Georgia Southern @ Florida preview

Florida coach Will Muschamp is coming under fire as the Gators suffer through a dismal campaign. A win against visiting Georgia Southern won’t do much to quiet the critics, but a loss would be devastating. The Gators are on a five-game losing streak and need to knock off the Eagles this week and No. 2 Florida State next week just to become bowl eligible a season after making the Sugar Bowl.

Florida has been ravaged by injuries on the offensive side of the ball and debuted their third starting quarterback in a 19-14 loss at South Carolina last week when redshirt freshman Skyler Mornhinweg took over under center for the injured Tyler Murphy. Muschamp was defiant after the game. “There’s a lot of negativity out there, and some of our fans need to get a grip,” he said. “They really do. They’ve got a bunch of kids in that locker room fighting their butt off. They can criticize me all the want. I’m great with that.”

TV: 2 p.m. ET, ESPN3. LINE: NA

ABOUT GEORGIA SOUTHERN (6-4): The Eagles are closing out there season at the Gators and are coming off two straight wins. The FCS school rushed for 398 yards on 52 carries in a 38-20 win at Elon last week and is averaging 360.4 yards on the ground. Jerick McKinnon leads the charge with an average of 113.5 yards but quarterback Kevin Ellison is a threat himself with a total of 750 yards, including a team-high 163 and two scores against Elon while McKinnon sat out.

ABOUT FLORIDA (4-6): The Gators understand what’s at stake with Georgia Southern, and Murphy is testing his injured shoulder in practice this week in hopes of playing on Saturday. “We don’t ever look down on our opponents, but definitely with a team like Georgia Southern coming in, with how we’ve struggled, it’s going to be a fair matchup,” Murphy said. “They’re going to come in and try to make things worse for us.” It’s difficult to imagine things could get much worse for Florida, which is averaging 14.8 points during its losing streak and managed just 107 passing yards behind Mornhinweg last week.

EXTRA POINTS

1. Florida is on its third starting RB as well, with Kelvin Taylor taking over.

2. The Gators are just 10-of-18 on their field-goal attempts.

3. Florida won the two previous meetings with the Eagles by a combined score of 100-28

PREDICTION: Florida 38, Georgia Southern 17