Tennessee vs. Florida, enough said

Earlier this week, Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray tweeted a short, but poignant message:

“Florida week. Enough said!”

Four words. How often does four words tell the whole story? Not very.

In this case, it does and it doesn’t. It IS Florida week, and most would agree that you don’t need any extracurricular trash-talking or coaches feuding to get excited for this game. The game and the rivalry speak for itself.

It doesn’t tell the whole story because it goes much deeper than what Bray said. The Tennessee-Florida matchup is Jabar Gaffney’s “catch” in front of a record 108,768 crowd in Neyland Stadium record in 2000. It’s a Collins Cooper field goal missing wide-left in 1998 and the Neyland goalposts being tossed into the Tennessee River. One could go on and on about the great moments in the history of the rivalry, but for simplicity’s sake, we’ll cut to the chase.

Lately, the match up has been an exercise in dominance for the Gators over the Vols. Overall the series has played fairly even, currently standing at 21-19, with the Gators holding the slight advantage. More recently, however, the series has been more one-sided. Since 1992, when the SEC split and the UT-UF game became an annual event, Florida has won 14 of the 19 games. This record includes the current streak of six straight victories for UF.

As Saturday draws near and the Gators attempt to stretch the win streak to seven, we have a rivalry full of new faces. For Florida, gone is the Urban Meyer era, which brought two Southeastern Conference titles, two National titles and the six-straight victories over UT. The Will Muschamp era has begun. Chest bumps and a pro-style offense now reign in Gainesville.

For Tennessee, Derek Dooley is in his second season as the head coach for Tennessee. This is the first trip to Gainesville for Dooley as head coach. It’s also the first trip for a majority of the Vols team that consists of primarily freshmen and sophomores. Handling the atmosphere at the Swamp will be essential to breaking Florida’s streak of victories, something the coach is aware of.

“New environment, we’ll see how we can handle it,” Dooley said. “Especially when something bad happens, and the crowd starts getting juiced… We just have to maintain our composure.”

Composure will undoubtedly be a keyword for the Vols and quarterback Tyler Bray. Bray will face a much more stout defensive-front than he has in the past. Florida’s line is bolstered by Shariff Floyd, who returns from a two-game suspension in time to face the Vols on Saturday. Along with Floyd, Ronald Powell, Dominique Easley and Jaye Howard make up a line composed entirely of former four or five-star recruits. These players are collectively a young group, but very talented, according to Coach Dooley.

“That’s gonna be our biggest challenge. This is as athletic and big of a defensive front as you’ll see in college football,” Dooley said. “If our five can’t block their four, it doesn’t matter what else we do, we’re going to get whipped.”

In addition to the play of the lines, the match up of Tennessee’s wide receivers against Florida’s defensive backs will be key to victory for both squads.

Tennessee receivers Da Rick Rogers and Justin Hunter form likely the best sophomore duo at their position in the country. They have combined for 31 catches, over 500 yards and five touchdowns, albeit against weaker opponents.

“Call us Ray Allen. We’re in a groove right now,” Hunter said recently in an ESPN article.

“I want to have DBs scared to touch me,” Rogers said in the same interview.

Florida’s secondary, led by sophomore Matt Elam, apparently is not impressed. Elam made his feelings known through a series of tweets on Thursday.

“Let your game film do the talking and no offense to Montana and Cincinnati, but you really don’t have any,” Elam tweeted. “Growing up playing ball I learned that the ones who talk trash are the ones that are really frightened in the inside!”

The comments from the Tennessee receivers hardly sound like they’re directed at Florida, but reality is all about perception, I guess.

So much for not needing any extracurricular trash talk to get excited for the game. Either way, it IS Florida week. Enough said.