Before the suspensions, I would have put $100 on Florida, and I think that I have made a grand total of 2 money sports bets in my life previously.
I think you are drastically underestimating the impact of losing 14 starters. Yeah yeah....the brand new talent......blah blah blah.
A) You are assuming that the Michigan talent was worlds ahead of Florida. It's better, but it's not THAT much better.
B) Both teams are going into an unknown environment. When going to a neutral site, I'll take the more experienced team.
C) Michigan was good last year, no doubt, but their success was a bit of a product of their schedule. They played exactly 5 games away from Michigan Stadium and lost three of them. The two they won (@ Rutgers and @ MSU) had a combined record of 5-19 (really only 4-18 since one of MSU's wins was against Rutgers....).
Again, this was before the latest Florida suspensions and before they named the RS FS starting QB. The first bout of suspensions was mostly freshmen. It would have hurt depth, but it wasn't going to have a huge affect on the outcome of the game. Now that more starters are suspended and the threat of future suspensions are coming, I agree that the team psyche could be shot and I no longer think that Florida has the edge it had.
So I'll stand by the original statement. I thought Florida was going to roll Michigan. Now? Who knows, but I still believe it wont be a blowout. We'll find out in a couple of days.
You've only made 2 sports bets ever in your life, and before the suspension you would've put $100 on toss-up game on a team that was a 3.5 point dog? Good thing you don't bet. There were/are far, far, far better CFB bets out there week 1 than this game.
Michigan "lost" 14 starters, but more than a few of those guys listed as starters were barely starters, and Michigan will be better off with them out of the program to be frank. RB Deveon Smith and DT Matt Godin immediately jump to mind. The guys replacing them- will be infinitely better. Obviously losing actual NFL talent level guys like Peppers, Lewis, Wormley, Charlton, Butt, Chesson, Darboh- that is always going to hurt like hell. But a good chunk of those "starters" they "lost" were pretty damn mediocre to put it bluntly. 2017 Chris Evans and Karran Higdon will be light years better than 2016 Deveon Smith. That is just a fact. And a lot of guys they have coming back got plenty of playing time on that defense last year- guys like Winovich, Gary, Hurst, Mone (when he was healthy), Bush, and Kinnel. Losing all those CB's are going to BLOW chunks- but they have a lot of young talent there and Florida doesn't have the QB/WR passing game to really exploit that youth. Florida is extremely young there themselves. It's a wash. Just because of the way the schedule sets up they'll have 6-7 games to learn on the fly before they are seriously tested.
A) Forget talent. I never once mentioned talent. I've been mentioning coaching. Why? Florida is at a pretty big coaching disadvantage in this ball game. Jim McElwain v. Jim Harbaugh is as big of a head coaching mismatch as there. The even greater mismatch is Don Brown v. Doug Nussmeier. Nussmeier is terrible at his job and he's going to be breaking in a freshman QB and is without like 80% of UF's offensive production last year in RB Jordan Scarlett and WR Antonio Calloway.
B) Experience is overrated. Florida was a bad offense last year. They'll be a bad offense this year. Experience isn't going to change that. They were light on offensive talent before the suspensions and they were even lighter on offensive coaching. You know what's better than experience? Talent that is being coached and developed by great coaches. Not sure there is a better maximizer of talent than Harbaugh. He gets every last ounce out of a player. He'll take cast-offs and turn them into real life football players. Seen him do it time and time again. Haven't seen McElwain ever do that once.
C) Forget the fricken bowl game which- which oh yeah by the way- they lost by 1 point. Have my doubts a lot of those guys even wanted to really be there. Not after the mantra was B1GCCG and playoffs or bust. We certainly know Jabrill Peppers didn't want to be there. He sat out when he could've easily played. They lost two conference games on the road by a combined total of 4 points AFTER their QB got his shoulder broken in half. You do realize that Wilton Speight finished that Iowa game- a night game in which they lost by ONE point on a last second FG- with a broken collarbone, right? And he played the Ohio State game with...yup...you guessed it- a broken collarbone. And he was horrific in both of those conference road games and honestly was the primary reason they lost games that they probably should've won by a total of 4 points. Won't get into the bad spot. If Speight doesn't have a broken collarbone- they win both of those games and are in the B1GCCG and playoffs.
You're right, we'll find out in a couple of days.