Florida Football: Confidence meter for all 12 Gator games in 2023
![Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier runs onto the field before first half action as Florida takes on South Carolina at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, November 12, 2022. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]Ncaa Football Florida Gators Vs South Carolina](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2F72f08df0e6aa1b7bb28a2d2418d076d48681e5a30c5950e0c96b382dadd5a1b6.jpg "Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier runs onto the field before first half action as Florida takes on South Carolina at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, November 12, 2022. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]Ncaa Football Florida Gators Vs South Carolina")
In a little over a week, Florida football will finally stop playing itself and will take the field in Salt Lake City to take on the Utah Utes in a primetime matchup.
Coming off its second straight season with a 6-7 record, overall confidence in the Gators among the national media isn’t the greatest.
But we here at Hail Florida Hail try not to be a completely negative Nancy and would like to believe that if things go correctly, Florida will have a chance in every game it plays in 2023.
How much of a chance? Well, that’s where our self-invented confidence meter metric comes into play. This made-up metric is a simple gut feeling as to how much of a chance we think Florida has to win each game prior to the start of the season.
Note that if we rank a game over 50%, it doesn’t mean that the Gators will for sure win. If we rank a game under 50%, we think Florida will struggle, but we also don’t think a victory will be impossible.
With all that in mind, let’s go down the road that is the 2023 Florida football season.
Florida Football Confidence Meter Week 1: Utah
- Last season: Florida won 29-26
- HFH Confidence Meter: 55%
Let’s remove for a second the drama surrounding Utah QB’s heading into this season’s matchup; Florida won this game straight up last season.
The same Florida team that lost to Vanderbilt beat the Pac-12 champs.
Now it is true the game could have gone either way, and if Cam Rising doesn’t throw an interception into the endzone Utah wins the game.
Combined with the fact that Anthony Richardson carried the team on his back last season, and he is gone, it is easy to see why Utah fans have all the confidence in the world heading into this year’s matchup.
But consider that the 26 points that Utah did score were the third-fewest they scored in the regular season in all of 2022, which means Patrick Toney slowed down Utah as well as anyone all season.
That alone should raise question marks about Utah.
And that was when Utah had Cam Rising.
Whether or not Utah will have Rising available on August 31 is shrouded in mystery following his torn ACL in the Rose Bowl back in January. And even if Florida holds Utah to 26 points again, we are not convinced the Gators would top that.
But there is reason for Florida to have faith heading into their opening night matchup.