The Florida Gators kick off for real this week, and as such, we are almost at the end of our "Confidence Meter" series, which we started back at the beginning of the month.
This series has looked at how much confidence we have in the Gators for each individual game and in the next to last game of the season, Florida is taking on Tennessee.
Which is weird, this is happening in November, but life moves on.
As a reminder of what we have said for our previous "Confidence Meter" games:
- LIU - 99.9%
- USF - 90%
- LSU - 45%
- Miami - 60%
- Texas - 20%
- Texas A&M - 50%
- Mississippi State - 90%
- Georgia - 55%
- Kentucky - 70%
- Ole Miss - 40%
Florida takes on Tennessee in the penultimate regular-season game
Billy Napier is 1-2 against Tennessee, and the frustrating part is that he could be 3-0. In 2022, the Gators took the Volunteers down to the wire before falling short. They rebounded at home in 2023 with their signature win of the season.
But it was last year's loss in overtime that fell squarely on the shoulders of Billy Napier. There were no fewer than five organizational flaws and/or decisions that Napier made that cost Florida that game.
As chaotic as Florida's offseason may have felt at times, it still was nothing compared to what Tennessee went through.
Confidence Meter against Tennessee: 65%
Nico Iamaleava is no longer with the Volunteers as he took his ball and went to UCLA. Truth be told, though, he was not good in last year's contest against Florida and missed several wide-open touchdowns throughout the game.
But whether it's just Iamaleava departing or something else, the vibes from Knoxville feel extremely low for a squad that just made the playoffs. All the polls and predictions, though, think Tennessee is going to take a massive step backwards in 2025.
One thing is for sure: if DJ Lagway is healthy, then the Gators will have a massive QB advantage compared to Joey Aguilar.
Plus, Billy Napier has now essentially stopped Tennessee's offense two years in a row.
Combined with this game being at home, even though being in November is weird, this feels like a game Florida wins by ten or more if the Gators have reasonable health when this game rolls around.