Breaking down Florida's gameplan for Georgia offense minus Brock Bowers

Florida has an extremely tough task ahead of it this week in undefeated and two-time defending national champion Georgia. However, the Bulldogs offense will not be at full strength with star tight end Brock Bowers out due to an ankle injury.

This will be the first game the team plays without Bowers since the 2020 season. As Nick de la Torre of GatorsOnline explained to Andy Staples on Staples’ podcast Tuesday, that will mean Florida will have to gameplan for a lot of unknowns vs Georgia

“It seems like every week we’re gonna have Austin Armstrong’s biggest test when you start looking at the rest of the schedule,” de la Torre said. “But it’s kind of a great unknown: what is Georgia without Brock Bowers? It’s going to affect their running game. It’s going to affect their passing game. Carson Beck had a nice, warm, heavy safety blanket to wrap himself up in at night. That’s gone. Who’s your outlet guy now? Who’s your go-to guy now? There’s gonna be a ton of questions. Florida’s not going to wish Brock Bowers was playing this game. But now I think there’s more unknowns of how is Georgia going to attack us? Austin Armstrong’s probably sitting here having the same discussion that we are.”

Bowers — the defending John Mackey Award winner and two-time All-American — is the best tight end in college football. He is the team’s leading receiver with 41 catches and 567 yards with four touchdowns.

Last year when Florida matched up with Georgia, Bowers had five catches for one touchdown and a season-high 154 yards in a 42-20 Georgia win.

But the Bulldogs have plenty of high-quality players on its offense, and Carson Beck appears to continue getting better and better throughout the season.

“For Florida to win this game, for Florida to be competitive in this game, they’re gonna have to play near perfect,” de la Torre said. “You can’t have penalties. You can’t turn the ball over. If you’ve got a third down tackle behind the sticks, you can’t miss that and let Georgia get a first down. You have to play sound game of football. Then something Florida hasn’t really been good at, you’re gonna probably have to create turnovers. You might have to have a game-changing play from your game changers. There’s so many facets to this game that Florida has to play their A+ game at to have a chance. They haven’t really played their A+ game away from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.”

Now without Bowers, things will certainly shift for Florida against their rival, Georgia.