Florida Football: Gators Prepped to Make Utah, PAC-12 Playoff Pretenders
By Sean Doty
This Saturday the no. 7 ranked Utah Utes will learn what a real, hostile road environment feels like.
For the first time in 45 years, Utah and Florida will compete against each other inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Both programs have experienced a huge metamorphosis since their lone prior encounter.
Utah has achieved two undefeated seasons, two New Year’s Six Bowl wins (including a 31-17 drubbing of Nick Saban’s Alabama in 2008), and most recently their first PAC-12 championship.
Meanwhile Florida has produced two Heisman trophy winners, won 8 SEC championships and three national championships.
During that time too the aura of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium has intensified to where it has become arguably the most hostile environment for teams outside of Gainesville to visit and is known around the nation as “The Swamp.”
On paper Utah rightfully deserves to be listed as the favorites against the Gators.
The Utes had the better record in 2021 and came within a field goal of winning the prestigious Rose Bowl against Ohio State.
They have a more battle-tested quarterback in junior Cameron Rising, who threw more passes in Utah’s final three games last year than Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson has thrown his entire collegiate career.
Utah coach Kyle Whittingham has been a head coach for more than quadruple the amount of games compared to Billy Napier (213 to 52).
Perhaps most importantly, Utah has a culture that has been firmly established for the past 18 years, whereas Florida just replanted its own for the fifth time in that same span.
Despite all of these clear advantages in favor of Utah, the vibe throughout the week has felt like the Gators will not only win on Saturday night, but impose their will over the reigning PAC-12 champions.
Maybe it’s because this coaching staff is still riding a wave of momentum created from the recruiting trail over the summer.
Less than three months ago people were calling Napier “Sunbelt Billy” after Florida lost several recruiting battles for high-profiled recruits, including a few to in-state rival Miami. Since then, Florida’s 2023 recruiting class has jumped inside the top 10 nationally with 18 blue chip commitments, giving Napier the new nickname “Blue Chip Billy.”
Perhaps it’s due to the night and day difference between Florida’s previous and current coaching staff, as well as the football facilities themselves.
Last season the Gators had a head coach who reportedly was intrigued with the idea of jumping to the NFL, surrounded by lame duck assistant coaches and working with fossilized football amenities compared to the rest of the SEC.
Today the Gators now have a son of a former high school football head coach leading the charge, with his army of 140 assistants, and a newly christened $85 million standalone football facility to serve as their fortress.
But there’s one other factor that hasn’t been discussed, at least not publicly.
Maybe both Utah and the PAC-12 are the equivalent of pumpkin-spiced flavored drinks: they sound good at the beginning of Fall, but are wildly overrated.
Look at the history of the PAC-12 over the past 20 years.
The last time a national championship was won by a PAC-12 team was all the way back in January 2005. “Big Noon Kickoff’s” Matt Leinart was the reigning Heisman trophy winner that season, hoisting the BCS championship trophy down in Miami.
Around that same time George W. Bush was just beginning his second term as President of the United States. The no. 1 song on the Billboard Top 40 was “Over and Over” by Nelly and Tim McGraw. And around the world Star Wars fans were still gushing over the new trailer for “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.”
Since that moment the PAC-12 is 0-3 in national championship games. Only two PAC-12 teams (Oregon in 2014; Washington in 2017) have qualified for the college football playoffs since its inception eight years ago.
As mentioned earlier, Utah has one of the most stable cultures in college football, with Kyle Whittingham beginning his 18th season as head coach and 29th year overall at Utah.
But after joining the PAC-12 back in 2011, the Utes have been just a slightly above average football program.
Of course a common rebuttal from Utah fans to this declaration will be that their team still has won a conference championship more recently than Florida and does not recycle coaches within a four-year period.
While both statements have merit to them, it also highlights another major difference between these two programs that can be summarized in one word: complacency.
Outside of their one PAC-12 championship in 11 seasons, Utah’s all-time conference record is 53-42, meaning they’ve won just 55.8 percent of conference games.
And it’s not as though the Utes have been facing football juggernauts during their entire PAC-12 tenure either.
USC has won double digit games in only four of the past 11 seasons.
Stanford hasn’t won more than nine games in a season since Christian McCaffrey graduated to the NFL more than five years ago.
The Washington Huskies are 15-14 over the past three seasons.
And UCLA hasn’t won a PAC-12 championship in football in 24 years.
The only PAC-12 program that has been a consistent threat over the past decade on a national level has been the Oregon Ducks, whose head coach for the past four seasons just bailed to go revive a Miami football program that has been on life support for nearly the past two decades.
For the sake of comparison, the Gators have won 60 percent of their games in the SEC (54-26) since 2011, under three different head coaching regimes. This includes playing against the eventual national champion six of the past 11 seasons.
There also isn’t much to brag about as it pertains to Whittingham’s record against ranked teams. Whittingham is 19-26 (.422) all time against ranked opponents, including a 6-8 record over the past five seasons.
When it comes to producing NFL talent, Utah isn’t necessarily a professional football factory either.
Since 2012 there have been 32 former Utes players drafted into the NFL. The Gators have more than double that amount, with 65 players being drafted in that same amount of time.
What this all illustrates is that Utah is happily complacent being a program barely above .500 each year and once in a blue moon winning a conference championship.
And though Florida’s football track record in terms of overall record and production of NFL talent is statistically greater than Utah’s, they are non-complacent with being just an above average program.
So what exactly does this all mean for the game this Saturday night?
If you look at both programs, on paper Utah should be favored to win this game based on their success in 2021 and their more experienced coaching staff.
If this game were to be played in Salt Lake City or maybe at a neutral site, Utah would have an easier time convincing themselves that they are the superior team and should beat the Gators handily.
But the Utes are not playing at home in front of a dry crowd of approximately 50,000 screaming mormons, against a Florida squad that has quit on its coaching staff like it did after Hallloween last year.
Instead they are playing in a nearly 100 percent humid environment, in front of a crowd of nearly 90,000 rowdy southeastern football maniacs, against a motivated and hungry Florida squad.
If you were to ask anyone on Alabama’s roster or coaching staff in 2021, they would likely say that their week 3 game against an undefeated Florida team was perhaps the most raucous environment they encountered all season.
When the locomotive that is Florida’s football program is firing on all cylinders, The Swamp turns itself into an electrified pool of sweat and piercing screams, waiting to claim its next victim in the form of Florida’s upcoming home opponent.
The Utes better arrive at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium well rested, fully hydrated and prepared for 60 minutes of intense on-field combat.
Otherwise it could easily turn into a public execution of not only Utah’s national championship hopes, but also the PAC-12’s status of being a Power 5 conference.
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