Florida Puts 22-Year Streak on Line vs. Tennessee
After another frustrating loss Saturday night at Ole Miss 34-24, Florida returns home for the final two games of the season against No. 20 Tennessee and Florida State.
The loss Saturday moved Florida to 3-7 on the season, 2-5 in the SEC and guaranteed its fourth losing season in five years.
With a bowl game out of the picture, the Gators will look to salvage the rest of the season with two games against longtime rivals, starting this with Tennessee (7-3, 3-3) this Saturday, when Florida puts a 22-year winning streak on the line at 7:30 p.m. on ABC.
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium has proven to be a house of horrors for the Volunteers for more than two decades. Tennessee has not beaten the Gators in Gainesville since 2003, but will get another crack this week as slight road favorites. Tennessee heads into Saturday’s contest as 3.5-point favorites, with an over/under set at 57.5 points and a Florida money-line set at +135, according to Hard Rock Bet.
This has been a fairly back-and-forth rivalry over the years, with Florida leading the all-time series 32-22. Tennessee has won two of the last three, including a 23-17 overtime thriller in Knoxville a year ago.
While the results did not go Florida’s way, the Gators held their own in that one, especially after former quarterback Graham Mertz went down with an injury and DJ Lagway was inserted. Lagway went 9-of-17 for 98 yards and one touchdown, with 29 seconds left, that tied the game at 17-17.
After being benched in the first half against Kentucky, Lagway responded with a stronger outing against Ole Miss, completing 16 of 31 passes for 218 yards and a touchdown. But he threw another costly interception late in the fourth quarter while Florida trailed by three and sat in field-goal range.
“Put us in a position to where we were at,” Gators interim coach Billy Gonzales said. “Obviously, got to continue to make great decisions. But he did a really good job of putting us in a position where we needed to be at the end of the game.”
Gonzales said postgame that he feels bad for the members of the team who could not finish their careers with a bowl game, but hopes that the team shakes off this loss to get back to work and prepare for a strong finish to the season.
“The message is going to be the same. Go back, gather up, get ready to work, continue to work hard. And again, we’ve got a really good group of players,” Gonzales said. “I feel for them, because they played their hearts out tonight, and it just didn’t turn out the way we wanted to.”
Category: College Football, Feature Sports News, Gators Football, SEC
