It’s been nearly two weeks since we last saw the Florida Gators or the Georgia Bulldogs in action. The last time we saw Florida, they were celebrating a win in Austin against the Texas Longhorns, while the Bulldogs were wondering what had just happened against the Auburn Tigers.
The bye week probably came at a good time for the Gators, who could take the time to refocus after an emotional win. Head coach Jon Sumrall understood immediately that there was still plenty of work to be done in his “we still suck” commentary after the win.
As the Gators prepare to face the Bulldogs on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. EST in Atlanta, SEC Network’s Cole Cubelic joined Paul Finebaum to discuss the keys to the game.
“It feels like this is one, Paul, that the team that makes the fewest mistakes and the more physical football team will win,” Cubelic said, boiling down the game to its simplest principles.”
“Auburn did something not a lot of teams have been able to do: force Gunner Stockton into mistakes. We haven’t seen him be that quarterback. He did it at home against Auburn. Can Florida and Brad White’s defense find a way to do that in a, I guess, neutral-site game in Atlanta?”
White and his Gators defense bottled up Arch Manning and the Longhorns. He threw for just 173 yards and a touchdown. While he didn’t have an interception, the Gators forced a fumble from Manning and sacked him five times.
Another key, according to Cubelic, is also relatively simple: Hop on Jadan Baugh’s shoulders and let him carry the offense.
“And Jaden Baugh’s got to get going,” said Cubelic. “All I think about is Jaden Baugh running the stretch play and Chris Cole being able to fly around from that Georgia defense because the stretch play hasn’t been good when defenses have taken their shots at it.
“Jaden Baugh is not a start, stop running back. He’s more of a lumberer that needs to get going and needs momentum.
“I imagine Kirby Smart, Glenn Schumann, they’re gonna take their shots with him too. They’re gonna say, ‘We see the stretch play happening, you know what? Just go get him. Attack as fast as you can. If you missed that initial contact, and we can slow him down and force him to restart, that might be enough time to let the rest of our hats get there and be able to make a play.'”
The Gators can also use Baugh to draw in an attacking style of defense, and then have the quarterback pull the ball in a read option to exploit its aggressiveness. While the Gators haven’t named a starter for Saturday, Tramell Jones Jr. had a lot of success with the read option against Texas.
Offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, who put up nearly 600 yards against Georgia in 2024 with Georgia Tech, already mentioned that one of the factors of his success against the Bulldogs was a mobile quarterback.
All of the planning and scheming in the world goes out the window with turnovers. Florida won the turnover battle by a +1 margin against Texas and won the game by one score. They were -3 against the South Carolina Gamecocks the week before and lost by three scores.
“But both quarterbacks need to play well. This is one that you feel like if you throw an interception or two, if you put a fumble on the ground, allow for a return, it could be the deciding factor in the game,” Cobelic concluded.
Be physical. Run Jadan Baugh. Take care of the football.
Sounds simple enough, right?
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