Florida prepares for Teddy Bridgewater, Louisville in Sugar Bowl

• Sophomore QB Teddy Bridgewater led Louisville to the Big East title while injured
• "I have no doubt in my mind we could play in the SEC," Bridgewater said
• Florida faced tough quarterbacks this season such as Heisman winner Johnny Manziel and Aaron Murray

NEW ORLEANS -- How is this for an endorsement for Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater:

"I feel like, hands down, he's the best quarterback we will face this year," Florida All-America safety Matt Elam said of the Gators' opponent in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2.

One of the quarterbacks Florida did a pretty good job against? Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel, who couldn't get in the end zone in the second half of a 20-17 Florida win Sept. 8.

So it's not like Elam and the Gators have seen dog food. They actually faced most of the top quarterbacks in the Southeastern Conference and came within a 17-9 turnover-filled loss to Georgia of having a shot at playing Alabama for the league title.

Bridgewater, a sophomore, certainly had his Heisman moment this season, leading the Cardinals to a 20-17 win at Rutgers to clinch the Big East title and a trip to New Orleans while playing with a sprained right ankle and broken left wrist. He confessed Saturday that he was in agony during the plane ride to that game.

After a few series, he got on the headphones and pleaded with offensive coordinator Shawn Watson to let him play. After trailing 7-0, the Cardinals went on to a 20-17 win and claimed the Big East title.

"Real honestly, he was playing on one leg and with one arm. ... He just wills himself to great moments,'' Watson said.

Bridgewater is still wearing a protective brace this week on the wrist as a precaution but says he's healthy and ready for a big outing. And Bridgewater, who almost committed to Florida while being recruited as a wide receiver out of Miami Northwestern, seems less than intimidated by playing the Gators (11-1).

"I have no doubt in my mind we could play in the SEC," he declared.

Watson, who has 30 years of college coaching experience, calls the Miami native "the best football player I've ever coached.''

So Elam calls him the best he's faced, Watson says he's the best he's had -- some pretty fancy endorsements. Here's another. Florida gave up five touchdown passes all season and leads the nation in pass-defense efficiency (91.49 rating). But Bridgewater had five TD passes in one game (against Temple) and threw for 3,452 yards and 25 scores.

Who wins this confrontation?

Florida junior defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd says it's all about pressure and keeping Bridgewater off balance.

"He's got a lot he can do,'' says Floyd, likely playing his last college game as a projected NFL pick in the first two rounds if he leaves. "We've got to come with our cleats tight.''

One problem for the Gators is they know they're getting a different version of Bridgewater than the one they watched on film. With a month to heal, it's showtime in arguably the biggest game Louisville's program has played in.

"He's an accurate thrower, can create on the move. So for us that's the first thing that jumped out to me,'' Gators defensive coordinator Dan Quinn said. "I thought they played a bunch of receivers, they had three and four guys that played tight end, so they certainly utilized a lot of guys offensively.

"But I guess the thing that jumped out the most (when first watching film) was their throw game. They do a lot of different personnel packages, like a pro-style scheme. And I think that was probably the thing that jumped out to me. (Bridgewater) certainly earned our respect ... being injured and coming back to play in a short week and things like that with a wrist injury, an ankle injury. You have respect for those kind of toughness moments that that guy certainly showed at the end of their regular season.''

Bridgewater, like Manziel, is another tough dual-threat quarterback who can run as well as pass. He just hasn't run much in the second half of the season because he was so beaten up.

"I think, No. 1, when you give a good quarterback time and he's an accurate thrower, they can make you look bad. I've been on the other end of that, when a guy was hot and he was completing balls,'' Quinn said. "For us, we sometimes call it denying the ball, where you have to play a little bit tighter coverage on people to make them make tight throws. The other thing we say is get the quarterback off the spot, so making him not feel comfortable back in the pocket. Sometimes, I say for us to win the game we have got to affect the quarterback.

"Sometimes it might be with a disguise; sometimes it might be with the way we get them off the spot. Sometimes with the hits that happen early in the game can make it affect all the way through. For us, affecting the quarterback has been such a big turnaround. Our players have really bought into that in terms of they understand that. We've played a lot of guys. I think that's one thing that, certainly in (the SEC), you better have enough defensive linemen to finish games, and we were certainly able to do that.''

So the Gators will throw a lot of different players at the Louisville offensive line to try to wear it down while also blitzing from different areas to make Bridgewater move around.

"Bridgewater, No. 1 (has) a very quick release,'' Quinn said. "You can tell the good quarterbacks have the mental quickness to know where to go with the ball, and he certainly has that. He knows where to go with the ball. He has good accuracy with the throw. When he gets comfortable, he is a dangerous guy and he's a problem. That's our job to make sure we can get him off the spot and affect him and hit him.''

Quinn realizes the Louisville quarterback wasn't the same player after he got hurt.

"In earlier games, against South Florida and games where you really saw him get out and run, oftentimes he would create (and) scramble to pass first,'' Quinn said. "And then when he did cross the line he could be a dangerous guy. I thought quick feet in the pocket, knows how to avoid, and good accuracy and mental quickness to know where to go with the ball.''

To get ready for mobile quarterbacks this season, the Gators defense went against UF's third-team quarterback, Tyler Murphy.

"He wasn't down on the scout team the whole time, but on the weeks I said, 'Murph, we need in this period,' (he said) 'I got you coach.' I thought that's a real team guy, helping the team and having a role to do and never a question of I'll come down and do whatever you need coach and watch tape of the team we're playing and those kind of things,'' Quinn said. " Sometimes the quarterback who we're playing has a scramble pattern and escapes here. In practice we would try to simulate that the best we could.''

Gators safety Josh Evans, however, said Bridgewater certainly has the passing skills to create nightmares just by sitting in the pocket and firing away.

"What separates him is he's pretty accurate. He's like 70% or something like that passing this year,'' Evans said. "So any time you're going against a quarterback who is pretty accurate, you want to make sure you're working on your fundamentals of the game.''