Florida Football: Three pathways for the Gators to beat Tennessee

Florida football is not favored to defeat Tennessee today inside The Swamp. The line is hovering around six points; Florida is unranked, and Tennessee is ranked 11th in the current AP Poll.

But there is optimism in the air as Tennessee has looked sluggish out of the gate in their first two wins.

The following are three metrics that Florida needs to hit if it wants a chance to win tonight and put itself back on the map.

Florida Football: Hold Tennessee to four yards per rush or less

Last season, Tennessee was top 30 in the country by averaging five yards per carry.

Against Virginia, the Volunteers averaged 5.5 yards per carry, and against Austin Peay, that number jumped to 7.1 yards per carry.

For all the hype and concern around Joe Milton, their ability to run between the tackles has bailed Tennessee out these first two games. Once they get momentum, it feels like a conveyor belt marching down the field, with the inevitable destination being the endzone.

In last season’s matchup, Tennessee averaged 5.4 yards per carry, but that was with Hendon Hooker accounting for 8.6 yards per carry.

Milton is not the runner that Hooker was, and against Virginia, he was credited with nine carries for just 40 yards.

As we wrote earlier this week, if the defensive tackles for Florida football can neutralize the line of scrimmage and make it tough sledding for Tennesee, the get-out-of-jail-free card that the Volunteers have leaned on will disappear.

Zero blunders from special teams

This week, we almost dedicated an entire piece to the botched extra point against McNeese State. While it was an unfortunate error in a vacuum, it is emblematic of a unit that continues to struggle to hold its end of the bargain.

As we noted against Utah, Florida’s special teams could be linked to 13 points that were either left on the table or given up to Utah due to unforced errors.

Florida lost that game by 13 points.

The easy blame is a certain elongated piece of furniture that multiple people can sit on.

The deeper problem is that Billy Napier doesn’t have a full-time special team coach among his ten paid assistants.

The moral is that if special teams for Florida can just not screw up, the pathway to victory is indeed possible.

Caleb Douglas has six catches for 75 yards

Doneiko Slaughter and Kamal Hadden are the two main cornerbacks for Tennessee. Slaughter is 6’0″, and Hadden is 6’1″. The Volunteers also have 6’2″ Tamarion McDonald, who rotates into their STAR position.

Florida WR Caleb Douglas is 6’3″ and could be a key component to unlocking the rest of Florida’s playmakers.

We all assume that Ricky Pearsall and Eugene Wilson will be heavily featured, and we even wrote in our DraftKings preview that Douglas is probably a player you should fade if you play.

One of the reasons, though, Douglas had zero catches against McNeese State was because the Cowboys were frequently in cover four, and the routes for Douglas had him frequently running into double teams.

If Douglas can win his matchup and force Tennessee to start rotating safety help toward him, it will open up space behind for Pearsall and Wilson to do their thing.

Because for as much as we think of Florida as a running-based team, the Gators are probably going to need Graham Mertz to throw for at least 200 yards to have a real shot of winning today.