Any time you get to a big game week – and despite Florida’s record it is a big game – you will hear plenty of theories on how one team or the other can win the game.
Then, the game starts. And everything is blown out the window.
Take Florida’s loss to Kentucky. We all supposed that if the Gators could defend well and limit the running game, Florida would win. Of course, none of us had the game-changing drastically on a blocked field goal that went for a game-changing touchdown or that Florida’s advantage in the running game would be offset by 15 penalties.
Often in games like Florida-Georgia, the things we don’t think of jump up and change the game. Like Florida using a fake field goal that turned former walk-on Michael McNeely into a folk hero would spark a Florida win in 2014.
Or that Judd Davis would kick four field goals in the worst conditions ever for the game and Anthone Lott would call the most timely time-out in the history of the series to allow the Gators to escape in the 1993 game.
They may be hidden stats, but all we can go by going into the game is what each team has done so far this season.
So, let’s take a look: