The state of Florida’s oldest college football rivalry is renewed Saturday when No. 19 Miami visits Florida in The Swamp (3:30 PM, ABC).

The 57th edition of the Canes vs. Gators features two championship programs desperate to win again, both led by third year coaches hoping to silence lingering doubters.

Florida hasn’t lost a home opener since 1989, the longest streak in college football, but the Gators are 2.5-point underdogs to rival Miami on Saturday, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, a surprise to some given Florida’s prowess at home but an understandable and warranted spread upon closer examination.

Miami finished 7-6 a season ago, but the Hurricanes were a Mario Cristobal brain freeze from being 5-0 and thoroughly outplayed 7 of the first 8 teams on their schedule on their way to a 6-2 start. The lone exception came in a more lopsided than the score 41-31 loss at North Carolina, but the Hurricanes beat Clemson, dominating both lines of scrimmage, a week later. A 1-4 finish, including an extremely disappointing Pinstripe Bowl loss to Rutgers, clouded the optimism from Miami’s hot start, but 3 of those 4 defeats came in 1-score games where a youthful Hurricanes team just couldn’t quite close out quality victories.

The Hurricanes return 17 starters and are better across the board in other areas, thanks to a decorated transfer portal class that included coveted quarterback Cam Ward (Washington State), All-Pac-12 running back Damien Martinez (Oregon State), stick-moving receiver Sam Brown (Houston), and defensive help in edge rusher Tyler Baron (Tennessee), defensive tackle CJ Clark (NC State), and steady secondary addition Mishael Powell (Washington).

“We are a year older now, with a bunch of juniors and seniors who have learned hard lessons,” Mario Cristobal told SDS at ACC Kickoff. “That type of battle-tested veteran leaders weren’t something we had when we got here as a staff. Part of the blueprint to becoming a champion involves getting older and tougher.”

As a result, there are whispers that “The U is back,” and they may have some basis, even if we’ve heard that story before.

On the other sideline, the Gators feel like they are better, too.

For all the doom and gloom surrounding Billy Napier’s second season in Gainesville, a 5-7 dud capped by a blown double-digit lead at home to bitter rival Florida State, the Gators will field a very talented team in 2024. Napier’s skills as an evaluator and recruiter have helped Florida rise from 16th (upon arrival in 2022) to 12th in the 247 Talent Composite ahead of Napier’s third season and Florida’s blue-chip roster ratio is the highest it has been since year 1 of the Jim McElwain era (2015), when the Gators reached the SEC Championship.

The Gators need to improve on defense, where they finished 124th nationally in yards allowed per play and 119th in passing defense a season ago. But Florida played more freshman on defense than any program in the SEC a season ago, and portal additions like safety Asa Turner, a starter on Washington’s national title game team, should help it stop the bleeding.

Of course, what’s new quickly becomes “same old, same old” after a loss or two, and at programs still battling their way back to prominence, confidence is a precarious proposition, earned in teaspoons, not cups.

A loss Saturday won’t send Florida or Miami into a tailspin, but it will deflate the air in carefully cultivated offseason narratives from both programs that they are close to turning the proverbial corner. Building programs anywhere involves attending to at least a modicum of outside doubt and cynicism. As you win, that doubt slowly erodes or morphs into trust and faith.

When you lose, doubt lingers. In the worst scenarios, it creeps into your own building. When that happens, coaches rarely survive. After a summer of players at Miami and Florida preaching “buy in” and “togetherness”, a loss Saturday in The Swamp could create that existentially bad type of doubt at the defeated program. The stakes are truly that high.

Here are 3 matchups that will define Florida vs. Miami, followed by a prediction.

Florida’s LB Shemar James vs. Miami RB Damien Martinez and run game

Let’s start with one cornerstone statement: If Miami runs the ball effectively, it will win.

Miami RB Damien Martinez isn’t just a good back. He’s elite, tallying over 2,000 yards rushing over the past 2 seasons at Oregon State, where he earned first-team All-Pac-12 honors in 2022 and 2023 and was a Doak Walker Award (best RB) semifinalist in 2023. Martinez’s improvement as a pass catcher made him more multiple a year ago as well, and with his size and low center of gravity, he’s very difficult to tackle in the open field, which offsets his lack of high end speed.

Martinez runs with low pad level and violent force, similar to Kentucky’s Ray Davis, who terrorized the Gators for 280 yards and 3 touchdowns a season ago.

That makes Florida’s best tackler, Shemar James, the key to Florida’s efforts to stop Martinez on Saturday, especially as the game wears on, which is when Martinez excels. Martinez’s 59% success rate on runs in the first half ranks in the top 20% of college football, but his 67% success rate in the second half is No. 3 among returning running backs in the sport.

Florida’s tackling was atrocious at times a season ago, as the Davis highlights demonstrate, but was even worse after James left the Georgia game with a season-ending injury. Florida must wrap up consistently Saturday. More important, they’ll need to slow the Canes’ ground game without selling out to stop the run to win — which is the ideal transition to the second key of the game.

Cam Ward vs. Florida’s pressure

Florida must stop the run conventionally because they’ll need to bring pressure to corral Miami’s quarterback, Cam Ward.

Now in his 5th season of college football, Miami’s new captain has thrown for 13,876 yards and 119 touchdowns in his 4 college seasons — the first 2 at FCS Incarnate Word, the past 2 at Washington State. Only Dillon Gabriel returns with more career production at the quarterback position.

While it’s misleading to call Ward a pocket passer only, as he does have 16 career rushing touchdowns, he’s best when he is sitting in the pocket and cycling through progressions, which he does efficiently and quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, Ward can move, as the video below aptly demonstrates:

But while Ward directed the nation’s No. 4 passing offense at Washington State last season, his splits become eye-opening when you evaluate how he performs without pressure and under pressure. According to PFF, Ward’s passer grade of 86.6% when his pocket is clean is among the top 5 nationally.

That mark drops to 50.8, in the bottom third of quarterbacks nationally, when under pressure. Ward’s “turnover worthy plays” percentage is 5% under pressure — compared to just 2.9% in a clean pocket or on the move — and that number increases to 7.7% in road games, again in the bottom third of the sport. Data can be misleading, and Ward’s ability to extend plays with his legs better than most should be considered here — but that acknowledgment only goes so far. The statistical bottom line is that Ward is a different quarterback under pressure than when protected.

Florida’s coordinators Austin Armstrong and Ron Roberts, then, need to find ways to dial up pressures, which, as fate would have it, is something both coaches are good at doing. But Florida’s ability to roll out different pressures to show Ward multiple looks depends on run defense first, which is why Florida’s ability to generate pressure ends up as matchup 2 instead of matchup one.

Graham Mertz vs. Miami’s revamped secondary

The Hurricanes have an outstanding front 7, led by human wrecking ball Rueben Bain, a freshman All-American and All-ACC performer (7.5 sacks) who should improve markedly as a sophomore. Tennessee transfer Tyler Baron and Michigan State transfer Simeon Barrow add to the embarrassment of riches the Canes have up front. Florida, with a reshuffled offensive line, will have its hands full and Florida offensive coordinator Russ Callaway and Napier will need to do find creative ways to slow the Canes down from a pass rush standpoint.

That said, the huge advantage the Gators have is Mertz’s ability to make big time throws consistently despite pressure. In fact, only LSU’s Jayden Daniels was better when facing pressure a season ago than Mertz. Daniels won the Heisman Trophy, for those scoring at home. Mertz, pressured consistently all season, found ways to make plays.

Graham Mertz’s NFL passer rating of 110.6 (nearly 11 points higher than Ward’s 100) a season ago reflects this, as does the PFF data, which shows Mertz with the highest returning “under pressure” passer grade in the SEC (80.5). That isn’t to say that Mertz is unflappable — his “turnover worthy throws” do increase to 2.9% (from 1% with a clean pocket) under pressure, but contrary to some false Twitterverse narratives, Mertz is an extremely productive quarterback under pressure, which was essential last year given Florida allowed the 2nd-most quarterback pressures in the SEC, ahead of only Vanderbilt. Give him a clean pocket, and well — he’s even better.

The point being Mertz will make some big time throws Saturday, whether his pocket is consistently clean or not. That means the onus will be on Miami’s revamped secondary, which returns only 1 starter (the steady Daryl Porter Jr.). Mishael Powell started 14 games for a national runner-up a season ago, but beyond him, there’s little proven production. Damari Brown was a big-time recruiting win, but he made just 14 tackles in a substitute role a season ago. Jaden Harris impressed in camp, but has just 7 career tackles. Like Brown, Zaquan Patterson was a prep sensation. He’ll also be playing his first college football game Saturday. You get the idea.

Miami ranked 53rd nationally as a pass defense a season ago, and returns just one starter. That could be a positive thing, given Cristobal’s talent upgrades. But facing one of the best quarterbacks in the SEC, the Hurricanes will be baptized by fire in The Swamp and the winner of that matchup could very well win the football game.

Prediction: Florida 27, Miami 23

Mertz will make just enough plays and Florida’s defense will do just enough to grab a pivotal Week 1 win over a hated rival.