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Florida Gators drop hype video ahead of rivalry showdown with Tennessee Volunteers

Wade-Peeryby:Wade Peery•09/15/23
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(Brad McClenny/The Gainesville Sun via Imagn Content Services, LLC)

The Florida Gators have a big one this weekend against one of their biggest rivals, the Tennessee Volunteers. On Friday evening, the Gators dropped a hype video ahead of the matchup.

Check it out below.

Florida lost their first game to the Utah Utes, 24-11. Then they defeated McNeese State, 49-7 in blowout fashion. The Gators had their way on the ground, getting big days from Montrell Johnson, Jr. and Trevor Etienne. Johnson had 15 carries for 119 yards and two touchdowns and Etienne had 11 carries for 84 yards and a touchdown.

Receiver Ricky Pearsall hauled in six catches for 123 receiving yards and one touchdown. Former four-star receiver Eugene Wilson III hauled in four catches for 36 receiving yards. He also had one run for 18 yards. Wilson had drawn comparisons to Percy Harvin and Kadarius Toney early on in his Gator career and he’s going to be an exciting one to watch in Gainesville.

Advanced college football stats expert Parker Fleming joined On3’s Andy Staples earlier in the week on his podcast. Fleming still has plenty of questions about Florida quarterback Graham Mertz.

“On the other side, I don’t know what to make of Graham Mertz. A lot of big volume numbers but if you look at that. He was down three scores and most of those yards, I think 60 percent of yards came on the last three drives of the game against Utah,” Fleming said.

“A lot of that was kind of a losing effort, just kind of putting up some stats. I’m not really optimistic about it. 23rd in EPA per rush. 74th in EPA per pass for Florida. I really am not sure they’re going to be able to score enough to really outpace themselves if this Tennessee offense can get into that high gear.”

Through his first two games, Mertz has completed 73.8 percent of his passes for 526 yards, while tossing in two touchdowns and one interception. He’ll face a stiff test on Saturday in the Tennessee pass rushers of James Pearce, Jr. and Tyler Baron, who have combined for six sacks through their first two games.

Florida and Tennessee are set to kickoff in The Swamp at 7:00 PM EST on Saturday, Sept. 16. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN. The game is sold out. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will be in the booth for the ESPN broadcast.