For the first time in three years, the Gators are the bait.
No. 7 Florida will play an unfamiliar role when it takes the field Saturday against top-ranked Alabama in Tuscaloosa: underdog.
After sitting atop the college football mountain for much of the past two seasons, UF finds itself looking up at the Crimson Tide, winners of 28 straight regular-season games and the team that booted Florida from its lofty perch last December en route to a national title.
Memories of the last time the teams met still haunt the Gators.
Behind running back Mark Ingram’s three touchdowns and a second-half shutout, ’Bama turned in a stunning 32-13 win in the 2009 Southeastern Conference Championship. The Tide were dominant, and the performance left Florida players lost for words.
“Ever since that game ... it’s unexplainable,” UF linebacker Brandon Hicks said. “I wanted it back so bad. That game hurt so bad because we felt like we had the team to win, but we didn’t execute everything the way we’re supposed to.
“We took it upon ourselves that our preparation wasn’t right, and we didn’t do the things we needed to succeed in that game.”
Preparation — not revenge — has been the buzzword this week. After all, most of these Gators had nothing to do with that loss. Of the 70 players who traveled to Tennessee two weeks ago, 41 percent were freshmen.
UF coach Urban Meyer placed the blame for his team’s lack of focus last season on its “rock star status,” something that shouldn’t be an issue after a precarious start to the season.
Florida (4-0, 2-0 SEC) rebounded in last week’s 48-14 win against Kentucky, posting its best offensive outing of the year.
Solid performances from quarterback John Brantley, a much-maligned receiving corps and do-it-all freshman Trey Burton were the reasons for the resurgence, and it’ll take a similar outing to succeed in Bryant-Denny Stadium, where ’Bama has won 16 in a row.
“The point is, we better be locked and loaded,” Meyer said. “The positive thing is we’ve now learned how to practice. The negative is we’re still extremely young and inexperienced, but the improvement — you can witness it now.”
The Tide (4-0, 1-0 SEC) is much more fitting of the “rock star label.”
Of the eight main statistical categories, Alabama ranks in the SEC’s top three for each one except pass defense (sixth) and is coming off an emotional win at then-No. 10 Arkansas, where the Tide erased a 13-point deficit in the second half.
There’s little time to recover, as ’Bama has to regroup and face the team that has served as its de-facto rival since 2008. In that time frame, both teams are 30-2 with an SEC title and national title, and they’re 1-1 head-to-head.
“This rivalry has been born out of greatness,” CBS analyst Gary Danielson said. “The two teams, their level of play and their excellence on the field has forced each other into a rivalry. They are not natural rivals. It’s become the premier rivalry in college football because of their excellence of play over the last five years.”
The Gators will hope to avoid a repeat of the last time they entered a game as the underdog. In that contest, they fell 28-24 at No. 1 LSU in 2007.
