Sure, No. 13 Florida’s date with Florida Atlantic in the Swamp on Saturday night isn’t the most attractive week one matchup. It doesn’t have the national championship implications that Georgia-Clemson does. The two teams don’t combine for as much historical success as Miami-Alabama and Notre Dame-Florida State do.
The Gators are heavy favorites, and there’s a good chance that this game isn’t competitive in the second half.
But don’t be mistaken: this game is special for many of the players on both teams. Combined, the Owls and Gators have 171 players who call the Sunshine State their home. Some of them played youth or high school football together and will now face their former teammates as opponents for the first time. Others played against each other as kids and will get to rekindle old rivalries.
There are 14 high schools within the state that have players on both teams. St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale claims nine of the participants alone.
This won’t be as heated as Florida-Florida State or Florida-Miami, but there will be more intensity than the average game featuring a Power Five school and a Group of Five school.
“You’re looking and saying, ‘Hey, both of these guys played against each other, and these guys played together in high school or grew up together, and now they’re here on opposing sidelines,’” UF coach Dan Mullen said. “Playing in the Swamp is a huge deal.
“So, I think it’s pretty exciting. I haven’t noticed anything more or less than a regular week from our guys. I think our guys are almost more excited [that] it’s game week, to go out there and play. But I know individually throughout the team there’s going to be some personal bragging rights for guys that they’ve played against or with in the past.”
While Florida Atlantic went just 5-4 in 2020, they have enough talent at certain positions to provide the Gators with a solid early test.
Their strength is their defense, which ranked 24th in the country in total defense and 10th in scoring defense a year ago. They return 10 starters from that unit.
The secondary is the best position group on their roster. They limited foes to just 187.7 passing yards per game last season, the 16th best mark in the nation.
Senior cornerback Zyon Gilbert led the way with five pass breakups and an interception. Safety Teja Young was the only player on the team to intercept multiple passes last year, and he’s back. Redshirt senior safety Jordan Helm and senior cornerback Diashun Moss round out a very experienced starting lineup.
They were one of the best secondaries in the nation statistically last year, and they return most of their key performers, so they could be a tough first assignment for UF quarterback Emory Jones as he makes his first start.
The results in the front-7 were a little more uneven last year. They led Conference USA in sacks and ranked fourth in tackles-for-loss, but they also surrendered 154.6 rushing yards per game, which ranked near the middle of the pack.
Defensive end Jaylen Joyner finished third in their conference with six sacks last year, though they’ll be searching for a new partner in crime for him after Leighton McCarthy and his league-best nine sacks departed. Joyner also led the Owls with 7.5 tackles-for-loss last season.
The rest of the front-7 is a major question mark, though, as they list four freshmen as starters and two more as backups. Watch out for redshirt junior linebacker Chase Lasater. He led the Owls with 72 tackles and tied for second with three quarterback hurries.
With the defensive line and linebackers being as inexperienced as they are, you’d love to see the Gators’ offensive line control the line of scrimmage and keep Jones’ jersey clean. If they don’t, that might be a terrible sign of what’s to come this season.
Another challenge UF will face on this side of the ball is a new scheme. Mike Stoops is the new defensive coordinator after Jim Leavitt left for a job at SMU. Stoops previously spent two years as an analyst at Alabama. He also spent two stints working for his brother, Bob, at Oklahoma and was the head coach at Arizona for eight seasons.
To prepare for this game, Florida’s coaches had to look at film from his previous stops and what FAU did last year. Their scheme will probably be a blend of the two, but they won’t know exactly what it will look like until Saturday night.
“You’re looking at the Oklahoma stuff, and you’re looking maybe at some Alabama stuff, and you’re looking at stuff that they did last year,” Mullen said. “Every year, we seem to be playing a new coaching staff in game one or new parts of a new coaching staff or new coordinators in game one, where you kind of have no idea, really, what they’re going to do, so you’re watching other people trying to prepare for everything.”
Meanwhile, offense was a struggle for the Owls in their first year under head coach Willie Taggart. They ranked 112th in the country at 324.6 total yards per game and 115th at 18.9 points per game. They were the second-worst passing team in Conference USA at 144.4 yards per game.
They did run the ball decently well, averaging more than 180 yards per game. They return their top-2 running backs in James Charles and Malcolm Davidson. They combined for more than 700 yards and six touchdowns last season.
In total, they return all 11 starters from 2020. The Owls hope that an increased familiarity with Taggart’s system and some major additions via the transfer portal will steer their offense in the right direction.
Miami transfer N’Kosi Perry is their starting quarterback. He possesses a very strong arm, but he only completed 52.4 percent of his passes as a Hurricane. If he can improve his accuracy, he’ll give the Owls the vertical passing threat that they lacked last year.
“I think he’s got some athletic ability, and, obviously, he has some great size, but a really good passer on top of it,” Mullen said. “So, you’ve got to look, they’re going to put him in position to do different things. So, you have to respect his arm talent and his size as a pocket guy to be able to see and have that height and that length, but you also have to be aware of his athletic ability and his ability to create outside the play.”
Perry started nine games at the Power Five level, so he won’t be rattled by the atmosphere inside the Swamp. We’ll start to find out just how improved UF’s secondary is when they face him.
Fortunately, Perry was in the mix to be Miami’s starting quarterback when the Gators opened the 2019 season against the Hurricanes. Perry ended up not playing in the game, but defensive coordinator Todd Grantham still spent plenty of time preparing for him.
“The [quarterbacks] that were there last year, they were very involved in the quarterback run game because they’re athletic,” Grantham said. “This guy probably brings a little more dimension from a passing standpoint, so you will have to account for that, but we were aware of him, transferring from Miami, and we had scouted him when we had played those guys.
“But like I said, when you watch their offense, we feel like it will still be pretty much the same, but you will have a little bit more of a passing element to it with him in there.”
USF transfer Johnny Ford figures to also play a large role in their offense. He’s only 5-foot-5, but he was a valuable member of USF’s offense over the past three seasons. His short stature makes him hard to locate behind offensive linemen that are a foot or more taller than him. He’s a versatile athlete that the Owls will move all over the field and try to create chaos with.
Ford rushed for nearly 1,200 yards, gained 352 yards as a receiver and scored 17 touchdowns with the Bulls.
Taggart also added a pair of former Power Five offensive linemen via the portal. Kamaar Bell, from Auburn, is listed as the starter at right guard, while former Florida State lineman Chaz Neal will start at right tackle.
With the additions, all five of Florida Atlantic’s starting linemen weigh more than 300 pounds, including three that weigh more than 325 pounds.
So, on paper, they should be a formidable foe for a Gators defensive line that might be missing a couple of players due to injuries.
“When you look at them, what’s unique is even up front they have some transfers,” Grantham said. “They have a lot of new pieces within their offense that we’ve kind of done our homework on as far as what those guys bring to the table, and then really just kind of look at [Taggart’s] past offenses and what he’s done and try to play it from there.”
This game might not get talked about much nationally, but it will still have plenty of elements that make for an entertaining night in the Swamp, including new coaches, impact transfers and player reunions.
It won’t be flashy, but it promises to be a fun night in the Swamp and an important game for the Gators to see how they stack up against a solid opponent.
Now let’s kick it off.