{"id":2451,"date":"2025-10-14T13:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T13:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2451\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T13:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T13:46:14","slug":"florida-football-enters-week-8-as-favorite-wruf-98-1-fm-850-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2451\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Football Enters Week 8 as Favorite – WRUF 98.1 FM | 850 AM"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a disappointing showing against No. 5 Texas A&M<\/a>, Florida<\/a> faces Mississippi State at 4:15 p.m. Saturday for Homecoming, the first time since Week 2 the Gators will not play a ranked opponent, a streak of four straight top-10 matchups.<\/p>\n

Florida (2-4, 1-2 SEC) welcomes a MSU team that is fresh off the bye week following its 31-9 defeat to Texas A&M. The Bulldogs are 4-2, with both losses coming in conference play, so you can count Florida getting MSU\u2019s best effort as it tries to climb out of an 0-2 start in the SEC.<\/p>\n

While they have dropped their last two games, the Bulldogs are a much-improved team in year two under coach Jeff Lebby. In 2024, MSU went 2-10 with zero SEC wins, so the strong start to the 2025 campaign has Florida\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been in some really tough SEC games the last couple of weeks against Tennessee and A&M, and I think they\u2019re tough, they play hard and I respect what I see on the tape,\u201d Gators coach Billy Napier said. \u201d (Blake) Shapen is a vet quarterback, two really good backs and speed at receiver, a tight end that\u2019s a mismatch player, and then defensively just a lot of height, length, explosive, athletic players at first, second and third level here, and that translates to the kicking game as well. Always a challenge when they\u2019ve got an extra week to prepare for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the turn of the century, UF has beaten Mississippi State six of the last eight meetings, including a 45-28 win a year ago in Starkville. The Gators control the all-time series 35-19-2 and will get the Bulldogs at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for the first time since 2010.<\/p>\n

Florida opened as a 9.5-point favorite, according to Hard Rock Bet, before closing as a 10.5-point favorite Sunday night. As of Monday,\u00a0 the odds are back down to the original -9.5-point mark.<\/p>\n

One of the early concerns for Napier and the Gators is Shapen, who transferred from Baylor to Mississippi State last season, when he played in four games, threw for 974 yards and had an eight-to-one touchdown-to-interception ratio before suffering a fractured right scapula against Florida that cost him the rest of the year.<\/p>\n

This season, Shapen has thrown for 1,201 yards, completing 67.1% of his passes, with a nine-to-four touchdown-to-interception ratio. MSU wants to be able to rely on its backs to get the ground game going, so Shapen can air the ball\u00a0 to his playmakers. He is averaging 12.01 yards a completion (56th in FBS).<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think the backs complement what they\u2019re trying to do there. They\u2019ve had a healthy running game, and then they\u2019ve got some unique matchup players in the slot and outside. So, continuity in the system, he\u2019s benefiting from that,\u201d Napier said. \u201cHe\u2019s a scrappy player; he\u2019s been very effective in his career. So there\u2019ll be things that come with him that we\u2019ll have to be prepared for. He can make some plays with his feet as well. So he\u2019s off to a good start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Category: College Football<\/a>, Feature Sports News<\/a>, Gators Football<\/a>, SEC<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a disappointing showing against No. 5 Texas A&M, Florida faces Mississippi State at 4:15 p.m. Saturday for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3009,3010,143,28,56,30,29,61,62,3011,3012],"class_list":["post-2451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-billy-napier","tag-blake-shapen","tag-college-football","tag-florida","tag-florida-football","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-mississippi-state","tag-sec","tag-sec-network","tag-texas-am"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}