Tuscaloosa, Ala. – Florida’s Jeremy Mincey isn’t bold enough to guarantee a blowout over No. 15 Alabama.
“It could be a blowout or just a regular victory,” the defensive end said.
Not surprisingly, Crimson Tide linebacker DeMeco Ryans has a different outlook for Saturday’s game against No. 5 Florida at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
“We always win big games here,” Ryans said.
Well, not always. In fact, not in a while.
This is the most high-profile game for Alabama since beating Florida in the league title game in 1999. The teams haven’t met since.
The Tide has gone 1-7 against ranked teams the past two seasons under coach Mike Shula and has gone 0-5 vs. top-five teams at Bryant-Denny.
Most such games for decades were played at Birmingham’s Legion Field, though, with Bryant-Denny becoming the Tide’s exclusive home field only in recent years.
The swagger is obviously back at both schools after relatively lean stretches, both having started 4-0 and won their first two Southeastern Conference games.
Florida is seeking its first 5-0 start since 2001 under first-year coach Urban Meyer.
The Tide is off to its best start in nine years.
The teams have only met once before when both were unbeaten, in 1964.
Florida-Alabama is a matchup of teams that met five times in the league title game in the 1990s and have emerged as strong candidates to rendezvous again in Atlanta.
“We call them money games,” Tide safety Charlie Peprah said. “This is our chance to show what we can do, and this is our chance to take it up a notch. We’ve got the players to do it. We’ve just got to go out there and prove it.”
Florida’s players have a little more proof in hand, having beaten No. 10 Tennessee 16-7 two weeks ago. Alabama hasn’t played a ranked team and had to play its way into the top 25 without much preseason hype, last week struggling against an Arkansas team that Southern California beat by 53 points a week earlier.
Mincey isn’t all that impressed.
“I would say Tennessee has more talent than Alabama, both sides of the ball,” he said. “Alabama has a good defense, but I’d still say Tennessee has more talent.”
What about that potential blowout?
“The way our defense has played the last four weeks,” he said, “anything is possible.”
Tennessee’s win over No. 4 LSU on Monday night left Alabama as the SEC Western Division’s only unbeaten team overall, though Auburn has won its only league game.
