Georgia opens as three-plus score favorite over Florida
The oddsmakers really like Georgia in the 2022 meeting of The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. The Vegas Insider Consensus, which generates an aggregate point spread based on those put out by numerous other sports books, has the Bulldogs favored by 22.5 points over Florida.
Georgia has won four of the last five in this series. The Gators won in 2020, punching their ticket to the SEC Championship game. The Bulldogs won three in a row from 2017 to 2019. They also won last year and most of those victories have been rather comfortable.
Florida has played away from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium just once this season. That was a loss to Tennessee. Six of the Gators first seven games this season were played at home. Florida has gone 4-2 at home this year with losses to Kentucky and LSU. Billy Napier, in his first season, has the team 4-3 with an impressive win over Utah in the 2022 season opener.
This game will obviously be played in Jacksonville, the regular site for this game since 1933. Georgia will be providing tickets for any prospects who want to attend but Kirby Smart has been open about what his program is missing by this being a neutral-site game.
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“There’s really quality benefits to both,” Smart said last week. “I get it, you want to make a story, you need a story, everyone wants to talk about it. It’s really not a big debate for me. It’s been made really big by the media, because they’ve made it out to be a really big deal. I enjoy the pageantry of going down there and playing. I enjoyed playing there as a player, I enjoy tradition. I enjoy all those things. When it comes down to it, there’s a very, very basic element of everything comes back to, number one money and number two, recruiting and getting good players. I firmly believe that we’ll be able to sign better players by having it as a home-and-home because we’ll have more opportunities to get them to campus. But, I also think there’s a financial factor that factors into that, with having the game there, and being able to make more money for the university, possibly, there.
“You have to weigh both those and make really good decisions. But, I promise you, I have not thought about that one second since the start of the season. And I’m not going to think about it for one second, because I got to worry about coaching our team, and I’m not fighting the fight in the public forum. I’m not fighting the fight for anything. I’m worried about our team and us playing well and how we block and tackle of what plays we call it how we play special teams. That’s just not a priority for me, where that game is right now.”
