Miami and Florida will renew their rivalry Saturday at The Swamp, with both head coaches in dire need of a win and a breakout season.
Billy Napier is an atrocious 11-14 both straight up and against the spread in his first two seasons at UF. Even worse, he’s a dismal 7-14 against Power-Five opponents.
That’s six games back of the worst starts through 25 games by modern UF coaches. Will Muschamp and Ron Zook both started their respective UF tenures with a 17-8 record.
Napier’s abysmal on-field record has come at a time when Florida has never spent more money on facilities, recruiting budget and staff size and salaries. Therefore, Napier enters the 2024 campaign on the hottest seat in America and as the favorite to be the first head coach in the country that gets pink slipped.
As for Mario Cristobal, he’s 12-13 SU and 8-17 ATS since leaving Oregon to return to his alma mater. Likewise, Miami has never invested more money in its proud program that owns five national titles but has mostly been irrelevant for two decades.
So yes, the stakes will be high when these teams collide tomorrow in Gainesville. The winning team will have some momentum moving forward, while the losing side and its head coach will be hearing about it from the fan base.
As of Friday afternoon, most books had the Hurricanes installed as 2.5-point road favorites with a total of 54. The Gators were +125 on the money line.
For first-half wagers, UM was a one-point ‘chalk’ with a total of 26.5.
Florida finished last season on a five-game losing streak, coughing up fourth-quarter leads in three of those defeats. The Gators gave up a fourth-and-17 conversion at 11th-ranked Missouri with 38 seconds remaining in a 33-31 loss.
The end result was a 5-7 SU record and a 4-8 ATS ledger. UF has now endured three consecutive losing seasons for the first time in more than seven decades.
UF brings back eight starters on offense and six on defense. Napier brought in his best recruiting class to date, one that’s ranked #7 overall by the 247Sports Composite. The transfer-specific imports are ranked fifth in the country.
QB Graham Mertz is back after enjoying an excellent Year 1 in Gainesville. The former Wisconsin signal caller completed 72.9 percent of his passes for 2,903 yards with a 20/3 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
Florida’s QB room is deep, too. DJ Lagway, a five-star true freshman who enrolled early in January, was the nation’s #1 QB in the 2024 class. Even the third-stringer, Colorado St. transfer Clay Millen, has 11 career starts to his credit.
Although Mertz lost his favorite target in WR Ricky Pearsall, who was a first-round pick by the San Francisco 49ers, Mertz developed outstanding chemistry with Eugene ‘Tre’ Wilson last year. As a true freshman, Wilson had 61 catches for 538 yards and six TDs.
Wilson is poised to become WR1, while a pair of transfers are hoping to replace Pearsall’s production. Chimere Dike, a former teammate of Mertz at Wisconsin, and Elijah Badger have impressed the staff since arriving in Gainesville.
Badger, a four-star transfer from Arizona St., led the Sun Devils in receptions (65), receiving yards (713) and TD catches (three) last season. He also had 51 rushing yards, one TD and a 4.6 yards-per-carry average. Badger was second in the Pac-12 in all-purpose yards per game (122.0), as he had 578 kick return yards.
In 2022 when Mertz was still at Wisconsin, Dike had 47 receptions for 689 yards and six TDs. He also added 32 rushing yards, one TD and a 6.4 YPC average. However, Dike’s production dipped without Mertz in 2023 when he was limited to 19 catches for 328 yards and one TD.
Mertz also has WR Kahleil Jackson, the son of Willie Jackson Jr., nephew of Terry Jackson and grandson of Willie Jackson Sr., who was one of the first African-American scholarship athletes at UF. Willie Jr. led the SEC in catches while playing for Steve Spurrier in 1992, and Terry was a standout RB and special-teams ace for some of Spurrier’s best squads from 1995-98.
Kahleil Jackson started nine times last year, snagging 21 balls for 251 receiving yards and one TD.
Mertz will also target his tight ends, Arlis Boardingham and Hayden Hansen. Boardingham flashed some big-time talent at times last season. For instance, he caught a pass well short of the sticks from Mertz on a fourth-and-long play at South Carolina with his team down by 10 points with less than four minutes remaining.
Boardingham turned the catch into a first down with lots of YAC (yards after catch), and the Gators ended up rallying for a 41-39 win. He finished the year with 26 receptions for 289 yards and four TDs. Hansen had 12 catches for 150 yards and two TDs.
With RB Trevor Etienne transferring to Georgia, Montrell Johnson is poised to take on a bigger workload as the offense’s bell cow back. He went down with a minor knee injury in early August that required arthroscopic surgery.
The timetable was 3-4 weeks for his recovery, and he’s made it all the way back. Johnson was listed as the #1 RB on UF’s depth chart released on Wednesday, and Napier confirmed that he’s good to go vs. UM.
As a true freshman under Napier at Louisiana in 2021, Johnson garnered Sun Belt Freshman of the Year honors after rushing for 838 yards and 12 TDs while averaging 5.2 yards per carry.
He followed Napier to Gainesville. As a sophomore, Johnson shared the workload with Etienne and still managed to produce 841 rushing yards, 10 TDs and a 5.4 YPC average. He had 817 rushing yards, five TDs and a 5.4 YPC average last year.
In his three-year career, Johnson has 2,496 rushing yards, 27 TDs and a 5.3 YPC average. He also has 48 career catches for 347 yards and two TDs.
Phil Steele’s National Unit Rankings have the Gators #28 at QB, #23 at RB, #21 at WR, #28 on the offensive line, #41 on the defensive line, #26 at LB, #21 in the secondary and #25 on special teams.
Florida has been awful on the defensive side of the ball for four consecutive seasons. The stop unit gave up an average of 28.8 PPG in Napier’s first season and 27.6 PPG last year. UF lost games in which it scored 36 (vs. Arkansas), 35 (at LSU) and 31 points (at Missouri).
The hope is that portal additions like safety Asa Turner (Washington), LB Grayson ‘Pup’ Howard (South Carolina) and DL Joey Slackman (Penn) are going to help on this side of the ball.
Miami went 7-6 SU and 6-7 ATS last season, going 2-4 in one-possession games. The Hurricanes dropped a 31-24 decision to Rutgers at the Pinstripe Bowl.
They got out to a 4-0 start, including a 48-33 win over 23rd-ranked Texas A&M as three-point home underdogs. However, after climbing into the rankings at #17, UM had a chance to get into victory formation and polish off a 20-16 home win over Ga. Tech.
But, unlike every other coach except for Coach Prime, Cristobal’s favorite play isn’t victory formation. In fact, he detests the play that secures most victories. Therefore, for the second time in his career (Oregon’s improbable home loss to Stanford in 2018 was the other), Cristobal declined kneeling on the ball for a win. Instead, his running back fumbled just like that night in Eugene.
Haynes King and the Yellow Jackets took advantage of the turnover. They hit a long TD pass two plays later to pull a shocking 23-20 upset win in South Florida.
Miami never really recovered. The ‘Canes lost 41-31 at 12th-ranked North Carolina the following week. They stopped the bleeding with back-to-back home wins over Clemson (in two overtimes) and Virginia (in one OT as 18.5-point ‘chalk’), only to lose their next three contests at NC St. (20-6), at FSU (27-20) and vs. Louisville (38-31).
Miami returns 10 starters on offense and seven on defense. The ‘Canes lost 27 lettermen and brought back 29. They brought in the nation’s #6 overall recruiting class and the #10-ranked group in terms of transfer-specific imports.
UM has 15 new players from the portal, including six four-star guys. The overall class has 42 commits, including three five-star prospects and 17 four-star players.
According to multiple reports, Miami broke out the big bucks to secure commitments from a few players, especially former Washington St. QB Cam Ward, who is reportedly being paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million to play one season in Coral Gables.
Ward spent two years with the Cougars. In 2022, he completed 64.4 percent of his passes for 3,232 yards with a 23/9 TD-INT ratio. Ward connected on 66.6 percent of his throws for 3,736 yards with a 25/7 TD-INT ration last year.
Miami also added a key player in the late spring portal window when it was able to sign Damien Martinez, the former Oregon St. RB who was a first-team All-Pac-12 selection as a freshman in 2022 and last year.
In two seasons with the Beavers, Martinez produced 2,167 rushing yards, 16 TDs and a 6.1 YPC average. He also had 15 catches for 187 yards.
Steele’s National Unit Rankings have the ‘Canes #10 at QB, #7 at RB, #11 at WR, #7 on the offensive line, #12 on the d-line, #15 at LB, #37 in the secondary and #17 on special teams.
UM senior WR Xavier Restrepo garnered first-team All-ACC honors in 2023 when he hauled in 85 receptions for 1,092 yards and six TDs. Ward has another big-time target in senior WR Jacolby George, who was a third-team All-ACC pick last year when he caught 57 balls for 864 yards and eight TDs.
Miami’s defense gave up an average of 22.8 PPG in 2023. The leader of this unit is LB Francisco Mauigoa, who was a first-team All-ACC choice last year when he recorded 82 tackles, 18 TFL’s, 7.5 sacks, seven QB hurries, three PBU, two forced fumbles and one interception. He played with Ward at Washington St. in 2022 before transferring to UM.
Steele’s magazine has Mauigoa and DL Rueben Bain as preseason first-team All-ACC selections. Bain produced 44 tackles, 12.5 TFL’s, 7.5 sacks and three forced fumbles last season.
The ‘Canes have two players from their secondary, sophomore CB Damari Brown and senior safety Mishael Powell, as preseason second-team All-ACC picks in Steele’s mag. Brown started four games a true freshman in 2023, contributing 14 tackles and 1.5 TFL’s.
Powell is a transfer from Washington who played three seasons for the Huskies. He started 25 times in 36 games, recording 92 career tackles, nine PBU, four TFL’s, three interceptions for 99 return yards and one TD and one forced fumble.
Miami has struggled as a favorite during Cristobal’s tenure. The ‘Canes are 4-10 ATS in 14 games as ‘chalk,’ and two of the spread covers came in games at home vs. Bethune Cookman and at Temple.
Regardless of whether UM has been favored or an underdog, it is merely 5-5 SU and 4-6 ATS in 10 road assignments on Cristobal’s watch.
These bitter rivals haven’t faced each other since a Week Zero meeting in Orlando in 2019 when UF won a 24-20 decision as a seven-point favorite. The ‘Canes covered the spread and the 44 combined points dropped ‘under’ the 46-point total.
Miami hasn’t been to The Swamp since 2008 when Florida beat up on the ‘Canes by a 26-3 count. Urban Meyer kicked a field goal in the last minute to draw the ire of former UM coach Randy Shannon.
Kickoff on ABC is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Eastern tomorrow.
PREDICTION: Napier is 20-10-1 ATS in 31 career games as an underdog during his HC career. I just pointed out Cristobal’s ATS struggles from the favorite role. Yes, the UF fan base has been down on Napier, but it’s still August and there’s optimism with a new season. There’s also a hated rival in town. That will make for the standard electric atmosphere that’s always prevalent for big games inside The Swamp. Finally, I think UF has the QB advantage. Sure, Ward has played in the Pac-12 for two seasons, but he’s never been in an environment as hostile as The Swamp. If you can get +3, I like the Gators for one unit. If not, I’m fine with +2.5 or a money-line play for a +125 payout. I think Florida wins, 27-24.
**B.E.’s Bonus Nuggets**
-Most books adjusted Georgia down to an 11.5-point favorite vs. Clemson on Friday afternoon. The number moved back up to -12 or -12.5 by late afternoon, though. I like UGA to cover against the Tigers in Atlanta tomorrow.
-DraftKings has released a bunch of look-ahead lines for Week 2.
-North Carolina QB Max Johnson had surgery in Minnesota today to repair the broken leg he sustained in Thursday’s 19-17 win at Minnesota. Johnson will miss the remainder of the season for the Tar Heels.
-Pitt RB Rodney Hammond has been ruled ineligible for the 2024 campaign. Hammond had 547 rushing yards and four TDs for the Panthers in 2023.
–You can hear more of my picks and analysis on this week’s Bets & Ballgames podcast that I do every week with Jay Greeson on Southeastern 16’s YouTube channel.
-Coach Prime nearly “pulled a Cristobal last night.” Even more concerning was his post-game presser when he didn’t even seem to comprehend a reporter’s question about the complete ignorance he displayed with his clock management. Tighten up, Coach Prime!
-Many books moved LSU down to -4 on Friday for Sunday’s showdown vs. USC in Las Vegas. I’m going to this game that’s currently showing a total of 64 or 64.5 points. I took the ‘over’ last week when the number was 63.
–I’m on Va. Tech tomorrow as a double-digit favorite at Vandy.