Page 12 - Florida Sentinel 10-25-19

SPOTLIGHT
MELISSA
This week’s Spotlight feature is Melissa, and she says her goal has always been to become a model. Melissa is very much in touch with who she is, and she understands her limitations. Melissa said taking pro- fessional pictures is exciting, but to imagine you can get paid to do the one thing you love to do is ever more of a blessing. Congratulations to Melissa as this week’s Spotlight feature.
College Sports
Gators Or Noles: Who’ll Get The Better Bowl?
Both the Florida Gators and the Florida State Semi- noles have huge games coming up in Week 7. The Gators are taking on No. 5 LSU, and the Seminoles are facing No. 2 Clemson.
However, the biggest dif- ference between Florida’s top two teams – sorry, Hurricanes, you’re No. 3 right now – can be found at a glance on the col- lege football odds boards, The ’Noles are ginormous, 27-point underdogs to the Clemson Tigers, a team that barely beat UNC. The Gators are also dou- ble-digit underdogs, but 200%
less so. At +13 the Gators are fairly heavy dogs, which sur- prises me since they just put up a decisive win over a previously undefeated Auburn team as slight underdogs.
How both Florida and Florida State perform this week will push a lot of weight to- wards what bowls they get at the end of the season. If Florida manages to beat LSU they have a legitimate argument for a Top 4 ranking, especially if any of the top four struggle in their wins – or if anyone loses. After the Gators face LSU, they get the South Carolina Gamecocks,
the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs, the Vanderbilt Commodores, the Mizzou Tigers, then close the season against Florida State in the Sunshine Showdown.
The problem is that even if the Gators beat LSU, they still have to face Georgia ... not easy task. They can’t count on Geor- gia losing to ’Bama in the regu- lar season because they won’t play this year until East meets West – if both teams clinch. So Florida has to beat both LSU and Georgia, if they want into the playoffs. If they do so, I don’t see how anyone could deny them. If the Gators take a loss, heck even if they lost to No. 5 and No. 3 they are still good enough and deserving of one of the New Year’s Six. At least the Orange Bowl on De- cember 30th, if they have two losses and probably the Sugar Bowl on the first if they are just on the outside of the CFP look- ing in with one loss. At the very minimum, Florida gets the Cit- rus Bowl.
The Seminoles are already 3-2 having lost to both Virginia and Boise State. That doesn’t bode well for a big bowl, espe- cially since they are likely to lose to Clemson and then they are going to have their hands full with Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons keep quietly winning and very well might end up as a one-loss team in the ACC sucking up the best available bowl outside of the CFP for that conference. It’s within the realm of possibility that FSU loses to Wake and then Florida in Week 13, for a 7-5 record. Given their strength of schedule, they’ll be lucky to face a Big 10 team like Ne- braska in the Pinstripe Bowl.
However, their destiny is in their own hands. If they can hand Wake Forest their first loss of the season, beat Syra- cuse, Miami, Boston College, and Alabama State – all of these are winnable games – then they’ll be heading into the Sunshine Showdown to face Florida with some serious mo- mentum and perhaps even a top 25 ranking. If that happens we could see a rivalry game for the ages and a whole different outlook on the Bowls ... if FSU won out.
There are still seven games for both FSU and six for Florida, so there is a lot of foot- ball left to be played. We’ll just have to wait it out and see how it all shakes down.
PAGE 12-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2019