Written by Garin Turner
Two familiar foes will play each other in this year’s Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl as the #7 Michigan Wolverines do battle with the #10 Florida Gators in Atlanta, Georgia in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 29 at noon EST on ESPN. This is the fourth meeting between the two teams since 2003. Michigan has won all four of those games.
The Wolverines will try to get the bad taste out of its mouth from their crushing loss against rival Ohio State. The Wolverines are 10-2 on the season, having lost its last game of the regular season to those Buckeyes and the first game of the season to Notre Dame who went undefeated and will be playing in the College Football Playoff.
Michigan won 10 straight and was picked to go to the CFP before the loss. They had victories over Northwestern who played in the Big 10 Championship game, Wisconsin (ranked 15th at the time), Michigan State (ranked 24th at the time) and Penn State (ranked 14th at the time) in consecutive weeks. Shea Patterson has 21 touchdown passes on the year and 2,364 passing yards. Running back Karan Higdon lead the Wolverines on the ground with 10 touchdowns and 1,178 yards. Michigan is averaging 36.8 points a game while only giving up 17.6.
Florida enters the bowl game on a three-game winning streak. After starting the year off 1-1, the Gators went on a five-game winning streak. It’s biggest wins of the season were against Mississippi State (ranked 23rd at the time), and LSU (ranked 5th at the time). The Gators are 9-3 losing to Kentucky, Georgia (ranked 7th at the time), and Missouri.
Feleipe Franks has 23 touchdown passes for the Gators and 2,284 yards through the air. He’s also added six touchdowns on the ground. Lamical Perine and Jordan Scarlett led the way on the ground for Florida. Perine has 750 yards and six touchdowns while Scarlett has 717 yards and four touchdowns. The Gators are averaging 34.5 points a game while allowing 20.4 points a game.
