Notebook: Meyer, players have respect for Panthers

To most, Florida’s game with Florida International on Saturday is of the cupcake variety.

Coach Urban Meyer is directing his team away from that mindset as best he can and through all the questions of how to get the top-ranked Gators (10-0, 8-0 SEC) prepared for Saturday’s game, Meyer directs his answers to the talent and potential FIU (3-7, 3-4 Sun Belt) has on its roster.

“I probably have a little more respect for the Florida athletes and South Florida athletes than (others),” Meyer said during the SEC coaches call Wednesday. “I think it’s going to be a good football game. I think this is going to be a team that’s going to be a bowl team in the next couple years.

“We have great respect for them and we’re going to give the very best we can and try to get 11 wins.”

With a team that Meyer said is still looking to improve, the FIU game serves as another chance to get things fixed on both sides of the ball.

Fortunately for the Gators, the Golden Panthers enter Saturday’s game a bit overmatched statistically and could help jump-start Florida’s struggling offense.

FIU allows 33.4 points and nearly 500 yards of total offense a game. Offenses also have a .841 scoring percentage against the Golden Panthers, while the Gators scoring percentage inside the 20-yard line is .750.

Stats aside, redshirt senior linebacker Ryan Stamper said he and his teammates aren’t looking past their opponent. FIU might not be as intimidating as an SEC opponent, but Stamper said the Gators have been working like they are.

“We’re playing FIU, but believe it or not, we’ve been practicing hard like we practiced for previous games — South Carolina, Georgia,” Stamper said. “The players are probably like, ‘Man, we’re still out here practicing hard for FIU,’ but that’s what it takes for us to come out there and be productive like we have been in the past.”

With that extra work comes more focus and to Stamper, an unfocused Gator team could leave Saturday with a loss, throwing a considerable wrench into the Gators’ postseason plans.

“We already know what’s on the line,” he said. “We pretty much know what it takes to win and we’re going hard.”

Nixon’s heavy heart

Freshman offensive lineman Xavier Nixon’s mother Fotini Nixon cried when she learned her son was making his first-career start against South Carolina. Weeks prior, it was Xavier who felt a wave of emotion because of his mother.

Fotini was at Fort Hood in Texas on Nov. 5, when 13 were killed during a base shooting. Xavier said he was unsure where his mother was during the shooting, but he called her afterward to check on her.

“Thank God she was safe,” Xavier said.

Training to acquire the rank of E-9, Fotini has been in Sergeant Major Academy for almost five months. She made it to her third Gator game this season last Saturday.

Even with two military parents, Nixon said he was not pushed toward enlisting.

“They didn’t want me to follow in their footsteps,” he said. “They told me to go to school, get an education and do the best you can and make us proud.”