Week 9: Florida vs. Georgia

For the first time since 1989, both Florida and Georgia have at least two league losses heading into their annual clash. But in this crazy season in the SEC, both teams are still very much alive in the chase for the Eastern Division title. At 3–2, Georgia and Florida are tied with South Carolina atop the division standings.

“It’s a wild year, isn’t it?’’ Richt said earlier this week. ‘‘I’m just taking this baby one at a time. I quit worrying about the other stuff. I’m worrying about who we have this time around. I’m done looking too far ahead into the future, at least this year.”

A win guarantees nothing, but the team that loses this game will have a difficult time reaching the SEC title game in Atlanta. Right now, Florida is in the best shape of the five teams with two losses because both of the Gators’ defeats came against SEC West teams, giving Urban Meyer’s club an advantage in tie-breaking scenarios.

In addition, Florida has an advantage because the Gators appear to have the best team in the SEC East. Their two losses are to two very good teams — Auburn and LSU — by a combined seven points. After a bye week, the Gators bounced back from those two setbacks by posting an impressive 45–37 win at Kentucky. Tim Tebow was once again remarkable, throwing for 256 yards and four scores and rushing for a game-high 78 and another touchdown. Stopping the sophomore quarterback is priority No. 1 for Georgia. Richt, however, doesn’t know if that is possible.

“Face it, Tebow hasn’t had much trouble against anyone they’ve played,” Richt said. “You have to try to slow it down a little, but to think you’re going to stop it, that’s going to be tough.”

Tebow, however, might not be at full strength this weekend. He bruised his right (non-throwing) shoulder against Kentucky, and Meyer indicated that he might have to reduce the number of carries his quarterback gets this weekend.

With Tebow slowed a bit, we can expect to see even more of Percy Harvin in the run game, and we might actually see the Gators hand the ball off to tailback Kestahn Moore on a more-frequent basis.

Georgia has some injury issues on offense as well. With Thomas Brown likely out and Kregg Lumpkin definitely out, the Bulldogs are down to one healthy tailback. But that tailback — redshirt freshman Knowshon Moreno — is pretty good. Moreno carried the load in the close win against Vanderbilt two weeks ago, rushing for a career-high 157 yards on a career-high 28 carries. If Moreno remains healthy, Georgia’s running game should be fine.

The key for Georgia will be its ability to protect quarterback Matthew Stafford and give him enough time to exploit Florida’s shaky secondary. The Gators have given up 250 yards passing or more on four occasions this year, including 415 last week in the win vs. Kentucky. Georgia isn’t as potent in the passing game as Kentucky, but Stafford does have the ability to throw the ball down the field — if he gets help from his offensive line and his inconsistent receiving corps.

As every Gator and Bulldog fan knows, Florida has dominated this series of late, winning 15 of the last 17 meetings. Richt said it’s time for the Dawgs to do their part.

“A rival game needs to be more equal in who wins and loses, which it hasn’t been lately,” he said. “It’s been a rivalry of streaks. It’s not like our rivalry with Auburn, which just seems to be very close games and also spread out to where no one has had a huge run, at least lately. Florida has just been dominating as of late, where earlier Georgia used to dominate.”

The Gators may not dominate this week, but they should win the game.

Florida by 6