Florida is off a 10 win season and getting plenty of hype ranking #8 in the AP polls, but return 13 starters compared to 19 a season ago. I see a lot of red flags with this team coming into the year. Also, teams in the AP TOP 10 don't particularly do well over the season, or over the first 3 games. In fact only 28 of the 70 teams over the last 7 years have had a winning record ATS over the first 3 games.
Florida offensively is the huge question mark as they break in 4 new starters on the offensive line, and they get a bad match up to start the year against Miami's talented front 7. I don't expect a crazy game plan here from Florida. I do see them trying to connect early on a big play or two, but turnovers could be a reason if they are not careful that they lose this game outright. Feleipe Franks looked good down the stretch, but he really hasn't proven anything against a good defense, and with the loss of 141 career starts on the offensive line I think he's going to have a rough go of it against Miami's defense.
Miami has similar question marks on offense, with two freshman tackles, and a freshman QB starting in Jeron Williams. Williams is a highly touted, dual threat QB, and with Dan Enos taking over as the offensive coordinator I'm confident that he will have a very good season. Enos previously at Alabama as the QB coach did pretty well with a freshman QB in Tua. I don't see them cutting him completely lose here, and do expect Florida's defense to hold Miami in check as both offenses have a conservative approach. We have a low total and 7.5 points looks really good.
The red flags that I mentioned are possible player suspensions on the Florida side. You can almost guarantee that there will be some, and Dan Mullen said those would not be announced until Saturday. Florida already has depth issues on this roster, and playing August 24th, in the heat with one less week of conditioning is going to be a major issue in this game especially late. Dan Enos offense also put up big numbers when he was with Arkansas against Dan Mullen's Miss State defenses so these two know each other well, and that's even more reason to expect a close game to open up the season on Saturday night.
