If This Doesn’t Get You Motivated …

Steve Spurrier, meet Rodney Dangerfield.

Vegas oddsmakers have tapped Spurrier’s former Florida team as a three-touchdown favorite this Saturday against his current South Carolina Gamecock squad.

Also, one of college football’s top analysts is already looking three weeks ahead to the third-ranked Gators SEC Championship game against top-ranked Alabama, projecting that Florida will roll past the Tide to earn a spot in college football’s national championship game.

CNNSI’s Stewart Mandel says “I see Florida topping No. 1 Alabama in the SEC title game and edging past Texas for the other spot in Miami,” something you better believe will be taped up on the Gamecocks’ lockers this week.

Then there’s reigning Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, who is looking to recapture the hardware he won last year in large part thanks to a seven-touchdown (5 rushing, 2 passing) evisceration of the Gamecock defense in Columbia.

Seriously, people … what else does a football team need to get properly motivated to play?

Obviously, we’re not saying South Carolina actually has a chance to go down to Gainesville and win – although anything is possible.

In fact, it took a blocked field goal as time expired for Florida to hang onto a 17-16 win the last time the Gamecocks visited “The Swamp.”

Florida went on to win the national championship that year.

Amazingly, though, this Gator team is even better than that squad, with a fluke loss to Ole Miss the only chink in an offensive blitzkrieg that has demolished its last five opponents by a combined score of 243-57.

So yeah … we can see Vegas making the Gamecocks – who have an SEC championship-caliber defense but a frustratingly inconsistent offense – a three-touchdown underdog.

But we can also see Carolina giving the Gators a much better game than that …

Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m. Saturday and the game will be televised nationally on CBS.