’ll make this very simple: Florida wins its first five and loses its last seven.
The Gators open the season with Miami in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. This one should be competitive as both Cam Ward and Graham Mertz are two of the more underrated quarterbacks in the SEC. It feels like the loser of this game will do so because of a coaching error, so I’ll take the Gators because it’s at home.
Samford is a freebie, and then they take on Texas A&M and travel to Mississippi State. I have the Gators winning both because Mike Elko and Jeff Lebby will still be getting their troops organized this early in the season.
UCF is the second of the Gators’ three difficult non conference games. Again, I think Florida wins based on home field advantage as the Knights have started their time in the Big 12 in mediocrity. However, it’s worth noting both KJ Jefferson and Gus Malzahn have beaten the Gators in the last three years both at Arkansas and UCF.
The trip to Tennessee is where things get rough. The Gators have been great against the Vols the last quarter of the century, but it’s going to be difficult to go against a team with the potential of Tennessee. This one’s always a struggle, but the Vols are coming out on top.
The Kentucky series has done a 180 on what it used to be. The Gators had won 31 straight going into 2018, but since then the Wildcats have won four of six. Of those four, the two wins in The Swamp were by double digits. I see a similar result playing out this season.
The Cocktail Party and the game at Texas will not be close losses. The Gators have been horrible in Jacksonville post-2020, and Darrell K Royal should be an overwhelming environment.
LSU, Ole Miss, and the Sunshine Showdown will all be close losses. If the Gators perform better in earlier games, maybe one of these goes the other way.
Another 5-7 season would likely bring about the end of the Billy Napier era. If there’s one thing everybody knows about Florida fans, it’s that they don’t put up with underperforming for long.
