No. 1 Georgia had a bye last week ahead of its upcoming matchup with Florida.
“It’s another exciting matchup with these guys in Jacksonville.
I have a lot of respect for [head coach] Billy [Napier]. I’ve known him for a long time.
He’s one of the most intelligent coaches I’ve been around in terms of preparation and understanding what it takes to run a program, an organization. I think he does a fabulous job,” UGA head coach Kirby Smart said on Monday.
Unranked Florida (4-3, 1-3 SEC) comes into this matchup with nothing to lose, hoping to spoil Georgia’s unblemished record, despite having a rough time in Napier’s first season.
The Gators started out their 2022 campaign with an upset over No. 14 Utah.
However, they played a couple of close matchups with No. 3 Tennessee and No. 18 LSU, but their toughest test will be Saturday against the top-ranked Bulldogs in Jacksonville.
Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett knows a thing or two about this heated rivalry.
“I can tell you that it is hard to get a feel for how much the players care and feel about the [Georgia-Florida] rivalry until you play in it,” Bennett said.
“You can throw the records or whatever you want to out of the window, more so than any other game on our schedule, when we go down there and play Florida.
I think coach Napier is building a good program. I loved him when he was at Louisiana [Lafeyette]. They are always going to be a force to be reckoned with down there.”
The Gators are led by quarterback Anthony Richardson, who’s struggled at times this season.
The redshirt sophomore signal caller has completed 96-of-170 passing attempts for 1,367 yards with six touchdowns and seven interceptions. Richardson also has totaled a team’s secondbest 395 rushing yards on 56 attempts with three scores.
Smart highlighted he’s seen progression from Richardson since the start of the year.
“From the start of the season, game one, you watch every game in sequence and you say, ‘Man, this guy is growing and getting better.’ And they don’t just limit things for him. Like, they put a lot of shift motion, they put a lot of things on top of him to handle and he manages those well,” Smart said. “The toughest thing dealing with Anthony Richardson is how you affect him. Because you got to be careful. Some of the runs he’s had have been better than backs have across the country. He had 60- and 70-yard runs.”
Richardson’s mobility is a big reason why he’s such a threat to defenses. He’s averaging 7.1 yards per attempt and 56.3 yards per game this season for the Gators.
“He can take off at any point in time and you don’t know who’s going to have him or who can get him down,” Smart added. “He’s also got an elite arm talent in terms of strength.
They clean things up for him on a lot of reads and he does a really nice job of it.”
On the other hand, Florida’s defensive unit has struggled this season. The Gators currently are tied at No. 118 in total defense, giving up an average 429.3 yards per contest. They are ranked No. 81 out of 131 FBS teams in scoring defense at 28.4 points per game.
Still, Smart said Florida’s defense could present the Bulldogs’ offense with problems.
“[They are] extremely disruptive,” he said. “You know, the size and girth in the middle is what you want in the SEC, to control run games and control the A and B gaps.” Brenton Cox signed with Georgia out of high school a few years ago. He spent one season as a Bulldog before being dismissed from the team. In 2019, he transferred to Florida, where he’s been effective for the Gators, totaling 33 tackles so far this season as a redshirt senior. Cox also has registered 8.0 tackles for loss and 2.0 sacks in 2022.
“They still got the edge guys with Brenton [Cox], being probably the most disruptive guys that we’ve played in terms of just violence, striking, knockback, setting edges and affecting the quarterback,” Smart said. “He’s a gamebreaker at that.”
Georgia and Florida will kickoff at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on CBS in TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville.