{"id":19003,"date":"2021-09-17T02:33:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T02:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=19003"},"modified":"2021-09-17T02:33:26","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T02:33:26","slug":"college-football-preview-florida-gators-vs-alabama-crimson-tide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/ncaaf\/college-football-preview-florida-gators-vs-alabama-crimson-tide\/","title":{"rendered":"College Football Preview \u2013 Florida Gators vs. Alabama Crimson Tide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Alabama Crimson Tide will look to keep the longest winning streak in the country alive this Saturday when they head into The Swamp to take on the Florida Gators. Nick Saban has reloaded last year\u2019s national champions with new talent, and Alabama looks just as good as ever. However, Florida\u2019s offense is not the same with the loss of Kyle Trask and Kyle Pitts, so the Gators are more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/sportsbook\/football\/ncaa\">a two-touchdown underdog<\/a> at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Nebraska vs. Oklahoma College Football Odds Preview | Big 12 Odds | NCAAF Picks and Predictions\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DuU4FS48o0Q?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Florida\u2019s biggest home game of the season will see the Gators host the Alabama Crimson Tide at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida on Saturday, September 18, 2021, at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>College Football Betting Odds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Alabama -14.5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Florida +14.5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Total 60<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Florida has taken care of business against its first two opponents. The Gators cruised to wins over in-state programs Florida Atlantic and South Florida, but they failed to cover the spread in either game after taking their foot off the gas pedal in the second half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Crimson Tide routed Miami in their season opener before beating Mercer by 34 points last week. Alabama ran vanilla packages in its win over Mercer, so both the offense and defense will look much different against Florida on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When Florida Has the Ball<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Emory Jones has not looked good under center for Florida. Kyle Trask\u2019s replacement has thrown two interceptions in each of his first two games as the starting quarterback, and he is averaging just 5.4 YPA. Dan Mullen certainly wants to use highly touted Anthony Richardson more in this game, but Richardson\u2019s status is uncertain after pulling his hamstring last week. He has been practicing, yet he likely won\u2019t be at 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This ground game has done an excellent job running the ball. Florida\u2019s best three running backs are all averaging at least 6.0 YPC, but Jones and Richardson are the leading rushers in Mullen\u2019s RPO heavy offense. It won\u2019t be easy for Florida to run on Alabama this Sunday though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Crimson Tide have some fantastic players along the defensive line. Phidarian Mathis and D.J. Dale will both be playing on Sundays next year in all likelihood, but there are some concerning injuries in the linebacking corps. Christopher Allen is out for the season after fracturing his foot, and Will Anderson is questionable to play with a knee injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When Alabama Has the Ball<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bryce Young appears to be the next great Alabama quarterback. Young had the best debut of any signal caller in Crimson Tide history against Miami, and he is completing 70.8% of his passes for 571 yards with seven touchdowns and no interceptions through two games. John Metchie III has been his favorite target, while Jameson Williams is a big play threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ground game is just as solid as ever with Brian Robinson Jr. leading the way. Robinson has run for 130 yards and is averaging 5.9 YPC through the first two games. If Alabama can have close to that success on Saturday, the Crimson Tide won\u2019t have a problem with the Gators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Florida has a good defense, but the Gators aren\u2019t elite on this side of the ball with the 23<sup>rd<\/sup> ranked defense by SP+. Some of that has to do with defensive coordinator Todd Grantham who can be way too overaggressive if things aren\u2019t going his way. Grantham\u2019s blitzes can be beat over the top by good quarterbacks, and Young will likely throw at least one long touchdown pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Prediction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although The Swamp will be electric on Saturday afternoon, Alabama will be too much for the hosts to overcome. The Crimson Tide <a href=\"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/sportsbook\/football\/ncaa\">will steamroll the Gators<\/a> in a convincing win that shows the size of the gap between the two programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Follow our <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/betonline_ag\"><em>Twitter account<\/em><\/a><em> for the latest sports news and wagering odds, and come to<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>our <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/betonline_ag\/\"><em>Instagram<\/em><\/a><em> for more useful betting info too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Alabama Crimson Tide will look to keep the longest winning streak in the country alive this Saturday when they&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":17742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19009,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19003\/revisions\/19009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}