The drama over Florida’s head-coaching vacancy may be swirling, but there’s still football to be played in Gainesville. The Gators are set to host No.20 Tennessee on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. est on ABC.
Week 13 marks the 55th all-time meeting between Florida and Tennessee including the 23rd in Gainesville. The Orange & Blue hold a 32-22 record in the series featuring victories in 17 of the last 20 matchups. The Gators have not lost a home game to the Volunteers since 2003, owning 10-straight home wins in the series. Across that 10-game home winning streak, Florida has outscored Tennessee by 157 points, an average of 15.7 per game.
A three loss Tennessee team (7-3, 3-3 SEC) is likely not heading to the college football playoff, although maybe not impossible given their No.20 ranking by the selection committee. Either way, the Gators (3-7, 2-5 SEC) have a chance to pull off an upset over a rival opponent. Florida can even finish ahead of Tennessee in the SEC standings with a win this weekend and a Tennessee loss to Vanderbilt in week 14.
Florida is 4.5-point underdogs vs. No.20 Tennessee.
SCOUTING THE VOLUNTEERS
Tennessee’s season has been difficult to analyze. At first look, you notice that all three of their losses are to excellent SEC teams: No.4 Georgia, No.8 Oklahoma, and No.10 Alabama, two of which were one score games. But the three SEC teams they’ve beaten: Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Arkansas have a combined conference record of 3-17. Not exactly a strong resume builder as two of those wins were also decided by one score.
It appears that Tennessee plays up and down to their competition in 2025. The good news for Florida is they’ve beaten three straight ranked opponents inside the Swamp dating back to last season (Texas, LSU, Ole Miss).
Vols’ passing offense
As you can expect from a Josh Heupel led team, Tennessee brings in an electric offense into Gainesville. The Volunteers rank second in the country in total and scoring offense entering week 13, averaging 495 yards per game and 43.4 points per game.
Tennessee has scored 20+ points in every game they’ve played this season, so if you’re looking for a point total Florida absolutely needs to reach, that would be it. Although they’ll likely need more as the Vols have scored 30+ points in eight of their ten games and 40+ in seven of ten.
Senior quarterback Joey Aguilar has been a pleasant surprise for Tennessee this season, completing 66.3% of his passes for 2,941 yards and 22 touchdowns. The black eye on Aguilar is his 10 interceptions, which was the book on him after he transferred from App State where he threw 24 in two seasons. When Aguilar throws interceptions they tend to come in bunches as he’s recorded four multi-interception games this season including two in a row. The California native had five multi-interception games with App State last year.
Aguilar does a good job of spreading the ball out to his playmakers. The wide receivers you need to look out for: Mikey Matthews, Braylon Staley, and Chris Brazell II. All three have at least 650+ receiving yards on the season while the trio has combined for 2,301 yards and 18 touchdowns, an overwhelming majority of Tennessee’s production in the pass game. Tennessee is without their top tight end, Miles Kitselman, who has 250 yards and two touchdowns this season.
Florida has to stop the run
The Gators have to do a better job stopping the run in order to give themselves a chance on Saturday night. Over the last two weeks, Florida has allowed a combined 470 rushing yards. Tennessee does a good job mixing in the run to set up the play action pass, and Florida has to be ready for it. The Vols’ rank 44th in rushing offense to date. Tennessee will run up-tempo all game, so Florida needs to understand their assignments and be set when the snap comes.
Can Florida’s offense hang with Tennessee?
It feels like Florida’s offense is going to have to show up to win this one. Even some of the best defenses in college football couldn’t hold down the Vols’ offense. The bad news: Florida has scored 20+ points just four times against FBS teams this season. The Gators put together a strong first half their last time out against Ole Miss (24 points) but didn’t score in the second half. The fourth quarter has been a disaster for UF this season and that will need to change this Saturday for the Gators to be victorious. Tennessee ranks 86th in total defense and 95th in scoring defense.