Sports Illustrated’s Week 1 picks has this team holding an edge in the Swamp
The wait is nearly over for Florida football fans as Gainesville’s finest gets set to take the field against the Utah Utes to open the 2022 season in the Swamp. The Gators face their toughest opponent to start the season in recent memory, who arrive in town ranked No. 8 in the Coaches Poll and No. 7 in the AP Poll, while the home team defends its turf buried well outside the top-25 vote.
Ahead of Saturday’s kickoff, many members of the media have aired their opinions on what will go down during Week 1 and the Utah-Florida matchup has been a hot topic. One writer at USA TODAY Sports had a bold prediction for the Orange and Blue and CBS Sports played it safe by toeing the spread. ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt was feeling pretty optimistic about Florida as well.
Sports Illustrated’s writers called the matchup out as one of the headline games on Saturday, with the consensus leaning toward Utah to prevail in a 3-2 vote. John Garcia, Molly Geary and Pat Forde all chose the Utes while Ross Dellinger and Richard Johnson picked the Gators to pull off the upset.
For the record, the Gators Wire roundtable predicted that the visitors would claim the win by a final score of 30-24. Two respondents chose Florida, calling a narrow margin of victory in moderate-scoring while the other four went with Utah in much higher-scoring outcomes.
Predictions become reality at 7 p.m. EDT on Saturday night in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
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