Tale of two rivals: Florida is surging into 2025, Tennessee is bleeding out

The end is still raw at Tennessee, the aftermath of a soul-sucking College Football Playoff loss sudden and complete.

So while this is the last thing the Vols need to hear, they better come to terms with it.

Bitter rival Florida is in a better place heading into the 2025 season.

“Momentum is a real thing in college football,” says Florida coach Billy Napier.

In the what’s-next age of the sport, momentum is the only thing.

Somehow Florida – which could’ve fired Napier after a disastrous first half of the season – is riding high after all of eight wins in 2024.

Tennessee, meanwhile, is seemingly bleeding out.

“It’s never just one thing,” Vols coach Josh Heupel said after a humiliating 25-point loss to Ohio State in a CFP first round game. “We’ll start again and start retooling, rebuilding and grow as a football team.”

More: College Football Playoff first round showed system is broken. Fixing it isn’t that difficult

This is where we are in the violently new landscape of college football, where one loss can change momentum and introduce doubt to the process of winning, and – more importantly – the ability to convince players (high school and transfer portal) you’re on the right path.

And where one half of a season can override two-and-a-half years of an operational mess.

On the surface, nothing about this makes sense. Tennessee has 30 wins and won the Orange Bowl in the last three years, and Florida has 19 wins and a victory in something called the Gasparilla Bowl.

Yet the Gators, with talented freshman quarterback DJ Lagway and a young roster full of rising stars, have the momentum. Forget about the coach who nearly didn’t make it to 2025, or the coaching malpractice you’ve seen for the better part of the last three seasons.

Florida is projecting strength; Tennessee is venting vulnerability….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/tale-two-rivals-florida-surging-172137656.html

Author : USA TODAY Sports

Publish date : 2024-12-24 17:21:00

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