It’s not about the losing streak.

Beating Kirby Smart? Not that either.

Sure it matters for recruiting, but a championship will matter more.

And for Dan Mullen, that’s what the Florida-Georgia game boils down to Saturday. The other storylines are secondary.

“We want to be a championship football team,” Mullen said of his No. 8 Gators. “Whoever wins this game is going to have the inside track towards being there. And that's what you're competing for in this game, is that opportunity to put yourself in the driver's seat to get to Atlanta and win a championship.”

UF hasn’t done that since 2008, when it also won the national title in Mullen’s last season as offensive coordinator. The Gators have made three trips to Atlanta since then, falling to Alabama every time (2009, 2015, 2016).

No. 5 Georgia has won the Eastern division the last three years, each of which included a win over Florida. Mullen dismissed feeling a heightened sense of urgency this week because of the losing streak.

“No. I think every year it’s an independent deal,” Mullen said. “I just think it’s usually a big game because it usually has some championship implications in it. Whether we won or lost last year has no effect on this year’s game.

“It doesn't clinch it or seal anything, but I mean, you’re two games up on this team and you’re really two games up on everybody else in the league at that point. So that makes it a big game, but it's always been a big game for a long time.”

Saturday will be the third consecutive top-10 matchup between UF and UGA for the first time in the rivalry’s history (eighth overall). Last season marked their first back-to-back meetings as top-10 teams since 1983 and 1984.

“Our guys like playing in big games. I think they’re excited,” Mullen said. “I felt we’ve had two good practices so far on Sunday and Monday. They know.”

Running back Dameon Pierce is one of nine players on Florida’s roster from the state of Georgia, but said everybody on the team wants to beat the Bulldogs.

“We lost to them three years straight,” he said. “That’s obviously a game we circle on our schedule every year. We’ve been coming up short. We’re just going there with a chip on our shoulder.”