Run game, ability to capitalize on Joe Milton mistakes gives Florida path to victory vs. Tennessee

Florida and Tennessee face off in a big SEC East rivalry showdown on Saturday and the Volunteers are the comfortable favorite. But the Gators certainly have some ways to win.

In a conversation with On3’s Andy Staples, Gators Online’s Nick De La Torre spelled out a path to victory for the Gators. First and foremost, Florida needs to get the run game rolling.

“I’d be fine if we looked at the stat sheet on Saturday night and you had 40 carries between Montrell Johnson and Trevor Etienne. Cool, that probably means you were running the ball effectively. And that’s going to be a great offensive game for Florida,” De La Torre said.

Staples interjected.

“I would suspect Florida wins the game if we saw. And I would expect Florida would have won a fairly low-scoring game for a Josh Heupel Tennessee team if that is what we saw in the box score,” Staples said, before asking De La Torre what else needs to happen for Florida to win.

On top of getting the run game rolling, which will help keep the Gators from falling behind the sticks, De La Torre doesn’t think there is really any room for error for Florida. Tennessee’s pass rush also looks to be improved, another reason for Florida to try and stay away from obvious passing situations.

“I think Florida cannot overcome — the margin of error for Florida is just so thin. Florida cannot overcome turnovers. I think the blueprint is out there. Utah showed, hey listen, if you can stop Florida’s running attack and make Graham Mertz beat you with his arm, we don’t know if Florida can do that yet,” De La Torre said.

De La Torre is also not terribly concerned about defending against Joe Milton, and even thinks the quarterback could give the Gators some short fields or at least defensive stops with misses on shorter, layup throws.

Even a three-and-out that otherwise could’ve been a first down and more defensive snaps is a big win in a game where Florida will seek to control possession.

And overall, De La Torre just isn’t very impressed with Milton.

“I don’t think Joe Milton is different than the Joe Milton I saw Friday night lights his junior year, the Joe Milton I saw at Michigan,” De La Torre said, “than the Joe Milton who lost the starting job to Hendon Hooker. Hendon Hooker was a great quarterback at Tennessee.

“I don’t know why, just because he went to the Anthony Richardson school of offseason hype, throwing footballs flat-footed 97 yards and hitting golf carts at the Manning academy, I don’t think there’s any golf cart receivers that will be on the team this week. So I don’t know what we’re waiting to see from Joe Milton. Keep hearing, ‘He’s gonna turn the corner. He’ll start making those short, intermediate passes that he hasn’t been making.’ And it’s just like, why do we think that? At what point does a tiger not change its stripes? This is who he is as a quarterback.”