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The shorthanded Florida Gators will face the Oklahoma Sooners in the 2020 Cotton Bowl Wednesday night. The Gators, SEC East Champions, come into this one fresh off losing the SEC Championship Game to the mighty Alabama Crimson Tide. Oklahoma, meanwhile, celebrated yet another Big 12 Championship with a win over the Iowa State Cyclones earlier this month.
Suffice it to say, these two teams are polar opposites of each other at the moment. The Sooners roll into this one with plenty of optimism and good juju. Spencer Rattler has been playing well down the stretch and nearly threw for 3,000 yards on the season. Elsewhere, the Sooner defense, oftentimes maligned and criticized, has been pretty strong in advanced statistical categories. Especially so at bringing pressure and stuffing the run.
Florida, meanwhile, comes into this game reeling a bit. As if their loss to LSU was both debilitating and embarrassing, they were waxed by Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. Though they made a game out of it at the end, they couldn’t quite keep up with the stellar offense that the Tide possesses. They could not get enough stops, a sign of weakness that has been occurring all season long. It doesn’t help either that Kyle Trask will be without many of his preferred arsenal of targets, as Kadarius Toney and Kyle Pitts among others have all opted out of this one.
This one has the potential to be a bit of an uphill battle for Florida. Trask will be without his top three receivers and the Gators offense will be put to the test by an underrated OU defense. The Sooners aren’t quite the offensive juggernaut they were with Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray. However, this Florida defense has been absolutely putrid at times. OU ranks eighth in the nation in Passing Success and 35th in Rushing Success. UF’s defense? They rank 66th and 92nd in those respective categories defensively. Furthermore, OU ranks 37th in Passing Explosiveness while Florida sits 90th.
How to Watch
Time: 8 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN
Watch Online: WatchESPN
Odds
(via FanDuel)
Spread: Oklahoma -4.5
Total: 67.5
Moneyline: Oklahoma -200 | Florida +160