I did some digging on the gaytors. I trust Phil Steele, he is consistently more accurate than other forecasters, year after year. No forecaster is perfect of course, but at least he is a better prognosticator than others.
He ranks units nationally. If you're in the top 20, that's very good. Top 40, meh, above average...
maybe, particularly factoring in the SEC vs rest of country. So...the gaytor DL and LB units are not even in the top 60!
We already know their run D suxes, so now here is a nugget or two of prognostication punditry to help explain why.
Having said that, their DBs are top 10. So...crappy run D, decent pass D, goes against the grain of what the Vols have so far done this year. But it's not like we can't run or don't have any talent at all there. Against what I saw of UFs run D vs all three of their opponents I think we will do just fine running the ball. FTR, USF was 2-10 last year. They were expected to be (and likely are) much better this year, but still.
On the other side of the ball, we all know florida depends on the run offensively, and our run D has been solid even against a Pitt team that was at least supposed to decent at running the ball. I guess our run D will get a truer test this Saturday, but they should at least be able to slow down the gaytor rush attack.