No. 8 Florida, Miami embrace spotlight as they start season

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida and Miami have the college football stage to themselves for 3½ hours Saturday, a new chapter in their once-heated and storied rivalry.

The eighth-ranked Gators and the rebuilding Hurricanes will usher in the 2019 season inside a packed stadium in Orlando, surrounded by sideline celebrities and in front of a coast-to-coast TV audience.

“Everybody’s watching,” Florida receiver Freddie Swain said. “Who doesn’t like attention?”

The winner surely will revel in the spotlight, and both teams have embraced the opportunity to set the tone for the season.

“What are they going to see?” Florida coach Dan Mullen said. “What’s our stamp? When every college person in the country turns on their TV, what’s their thought when they see the Florida Gators? We have to go out there and live up to that on the field.

“What do you want them to think about you?”

The Gators certainly think highly of themselves, especially after notching 10 wins in Mullen’s first season and closing that inaugural year with resounding victories against Florida State (41-14) and Michigan (41-15).

Florida has its highest preseason ranking since Urban Meyer’s final year in Gainesville in 2010 and sounds more than optimistic heading into the opener. Players don’t seem to care — most don’t even know — that the Gators have lost seven of the last eight and 12 of 16 against Miami.

“I think this team is really special,” Gators quarterback Feleipe Franks said. “We expect to go out there and win every Saturday and try to make it a playoff contender and win a championship here again. That’s the expectations here every year.”

It hasn’t been the reality since Meyer’s departure.

But Mullen has the program on the upswing. Florida jumped eight spots, from 13th to fifth, in scoring in the SEC during Mullen’s debut season. It’s the kind of offensive prowess that has been missing in Gainesville since Tim Tebow graduated.

Miami coach Manny Diaz, who spent two years working for Mullen at Mississippi State, can only hope for something similar in his first season as a head coach. The team’s former defensive coordinator inherited a team mixed with holdovers and holes.

“I want to find out can we handle adversity,” he said.

Diaz brought in former Miami coach Jimmy Johnson, who also won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys, to speak to his players this week. Mullen countered with Tebow, who won his only game against the Hurricanes.

Johnson went 3-1 against Florida during his stint with the ‘Canes and has more insight into the series than others around town.

“Being in this city, with so much history and things like that, it’s hard to stay focused,” Miami linebacker Shaq Quarterman said. “You can go to Winn-Dixie, and a fan will try to give you the illustrious history of Miami and why this game is so important.”