Tag: SP+ predictions

SP+ likes the Gators to win on Saturday against Florida State

SP+ thinks Florida will extend its winning streak over the Seminoles to three.

Florida has bowl eligibility on the line on Saturday when it welcomes rival Florida State into the Swamp looking to extend its winning streak in the rivalry to three. The two teams didn’t meet last year, and the two wins in that streak came under coach Dan Mullen.

Mullen was fired after Saturday’s loss to Missouri, but interim coach Greg Knox will look to get his team a win over its rival and earn one more game as the head man.

ESPN’s SP+ rankings from Bill Connelly think Florida will get it done. It sees the team winning 32-25. That would also cover a three-point spread.

Earlier in the season, this game didn’t look like it would provide much of a challenge. But this is a Florida State team that is quickly improving. It’s 5-2 since a loss to FCS Jacksonville State, and its offense is getting a lot better behind the play of quarterback Jordan Travis and the run game.

It’s a bit surprising that the Gators are favorites in this game at all, but it goes to show that Vegas still sees a talent differential between these two teams. But that differential hasn’t helped much in recent weeks, and we’ll see if Florida puts forth a stronger performance in a rivalry game.

Here are the full SP+ predictions for the week.

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SP+ likes Florida to bounce back against Missouri on Saturday

SP+ predicts a Florida win on Saturday in spite of the way this team has played in recent weeks.

It’s hard to have much confidence in Florida’s football program right now. The team is 2-8 in its last 10 Power Five games, and the two wins have come against Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Even with the chance to take on a mid-level FCS team on Saturday in Samford, the Gators’ struggles were as noticeable as ever.

Though UF won that game, it wasn’t pretty, and now it has to hit the road to take on a Missouri team coming off a win over South Carolina, who walloped Florida in Columbia just two weeks ago.

In spite of the fact that this team hasn’t put forth much of an effort in recent weeks and that Dan Mullen may be coaching for his job, Florida still opened as fairly large favorites over Missouri, and the SP+ rankings from ESPN’s Bill Connelly, which have been high on UF all season, think it will get its first SEC win in over a month.

SP+ predicts a 36-26 win for the Gators, which would cover an 8.5-point spread. It’s hard to imagine Florida’s defense, which has allowed 175 points in the last four games (the most in a four-game stretch in over a century), holding the Tigers to under 30 points, especially with the way running back Tyler Badie is playing.

Badie has four 200+ yard games this season, and he’s coming off one of them in the win over the Gamecocks. UF has been abysmal against the run, and Badie should have a field day.

If SP+ is right, Mullen would avoid missing a bowl game for the first time in his tenure. But a victory won’t come easy, and SP+ may be a bit too bullish on this team ā€” after all, Florida still ranks in the top 25 in SP+ while Mizzou ranks just 75th.

The Gators are going to finish with a losing record in the SEC regardless of what happens Saturday, but a loss would seal the worst conference record since Galen Hall’s 1986 team, and it would be Florida’s first 2-6 finish since the SEC expanded to eight conference games in 1992.

Here are the full SP+ predictions for Week 12.

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Here’s the SP+ prediction for Florida football vs. South Carolina

SP+ thinks the Gators will win comfortably despite not covering.

The Gators are back in action against South Carolina desperately looking to get back in the win column after a 34-7 loss to Georgia set it back to .500 on the season. Florida is just 2-7 in its last nine Power Five games, and luckily for UF, it draws a winnable matchup this week against the South Carolina Gamecocks.

But that game comes on the road, and it could prove to be a bit challenging for a UF team that doesn’t have much to play for at this point.

ESPN’s SP+ analytics system, which is actually fairly high on the Gators and has them ranked in the top 10, projects that they will win on Saturday by a two-score margin, but it doesn’t expect them to cover an 18-point spread against the Gamecocks.

Instead, it predicts a 35-20 win for UF, which Florida fans would likely take at this point. South Carolina can’t do much offensively, but its run game has found some success, and considering how little the Gators were able to adjust to the run against LSU, that could be a fruitful avenue.

The Gamecocks are actually solid defensively, and with it looking less and less likely that quarterback Anthony Richardson will suit up on Saturday after suffering a concussion, we could see some of the offensive struggles we saw before he took over against the Tigers.

UF will be heavily favored in its four remaining games, and an 8-4 finish is still very much in reach. But that starts with winning in Columbia at night on Saturday.

Here are the full SP+ predictions for the week.

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Final score prediction: Here’s how SP+ sees Florida-LSU playing out

SP+ projects a comfortable Florida victory on Saturday against the Tigers.

After getting right with a 42-0 shutout over Vanderbilt last week, the Gators head to Baton Rouge for one of their toughest two remaining games against the LSU Tigers. This is an LSU squad that has lost its last two games and sits at just 3-3.

With coach Ed Orgeron’s job security very much in question, this game approaches “must-win” territory for the Tigers. But Florida is expected to win fairly comfortably despite only boasting two wins in Death Valley since 2003.

SP+ concurs. The analytics system from ESPN’s Bill Connelly projected that the Gators would cover a 10.5-point spread easily in this game, with a final score of 37-22. It gives UF an 81% chance to win. This would be a fairly high-scoring game, though it only matches the 59-point over/under.

If this scenario played out, it would be exactly the convincing road victory the Gators need heading into the bye week before the rivalry matchup against Georgia. They’ll hope that SP+ is onto something this week.

Here are the full SP+ score predictions for the week.

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SP+ predicts landslide win for Florida over Vanderbilt

Florida may have stumbled last week, but the SP+ predictions have the Gators bouncing back in a big way in Week 6.

Florida had a chance to force overtime against Kentucky last Saturday, but the Gators couldn’t get it done with 10 red zone snaps in the game’s final minutes. Dreams of repeating an SEC Championship appearance all but vanished with the loss, but head coach Dan Mullen says “there’s a lot of football left to play.”

The big game against Georgia isn’t the golden ticket it would’ve been had the Gators beaten Kentucky, but it still is the most important game left on Florida’s schedule. After beating Tennessee, the Gators looked capable of at least testing Georgia, but Mullen’s crew will need to prove themselves once again after a sloppy Week 5.

Thankfully, Florida has a favorable matchup against Vanderbilt this week, to say the least. This week’s SP+ projection has the Gators crushing the Commodores by about 42 points. The analytics system created by ESPN college football writer Bill Connelly gives Florida a 99% chance to beat Vanderbilt on Saturday.

The projected margin of victory is great enough to cover an already gaudy 38.5 spread currently listed by Tipico Sportsbook. An average projected score of 49-7 means that the 60.5 over/under listed on Tipico wouldn’t hit, though.

It seems that Connelly’s system isn’t punishing Florida too badly for the loss against Kentucky, but it could be that Vanderbilt is that bad as well. SP+ is “predictive and forward-facing,” according to ESPN’s description, and things look okay for Florida at No. 5 despite last week’s slipup.

All Betting Lines are Courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook

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Here’s the SP+ score prediction for Florida-Kentucky

SP+ has the Gators winning by two scores on Saturday.

Florida played arguably its most complete half of football in the final 30 minutes against Tennessee, scoring three second-half touchdowns and shutting out the Volunteers in the final two quarters. That performance certainly gives the Gators a lot to build off of heading into what could be their toughest remaining test outside of Georgia.

This is a Kentucky team that has given Florida headaches in recent years, and this looks to be one of the better teams coach Mark Stoops has constructed in Lexington. With UF heading on the road in the SEC for the first time this season (in a night game, no less), things could certainly get a bit dicey for it in this one.

But worry not, Gators fans. The math is on your side.

According to this week’s score predictions from SP+, the analytics system created by ESPN college football writer Bill Connelly, Florida has a 75% chance to beat the Wildcats on Saturday night with a predicted score of 34-23.

We know that the SP+ is very high on UF, which places fourth in the rankings this week. And the system thinks that the Gators will manage to cover the 7.5-point spread currently listed by Tipico Sportsbook.

SP+ predicts that the game will produce 57 total points, meaning that the 55.5 over/under listed by Tipico would hit.

All of Florida’s goals are still in front of it this season, but it has to avoid a slipup in a game like this. SP+ thinks that Florida will win fairly comfortably, though, and get to 4-1 on the season.

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Here’s the SP+ score prediction for Florida-Tennessee

The SP+ has the Gators winning, but not by as much as some would expect.

Florida is hoping for a better home showing this weekend than it had last time around. The Gators gave Alabama a tough second-half challenge, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the No. 1 team in the country. Saturday’s game against Tennessee, however, should present a much more manageable challenge.

It’s been a tough start to the Josh Heupel era in Tennessee. Though the run game and defense have been solid, the team so far hasn’t been able to find an answer in the passing game despite both Joe Milton III and Hendon Hooker seeing significant playing time so far. The Volunteers are 2-1, and the loss came at home to a Pittsburgh team that lost to Western Michigan the following game.

The Gators are heavy favorites in this game, and they’re well-liked by Bill Connelly’s SP+ analytics system, in which they rank No. 8. But the SP+ is actually fairly optimistic about the Vols, and it thinks they will give Florida a closer game than some expect.

The system predicts a 34-21 win for Florida on Saturday, which would be closer than the 19.5-point spread currently listed by Tipico Sportsbook. Last year, the Gators defeated UT 31-19, but that was the closest margin under coach Dan Mullen, as UF won by 16 points and 31 points in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

SP+ gives Florida a 77% chance to win on Saturday, and it doesn’t predict that the game will hit a 63-point over/under.

Here are the full SP+ picks for the week.

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