Gators, Hurricanes kicking off season
ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida and Miami have the college football stage to themselves for 3½ hours Saturday, a new chapter in their once-heated and storied rivalry.
The eighth-ranked Gators and the rebuilding Hurricanes will usher in the 2019 season inside a packed stadium in Orlando, surrounded by sideline celebrities and in front of a coastto-coast television audience.
“Everybody’s watching,” Florida receiver Freddie Swain said. “Who doesn’t like attention?”
The winner surely will revel in the spotlight, and both teams have embraced the opportunity to set the tone for the season in front of way more than friends, fans and family members.
“What are they going to see?” Florida coach Dan Mullen said. “What’s our stamp? When every college person in the country turns on their TV, what’s their thought when they see the Florida Gators? We have to go out there and live up to that on the field.
“What do you want them to think about you?”
The Gators certainly think highly of themselves, especially after notching 10 wins in Mullen’s first season and closing out that inaugural campaign with resounding victories against Florida State (41-14) and Michigan (41-15).
Florida now has its highest preseason ranking since Urban Meyer’s final year in Gainesville in 2010 and sounds more than optimistic heading into the opener. Players don’t seem to care — most don’t even know — that they’ve lost seven of the last eight and 12 of 16 against Miami.
“I think this team is really special,” Gators quarterback Feleipe Franks said. “We expect to go out there and win every Saturday and try to make it a playoff contender and win a championship here again. That’s the expectations here every year.”
It hasn’t been the reality since Meyer’s departure.
Florida jumped eight spots, from 13th to fifth, in scoring in the Southeastern Conference during Mullen’s debut season — the kind of offensive prowess that’s been missing in Gainesville since Tim Tebow graduated.
Miami coach Manny Diaz can only hope for something similar in his first season as a head coach. The team’s former defensive coordinator inherited a team mixed with holdovers and holes.
“I want to find out can we handle adversity,” he said.
Diaz brought in former Miami coach Jimmy Johnson, who also won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys, to speak to his players this week. Mullen countered with Tebow, who won his only game against the Hurricanes.