Breaking down the 2023 Florida season using the over/under

Fall camp is about halfway through and that means we’re inching ever closer to the college football season. Right around the time when people check the over/under again and start talking themselves into a different pick.

Have On3’s biggest personalities changed their tune on the Florida Gators?

Optimism sure sounds higher than it did several weeks back when the over/under totals were released, with Andy Staples and JD PicKell going back and forth on the Andy Staples show on On3.

“I remember when these lines came out it was doomsday in Gainesville,” Staples said. “People were like, ‘What? Really? Six wins hits the over? Oh my God.’ Because for them anything below eight wins is considered an abject failure any season, doesn’t matter what the expectations are. So that sent everybody into the tank.

“But given what Billy Napier inherited, given that they lost the No. 4 pick in the draft at quarterback, 5.5, I don’t know if it’s reasonable, I still feel like it’s a little low. But I think there’s, just from talking to people around that program, I think there may be some value in the over here.”

Florida has a handful of question marks still in fall camp, but it has now named Wisconsin transfer Graham Mertz the starting quarterback and it feels significantly better about its defensive depth than a year ago.

Compound that with Utah having its starting and backup quarterback injured about two weeks out from the season opener and things seem to have shifted a bit.

Still, PicKell outlined the under case.

“My difficult part of this whole thing is how I feel about Florida versus looking at it game by game,” PicKell said. “And game by game is only helpful until like September. Saying what this team’s going to be in November is anybody’s guess. I really like the fact that I think the defense is going to have much better depth.

“Game by game I look at this and go under, but I think just the overall feel when it comes to Florida, they’re going to run the football well, they’re going to have a quarterback who at the very least is experienced and you would hope is making good decisions for them. Even if they don’t split Tennessee and Utah I think six just feels like the right number. I have a hard time believing they don’t get to that six-win mark, but I went game by game, we did it on our TikTok, for better or for worse, and I went going 5-7 on Florida. So I’m kind of riding the fence here. My heart is saying six for Florida.”

Staples pointed out if Florida can split the Utah and Tennessee games early in the season he thinks the over will hit on the over/under.

“The schedule is hard, but here’s where I think they’re OK,” Staples said. “If they can split Utah and Tennessee — and I was the same way on this team last year thinking they would split Utah and Kentucky, which were back-to-back games to open — it’s not back-to-back, but it’s Week 1, Week 3. If they can split Utah and Tennessee I think they’ve got a chance of hitting the over here.”

Staples lumped Florida into a group with Kentucky and South Carolina, unsure which of those teams will come out on top in the SEC this fall.

But he pointed to a different portion of the schedule as the determining factor for the over/under on the Gators.

“So I actually think they end up winning seven,” Staples said. “You look at the back end of the schedule, they have a stretch after the Georgia game of Arkansas, at LSU, at Missouri. We’re probably all chalking at LSU up as a loss at this point, now we’ll see what happens when you get to November.

“But Arkansas and Missouri feel like the coin flips, the winnable ones. … Those two games may be the swing ones that decide whether we’re hitting the over or under here.”