Daniel Shirley: The feeling is Georgia over Florida

The feeling was there last week, and really it didn't make much sense.

And understandably, it was widely mocked throughout the week leading up to Saturday.

Georgia Tech was going to beat Florida State. It was just a feeling. Now, did I ever imagine Georgia Tech would beat Florida State like that? There's no way anyone could have ever imagined that would happen.

But it did, and that moment, with a starring role for former Lamar County standout Lance Austin, might have saved Georgia Tech's season. All the frustrations of five straight losses were wiped away by one of the plays of the season -- if not the decade -- on Austin's return of a blocked field goal for a touchdown on the game's final play. Now, the Yellow Jackets can see if they can carry over that momentum into the second half of the season.

This week, that feeling has switched conferences from the ACC to the SEC, and it will move to northeast Florida in Jacksonville on Saturday.

Georgia is going to beat Florida to make it two wins in two weeks for the Peach State over the Sunshine State. Yep, might as well double down ... or in the perfect football analogy, go for two.

The Bulldogs' offense has struggled against good defenses this season -- Vanderbilt, Missouri and Alabama -- and Florida has a really good defense. And it looks like Georgia will be turning to third-string quarterback Faton Bauta for the start, although the Bulldogs, as far as talent and skills, don't truly have a starting quarterback. They have three backups.

So it doesn't exactly make sense to think that unit will find its footing against the Gators. So it might not make sense to think Georgia can beat Florida.

But somehow the Bulldogs will find a way to make that happen.

Georgia has won three of the past four games against Florida, losing last year in troubling fashion as the Bulldogs were dominated after the first quarter. So maybe the Bulldogs have some belief that they can control this series or at least some desire to get some revenge for last year's game. Either way, the Bulldogs should be motivated.

That said, this is a different Florida team in head coach Jim McElwain's first season, and the Gators have bought in to what McElwain is selling, and that helped them get off to a strong start to this season. That momentum was slowed a bit a couple of weeks ago when quarterback Will Grier was suspended, and he has been replaced by Treon Harris, who started two weeks ago at LSU as the Gators suffered their first loss of the season.

Florida, however, played well, but in the short term teams, can play well after key injuries. Typically, those teams come back to reality and struggle after settling in for the long term after those kinds of injuries, and there's a feeling that is what's going to happen to the Gators on Saturday.

Again, it's just a feeling.

Contact Daniel Shirley at 744-4227 or dshirley@macon.com

This story was originally published October 30, 2015 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Daniel Shirley: The feeling is Georgia over Florida ."