Circa Sports dropped the opening lines for Week 0 and Week 1 of the college football season on Sunday night, and right off the bat, a few of the games stuck out to me. I even have some leanings of my own.
Here is the beginning of a series of my knee jerk reactions to the opening college football lines.:
First off, we will start with what is arguably the best game on the list, and that is Utah at Florida, which opened at a pick’em. Utah is coming off a 10-4 season where it started rather slow but finished rather strong on the way to a PAC-12 Championship. Last season, the PAC-12 housed two teams that somewhat resembled an SEC team in their construction. Those teams were Utah and Oregon. The two met twice in just over two weeks, and Oregon got steam rolled by the Utes. The aggregate score was 76 to 17, a thorough thrashing.
Florida, on the other hand, is coming off an abysmal 6-7 season and has a fresh new coach in Billy Napier. In 2021, Florida was a bit of an enigma. How could a team that gave big, bad Alabama all they could handle in Week 3 then turn around and give games away to Kentucky, LSU, Missouri and get stomped by South Carolina and first-year coach Shane Beamer?
When considering this upcoming game, we should keep in mind the continuity that Utah has. Kyle Whittingham has been on the Utah sidelines since 1994, head coach since 2005. Utah also returns its starting quarterback in Cameron Rising, who was rather effective in his 13 games in 2021. He threw for nearly 2,500 yards and 20 touchdowns to just 5 interceptions.
The Utes return a 1,000-yard rusher in Tavion Thomas and a 500-yard rusher in Micah Bernard. Rising came up 1 yard shy of 500 yards himself last season. Utah also returns four of its top five pass catchers from 2021.
In contrast, Florida has a first-year coach with an immensely talented but largely unproven quarterback in Anthony Richardson. Richardson accounted for fewer than 1,000 yards of offense in 2021, only passing for 529 yards on 64 total attempts. The Gators also are losing their top three rushers in terms of yardage. Two of Florida’s top three receivers are gone, leaving Justin Shorter with 51 catches for 550 yards and 3 touchdowns in 2021 to lead the 2022 unit.
Bluntly, the two offenses are vastly different. Utah is loaded with experience and production while Florida is having to reload and rebuild around the promise of an uber-talented, but unproven, quarterback.
On defense, Utah has to replace several holes left by starters, especially at linebacker. The Utes seem to have effectively leveraged the transfer portal to plug holes in the defense with some experience.
Meanwhile, Florida has to replace the majority of its snaps along the defensive line and a few key holes, like that left by first-round pick Kaiir Elam. Brenton Cox returns to further wreak havoc on opposing offenses, but with an inexperienced offense on the other side of the ball, the defense needs to allow fewer than 24.7 points per game in 2022.
The Utes also slightly edge out the Gators in defensive SP+, according to ESPN. Utah comes in a 31 while Florida ranks 33rd.
If you listen to the words of Napier, he is downplaying expectations. He does not dress like Darth Vader like his predecessor, but he is speaking of rebuilding Florida into the Death Star that it was in the years of Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow.
Even though the game is in Gainesville at the Swamp and the line is a pick ‘em, I firmly believe that the Utes will head down to the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and pull out a win. I know that the atmosphere will be crazy. It will be loud and miserably hot, but in the end, Utah’s experience and identity will lead the Utes to a big season-opening win down in Gainesville.