Trying to avoid 3-game losing streak, Chris Doering puts Cotton Bowl in context for Florida
By Keith Farner
Published:
Florida is at a bit of a crossroads entering the bowl season as the Gators meet Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. Coach Dan Mullen’s team is trying to avoid a three-game losing streak after the disappointing loss to LSU, and the tough defeat to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game.
With that content, former Florida receiver and SEC Network analyst Chris Doering believes this will be the biggest bowl game of the Mullen era in Gainesville. On the one hand, it is a New Year’s 6 bowl, but on the flip side, this is the first season without double digits in victories in the Mullen era. To Doering, momentum is at stake.
“In the preseason your goals were to get over the Georgia hurdle, to get to the SEC Championship Game. You did all of those things, but the mind-numbing loss to LSU took a little shine off those accomplishments,” Doering said Sunday on the SEC Now bowl special, per 247Sports. “Losing (to Alabama) in such a close game was great in terms of morale but I don’t think there’s such thing as moral victories for the Florida Gators at this time. So you’ve taken some steps forward but if you lose in the bowl game that’s a three-game losing streak. Now all of a sudden you’re finishing your year at 8-4, that’s a step backward from where you were so I don’t know that there’s been a more important bowl game since Dan Mullen’s been in Gainesville than this one that he’ll go into against the Oklahoma Sooners.”
The game is set for 8 p.m. on Dec. 30.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
