GAINESVILLE, Fla. – To many observers, there’s one obvious lopsided mismatch heading into Saturday’s SEC Championship Game: Florida’s offense vs. Alabama’s defense.

The Gators are in the bottom half of SEC in total offense (352.7 yards per game, No. 13 of 14) and scoring offense (24.1 points per game, No. 11). Alabama leads the conference in total defense (246.8 yards per game) and scoring defense (11.4 points per game). But don’t tell Florida coach Jim McElwain that it’s a mismatch.

“I don’t look at this as a mismatch at all,” he said Monday.

The reporter who asked contended that the second-year Florida coach is alone on that one.

“I look at it as a great opportunity and, you know, that’s part of the chess match,” McElwain responded. “We’re whatever you want to say. I know this: We’re playing in this game and we’re going to give ourselves every opportunity to be successful. I understand your question. Keep telling them that. I’m good with that. I know that our guys will come in with the mindset to go make plays. I’m excited about that.”

Facing an Alabama front seven loaded with future early-round draft picks, Florida QB Austin Appleby sees Saturday as an opportunity for his offensive line to make a statement.

“It’s a huge challenge for us and our offensive line, and I know these guys, and I trust in these guys, and they’re doing everything they can to make sure they’re ready for the challenge,” Appleby said on Monday’s media teleconference. “There’s some good guys on this team that are great competitors, and time and time again, they’ve been challenged.

“They’ve been disrespected. And this will be another opportunity for them to prove some people wrong and to go face a great defense and see what we’re all about. I’m excited for them.”

Florida’s offensive line, however, just faced a great defense, and the results were problematic. In Saturday’s 31-13 loss to Florida State, the Seminoles defense, which leads the nation in sacks (47), teed off for six sacks, two resulting in forced fumbles. The Crimson Tide defense is not far behind at No. 5 with 41 sacks on the season.

Despite last week’s struggles and this week’s challenges, Appleby believes in the game plan drawn up by McElwain and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier.

“We’re going to have a good plan in place. We have great players,” Appleby said. “We go out there and do what we’re capable of doing and playing the Gator way, and we’ll have success against this defense.”

With Appleby, the Gators have found success on the opening drive twice this season, scoring touchdowns on their first possession against Tennessee and LSU. They almost made it three. Against FSU, the offense marched 73 yards to the Seminoles 2-yard line, but was ultimately stopped on 4th-and-goal. It turned out to be the offense’s most impressive drive of the game even though it didn’t result in points.

McElwain knows the Gators will have to build on any early success they might have.

“We’ve got to do a better job of maintaining the art of deception, and we’ve got to continue to do that throughout and not become so predictable when we retake the field say after play 18 or 19,” he said. “So that’s something that we’re working on and something we’ll do this week as well.”

If the Gators can use deception, Appleby believes his teammates can be potential difference-makers.

“The strength of our offense is when we play together and we’re able to stay on rhythm and get our tempo moving,” the quarterback said. “When we’re on tempo and we can start to get the ball moving and we get that first down, Coach is able to dial up things to our playmakers — and we’ve got playmakers everywhere.

“We’ve got great running backs. We’ve got a whole stable of these guys. We’ve got tight ends that are huge match-up issues for teams. We’ve got as much speed as anybody in the country on the outside with our receivers. And for the quarterback just to let the offense work and get the ball to the playmakers. There’s plenty of us.”

Despite all the talent referenced by Appleby, the Gators have been sporadic, only putting together a complete game against Kentucky in Week 2 when they topped the Wildcats 45-7. If they have another one left in them, now’s the time to put it all together – and earn some respect in the process.