Gator Country

Florida Gators senior running back Mike Gillislee breaks free for a run in Saturday's 17-9 loss against the Georgia Bulldogs at EverBank Field in Jacksonville. / Gator Country photo by Curtiss Bryant

As expected, the Florida Gators’ football team dropped in the national rankings after Saturday’s 17-9 loss against the Georgia Bulldogs at EverBank Field in Jacksonville.

Florida fell five spots to No. 8 in both the Associated Press Top 25 and in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll. The Gators were No. 3 in both polls last week.

Both polls were released on Sunday afternoon. The Gators will find out how much the loss affected them in the BCS Standings when that’s updated at 8:30 p.m.

Even with the loss the Gators can still make it into a BCS Bowl as one of the top-8 teams in the standings. One BCS Standings projection has the Gators falling from No. 2 to No. 7.

Florida (7-1 overall, 6-1 in SEC play) could have wrapped up the SEC East title with a win on Saturday.

The Gators can still win the division, but they must beat Missouri on Saturday and hope for Georgia (6-1, 5-1) to lose one of its last two games. The Bulldogs host Ole Miss on Saturday and at Auburn on Nov. 10.

Florida coughed up six turnovers in Saturday’s loss, with the final fumble coming inside the five-yard line with less than two minutes remaining in regulation.

About the author

MikeCapshaw

Mike’s 15 years in the business has included more than six years of covering SEC sports and recruiting at a daily newspaper in Arkansas. He has also helped launch a newspaper, magazines, websites and even a sports talk radio show. Mike has won Florida Press Association awards for Best Sports Game Story and Best Sports Feature Story in the past two years as well as a company-wide award at his former newspaper group that includes some 60 publications, for Excellence in Sports Reporting.

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