Florida Football: Previewing Missouri

If the Florida Gators want to make it back to Atlanta for the SEC Championship, they have to win out and their next chance to add another win comes at home tomorrow against the Missouri Tigers.

This is a BIG game for the Florida football team. Not just because it’s an SEC opponent, but believe it or not, it’s their second to last home game of the season.

It’s Homecoming weekend too, which should give the players more motivation to get a win in front of Gator Nation.

I believe this game will tell us a lot about this Gator team and what they’re made of before they get set to do battle with Georgia up in Jacksonville two weeks from Saturday.

Both the Gators and Tigers had a bye week, so both teams should be well rested and amped up to play some football again.

Missouri runs a high-powered spread offense with quarterback Drew Lock leading the way. Lock has the most passing yards in the SEC with 1,675 yards and his offense averages about 350 passing yards a game.

Like I mentioned earlier in the week, the Florida defense has to pressure Lock to force him into making bad throws, which could potentially lead to turnovers.

Mizzou doesn’t run the ball all that often since they’re so pass-happy. In the conference, the Tigers rank 11th in rushing offense with only 790 yards on the ground. Right above them in 10th are the Gators with 804 rushing yards, averaging about 160 yards per game.

Florida still possesses the best passing defense in the SEC only allowing close to 140 yards through the air per game. So this will be a good challenge for the Gator defense to see just how well they perform against the Tigers’ passing attack.

LSU was able to shut Lock and the Tigers down only allowing Lock to throw for 167 yards and no touchdowns.

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The Gator defense should follow that blue print against Lock and if they do, it should be a relatively easy win.

Hopefully the Gator offense will look better with Luke Del Rio back in at quarterback. If the offense can have the kind of performance they did against Kentucky, then that’s a great sign moving forward.

I really want to see the run game breakout because when Florida’s offense has to rely primarily on the passing game, they usually struggle.

I expect the Florida defense to come up big once again and force some turnovers, giving the offense a short field a couple times and that will be the difference.

PREDICTION:

The Gators will avenge their Homecoming embarrassment they took at the hands of Missouri two years ago and will come out with the W to improve to 3-1 in the SEC.

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