Swampcast talks Florida football mindset heading into UK, Florida basketball

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Florida football is heading into its matchup at Kentucky with not much to play for, other than a low-level bowl berth.

Kevin Brockway and Noah Ram of the Gainesville Sun discuss motivation for the Florida Gators (3-5, 2-3 SEC), who are 0-3 on the road this season and haven't played well at Kroger Field in recent years. Florida has dropped two straight at UK and is seeking its first win in Lexington, Ky., since rallying to beat the Wildcats 29-21 on Sept. 14, 2019.

"Temperatures will be in the 50s, not freezing, but certainly not typical Florida weather for a lot of these guys that are from the Sunshine State," Brockway said. "We will see what kind of team shows up. I mean, the players are saying the right things in terms of staying motivated and wanting to finish strong and playing for the patch on the front of the jerseys and the names on the back on the jersey, but this will present an interesting test as to the veracity of those comments."

Ram took some positives from UF's 24-20 loss to rival Georgia in the debut of interim coach Billy Gonzales.

"New offense, new system and they went pound for pound with Georgia, a team that's going to be in the College Football Playoff," Ram said.

Later, Brockway and Ram were joined by Ryan Black of the Louisville Courier-Journal, who said Kentucky (3-5, 1-5 SEC) is coming in with some energy coming off a 10-3 upset at Auburn last week. The Wildcats play hard defensively under head coach Mark Stoops, who at 13 years at UK is the longest-tenured coach in the SEC.

"I expect Kentucky to come out and play quite well," Black said. "There was such a cloud hanging over the program going into last week's game given that it had been more than a year since they won any SEC game at all. So, to finally get that monkey off their back, I think that was certainly a weight off not just the shoulders of the players but of Mark Stoops and all the scrutiny he's under about maybe what his future might be if things just spiral from here."

Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1. Read his coverage of the Gators’ national championship basketball season in “CHOMP-IONS!” — a hardcover coffee-table collector’s book from The Sun. Details at Florida.ChampsBook.com

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Swampcast discusses what's left for Florida football to play for, Florida basketball

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