The SEC East remains a toss up and South Carolina showed last week that no game is a freebie. Florida put up a fight at LSU, but didn’t have enough in the end and will need to win this one before taking on Georgia. The Gators opened as -5.5 point road favorites with an over/under of 48.5.
This was supposed to be chalked up as a win for Florida as it’s between LSU and Georgia in the schedule, but that’s no longer the case.
South Carolina struggled out of the gates, losing three of the first four, but has won its last two including the 20-17 victory at Georgia. The Gamecocks have done it mostly through defense, allowing 24 points total in those two wins. While they gave up tons of yards against Georgia, they forced four turnovers and that was the deciding factor.
Florida’s offense isn’t considered elite, but it’s been able to score when needed and managed to stay even with LSU until the final quarter. Quarterback Kyle Trask was the backup, but he may be better than Feleipe Franks, completing 68.4% of his passes for 8.8 yards attempt.
He has a nice stable of receivers with Kyle Pitts and Van Jefferson the options underneath, while Freddie Swain is averaging 19.9 yards per reception. The rushing attack has also done enough with Lamical Perine averaging 4.6 yards per carry. It’s not a dominant group, but it’s doing enough.
The running game is what won Florida this matchup last year as it went for 367 yards on 5.9 yards per carry in a 35-31 result. That may not happen again, but the edge in the trenches goes to the Gators and that could decide this meeting again.
This time around, South Carolina may need a little more than luck after getting out gained by Georgia by almost 200 yards. Ryan Hilinski should be good to go with a knee sprain and if not, the spread could shoot up with Dakereon Joyner at quarterback.
Hilinski has at least ran the offense even if his numbers aren’t anything special. They’ll try and lean on Rico Dowdle and Tavien Feaster in the ground game, but that’s where Florida has had the most success, limiting opponents to 110 rushing yards per contest.
The Gamecocks will need a little more from Hilinski if they want to pull off another upset. Either that or the defense needs to win the turnover battle again.
At some point, South Carolina’s inconsistent offense will catch up to them, though Florida may not be the team to exploit that. The numbers point to the Gamecocks hitting around 14 points again, which means more than 20 is the goal for the Gators to cover.
The over is 5-0-1 in Florida’s last six games, while South Carolina has covered in its last four on grass. The road team is 4-1-1 ATS in the last six meetings between these schools, but the Gamecocks are 3-1-1 ATS in the last five.
Our Pick – Florida -6