2018 - Dec. 29. FINAL - #10. Florida Gators 41. #7. Michigan Wolverines 15.

"I honestly don't mind a loss, if it's a hard fought 24-21"

He screamed: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Sorry, ran out of breath.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...!!!

Don't give the universe any ideas. Delete, delete, delete!

Go Gators-beat Michigan by like a million!

 

Get a good nights sleep people. Noon comes early. Lol

 

Peach Bowl: Today’s storylines
Robbie Andreu Gvl Sun
What’s At Stake
Michigan can become the 10th team in school history, and the first since 2011, to win at least 11 games. The Wolverines are looking to beat the Gators for the second straight season. Florida can complete a dramatic turnaround under first-year coach Dan Mullen from a 4-7 finish in 2017. The Gators are looking for their third win over a ranked team this season.

The Savage factor in play
Ask any of the Florida players the reasons for the big turnaround this season and one of the first things they’ll say is Nick Savage, the new strength and conditioning coordinator who has clearly made the Gators bigger, stronger and better conditioned. How much stronger? UF will have a better gauge of that after today’s game. Most of these same Michigan players physically dominated the Gators in last season’s 33-17 Wolverine win. UM punished UF on both lines of scrimmage. As a result the Gators had only 192 yards of offense while giving up 433. The Gators seem confident they’ll be able to hold their own today, or even win both lines of scrimmage, thanks to the Savage factor. They’ll know for sure by early this afternoon.

Gators playing, Wolverines skipping
Draft-eligible players skipping out on bowl games to prepare for the NFL has become a common occurrence in college football. But the Gators have not followed the trend. All the draft-eligible players — including a handful of high-profile juniors — are playing in today’s game. That includes the one player who has already declared for the draft, junior defensive back Chauncey Gardner-Johnson. It’s a different story for the Wolverines. Four of the best players on the team — defensive tackle Rashan Gary, linebacker Devin Bush Jr., running back Karan Higdon and offensive tackle Juwann Bushell-Beatty — are skipping the game to make sure they’re healthy for the NFL draft. Gary and Bush are two of the nation’s top defensive players, while Higdon leads the Wolverines in rushing with 1,178 yards and 10 touchdowns. Chris Evans, who has rushed for only 403 yards this season, takes over at tailback.
Peach Bowl: Today's storylines - GatorSports.com

 

5 Questions With … Chauncey Gardner-Johnson
Robbie Andreu Gvl Sun
Q: What role has defensive coordinator Todd Grantham played in your success?
A: He watched me before the season even started. In the spring, he told me I was going to play nickel. I was up to it, but I really wasn’t expecting to have a good season at it because I didn’t really know the position. It’s hard in the slot, so I made adjustments. It made everything easier for me because I’m closer to the ball. I did what I had to do, studied more and made plays. That’s what it came down to. I’m one of the best nickels in the country. It’s just something that I dwell on, thankful that he put me there and I’m ready to continue to keep striving.

Q: How tough was it having to sit out the bowl season a year ago after going 4-7?
A: We won four games, so we deserved to be at home. Anybody who wins four games deserves to be at home. We made a comeback. We had one bad year. It’s going to be on the up-and-up, so you know how that go.

Q: Did it make you appreciate the experience?
5 Questions With ... Chauncey Gardner-Johnson - GatorSports.com

 

Measuring bowl: Florida aims for statement win over Michigan in Peach Bowl
Robbie Andreu Gvl Sun
ATLANTA — One of Florida’s goals every year is to make it to Atlanta at the end of the season.

The Gators have made it this year, which is big, even if they got here later than they had hoped when this all started back on the first Saturday in September. They didn’t reach the SEC Championship Game, the No. 1 goal, but they did earn a trip here for a prestigious New Year’s Six bowl game.

Now that they have come this far — from 4-7 in 2017 to 9-3 and ranked No. 10 in the nation, and now with a date against No. 7 Michigan in the Peach Bowl — the goal for 2019 is to make it to Atlanta twice. Once for the SEC title game, a second time for one of the semifinal games in the College Football Playoff.

A win over the Wolverines, the same team that physically overwhelmed UF in the season opener a year ago, would not only put a bold exclamation point on this turnaround season, it would signal that the Gators are possibly ready to take the next step toward becoming a national contender again.
Measuring bowl: Florida aims for statement win over Michigan in Peach Bowl - GatorSports.com

 

Dooley: Lot on the line for Florida, Michigan
Pat Dooley Gvl Sun
ATLANTA — Dan Mullen put a foot on the table laid out for the final pre-game news conference to show off his orange and blue Retro 4 Jordan sneakers, the perfect complement to the suit he was wearing.

To his left, Jim Harbaugh looked his nerdy best, Michigan hat with a suit jacket and glasses with thick black rims.

“His style is above the waist. My style is kind of below the waist, right?” Mullen said. “I’m more ankles down, right, in our fashion statements?”
Harbaugh looked like someone was trying to explain to him what water tastes like.

Dooley: Lot on the line for Florida, Michigan - GatorSports.com

 

Peach Bowl victory would be a great finish to season for first-year Gators coach Mullen

Miami Herald
The No. 10 Florida and No. 7 Michigan will play at Mercedes Benz Stadium in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Saturday at noon. The Gators have never beaten the Wolverines — Michigan is 4-0 all time.
Read more here: University of Florida Gators Sports News | Miami Herald

 

UF
Mullen pushes right buttons to get Gators to Peach Bowl
By Edgar Thompson Orlando Sentinel
ATLANTA — The minute the Florida Gators’ four-win season ended in November 2017, Chauncey Gardner-Johnson was finished with football for awhile.
Not once did he even bother to tune into one of 38 bowls or three playoff games — an exercise in restraint for a 20-year-old male in possession of a remote control.
“We ain’t in it, so what am I watching it for ... to get mad?” Gardner-Johnson said this week.
This season under new head coach Dan Mullen, Gardner-Johnson and the Gators got even.
Following an impressive and improbable five-win turnaround, No. 10 Florida (9-3) finds itself on one of the biggest stages of the bowl season. The Gators are set to face No. 7 Michigan (10-2) at noon Saturday in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. The game will air on ESPN.
Mullen pushes right buttons to get Gators to Peach Bowl

 

Peach Bowl feels impact of more players skipping out for NFL
By Steve Hummer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl CEO and President Gary Stokan looks at the ever-increasing numbers of players opting to skip non-playoff bowls to save themselves for the NFL, he looks at the issue from three angles.
There’s the older-guy viewpoint (wherever you care to put 63 on the scale): “I was brought up in a generation where you’d never leave your team,” he said.

There’s the pragmatist’s view: “You sign with Florida or Michigan, you’re going to have a shot at possibly playing in the NFL. Now, with so much money in the NFL I can fully understand and respect a player’s decision to want to move forward with their life’s work and make potentially life-changing money.”

Then there’s the cultural anthropologist’s view. The view of someone taking a step back and watching everything speed up for the young footballer. High school kids sign earlier, they enroll in college earlier, and they try to leave college quicker. Who know where it goes from here? “I think, I may be wrong, but in a couple years you’re going to see a high school kids that are going to sign at a major university, they’re going to commit before a season starts and say you know what I’m fine, I don’t need to play my senior year of high school. I’m going to work out so when I get to school at mid-year I’ll be really ready for spring ball so I can start my freshman year.”
Peach Bowl feels impact of more players skipping out for NFL

 

Gameday! Go Gators!

 

Go Gators

 

Local newspaper's bowl capsule (presumably from AP) said the matchup to watch is Devin Bush vs. Scarlett/Perrine. SHM.

 

So which trainer didn't get the note that we were wearing white today? An why can't the trainers get it figured out to fill in all avaiable spaces from the center out? Common on people! LOL