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This year’s iteration of “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” will be a charged atmosphere.

The Florida Gators will be playing in their first game since canning embattled head coach Billy Napier, while the Georgia Bulldogs will look to continue their march towards a berth in the College Football Playoff.

The Bulldogs are 7-point favorites for this tilt, which takes place at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla.

For the first time in 12 months, the Florida Gators can play a football game without the media circus following them and asking about their coach. Napier, who went 22-23 during his tenure in Gainesville, is out, which means the pundits will need to find something else to talk about.

That should make things a little lighter around the Gators, who are still a talented team with a high ceiling, especially if quarterback DJ Lagway can find his form from 2024.

Lagway started to show some of that flash in wins against Texas and Mississippi State, but it’s been a mixed bag overall for the quarterback, who was a Heisman candidate before the season started.

It would be asking a lot for Lagway and the offense to go ahead and win this game on their own, but that’s not going to be the case.

Florida’s defense has held up its end of the bargain for most of this season, but the offense’s inconsistencies have led the Gators astray from their preseason expectations. That defense will face a decent test against Gunner Stockton and the Bulldogs, but this isn’t the best offense they’ve battled.

If the offense was coherent, the Gators could have given Miami and LSU a run for their money, and they’d have certainly beat USF.

We’ll back the offense to improve with Napier out of the picture, while relying on the defense to continue its strong play against a Georgia side that has shown plenty of cracks in its armor this season.

The Bulldogs needed some serious heroics to escape Tennessee and Ole Miss with wins, so don’t be surprised if we see something similar on Saturday.

The Play: Florida +7 (-105, FanDuel)

Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.