The Florida Gators are currently sitting as a 17.5-point favorite over USF this Saturday. Even though the Bulls pulled off a big win over Boise State to start their season, the talent disparity is expected to be too much for USF to handle.
But as we learned the last time USF came into The Swamp, games are played on the field and not on paper. Florida has to do well in these three areas if it wants Saturday to be the easy afternoon that Vegas envisions.
DJ Lagway has to get vertical against USF
After an offseason where he got to take almost no live reps, DJ Lagway stepped onto the field last Saturday and was fine enough. He threw three touchdowns while not throwing any interceptions and his completion percentage was solid.
But the reason why his QBR rating, the ESPN-created metric to evaluate QBs, was so low was that we seldom saw the deep shots that made Lagway special last year.
Lagway's ADOT (Average Depth of Target) was lower than all but one of his games from 2024 (Mississippi State).
USF showcased a physical defense against Boise State, and the dink-and-dunk stuff won't have as much success against the Bulls.
Win the trenches
It's a story as old as time, but if you can win the trenches, you can win the game as a whole. USF's offensive line didn't look great against Boise State. The irony is that this is one of the few areas where USF has an "advantage" if you strictly look at the star ranking of the two lines.
Even without Caleb Banks, the Gators mauled LIU up front, and while we don't expect the same level of mauling against USF, we do expect Florida to have the advantage.
And if Florida can shut down the run game that USF likes to lean on, it can turn the Bulls one-dimensional.
Defend the deep shots
We just said Florida needs to go deep in this game, but if you want one genuine area of concern the Gators are going to have to answer on Saturday, it's USF's deep passing attack.
USF loves to go fast on offense and get plays off in under 15 seconds if they can. The goal is to get you out of alignment, and even though their play-to-play success is low, they gain yards in chunks when a play does hit.
Florida's safeties weren't tested against LIU, but the knock against them is that they tend to play soft underneath coverage and seldom try to make a play on the ball.
When USF started moving the ball against Boise State, they started targeting the seams a passive safety would leave open.
If Florida has an answer for this, they will blow out USF. If not, it could be a long afternoon for the Gators.