Florida heads to Tampa to face South Florida

The #13 Florida Gators (1-0) will make their way to Tampa to face the South Florida Bulls (0-1) Saturday afternoon.

How to watch or stream

Time: 1 p.m. ET

TV: ABC

Streaming: WatchESPN

Line: Florida -28.5

Total: 58.5

Last week was pretty strange for the Florida Gators. After years of waiting, Emory Jones finally took the reins and... didn’t really immediately look like a superstar as so many were expecting. Jones went 17-27 for 113 passing yards and a touchdown to two interceptions. Jones also had 74 rushing yards, but all in all it felt a bit underwhelming against a weak opponent in FAU.

To compound things, Anthony Richardson came in to relieve Jones when the game was out of hand in the fourth quarter, and recorded 160 rushing yards on seven carries, dazzling the crowd. Regardless, Dan Mullen is sticking with Jones, as he wants the quarterback to focus on getting comfortable with the flow of the game instead of trying to do too much.

Florida’s rushing attack accounted for four of its five touchdowns in the 35-14 season opening win over FAU, with Richardson picking up one touchdown while Dameon Pierce and Malik Davis combined for three. With the departures of Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney, Florida will rely heavily on its rushing attack this season, and last week was the start of that. This is bad news for a USF team that allowed a combined 268 rushing yards on 32 attempts to NC State’s Zonovan Wright and Ricky Person last week in the Wolfpack’s 45-0 win.

Obviously, the key to this week for Florida will be to tidy up the mistakes from last week as they prepare for next week’s showdown with the Alabama Crimson Tide, a team you cannot afford to make any mistakes against.