Florida Football: 3 reasons the Gators will beat Oklahoma in Cotton Bowl

1. Florida is hungry to prove itself

Sometimes when teams fall short of their ultimate goals — such as Florida with the playoff — they end up laying an egg during their bowl games.

We’ve seen it before with teams who felt as if they were robbed of a chance to play for a national title and they come out during their New Year’s Six bowl and look completely out-classes. There’s some worry that Florida may do just that because the Gators were expecting a playoff berth this season and instead they’re getting a Cotton Bowl Classic battle against a two-loss Oklahoma team.

A win over Oklahoma wouldn’t really mean much for some of these guys, but there’s a hunger from guys like Kyle Trask, Kyle Pitts and Dan Mullen to prove that the final regular season loss to LSU and subsequent SEC title game defeat against Alabama are not indicative of the type of team this is.

Florida is riding a two-game losing streak and there are enough leaders on this team to make sure that it doesn’t turn into three.

Oklahoma may have all the momentum heading into this game, but Florida will be playing with something to prove — and a little bit of anger after the LSU and Alabama losses.