The Tennessee Volunteers will walk into The Swamp on Saturday night as a slight favorite despite a more than 20-year losing streak. Florida, who is limping home to the 2025 finish line and in hot pursuit
of Lane Kiffin to take over for the now fired Billy Napier, sits at 3-7 on the season.
Tennessee is looking to close out the 2025 season strong with nine wins and a top-tier bowl game. The Volunteers moved to 7-3 on Saturday with a sleepy win over New Mexico State. Tennessee is 3-3 in conference play.
According to FanDuel Sportsbook, Tennessee is a 3.5 point road favorite. The total has been set at 57.5.
You have to go all the way back to 2003 to find Tennessee’s last win in Gainesville. It was Casey Clausen leading the Volunteers to a 24-10 win, which was his second in a row in The Swamp. Clausen also led Tennessee to a December win in Gainesville back in 2001.
“The timing of this game is unique to both programs,” Josh Heupel said on Wednesday. “Historically has been played much earlier, week three, week four in the season. This is one that matters, certainly inside of our building, and to our fan base. The one the following week does too with Vandy. I think that’s one of the unique things here. Different generations of fans have what they think is the biggest rivalry with a lot of the teams here inside of this league that we’ve historically played year in and year out.”
It’ll be Joey Aguilar this time around for Tennessee, looking to snap a streak against a Florida squad that hasn’t quit in a lost season. Florida fought hard against Georgia in Jacksonville, were blown out by Kentucky, then gave Ole Miss a scare last weekend on the road. What effort will the Volunteers be dealing with on Saturday night? That’s the million dollar question.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will have the call.
