Hello from the islands. My family made it out here to Hawai’i in June, and almost all the dust has settled on our move. It’s not as hot as Florida is, though it can sometimes get as humid, but mercifully there is almost always wind. What people from outside the Sunshine State never appreciate about how hot it can feel is the stagnant air. But you already knew about that.
Anyway, one of the best resources out there for historical preseason expectations is the preseason page at Chris Stassen’s website. It goes back to 1993 and collects the preseason rankings from major preview magazines/publications. It then averages them to create a picture of the consensus expectations for a season.
Florida is No. 12 in the preliminary consensus. It’s early yet, with only Athlon, ESPN FPI, Phil Steele, and Lindy’s included, so we’ll have to wait and see where the Gators end up. The high is No. 11 in Athlon, while the low is No. 17 in Phil Steele.
Here’s the question that I want to ask today: is that high or low? Not for this year, but compared to previous years. We know the team has been underwhelming far too much since Urban Meyer left, but there have been bubbles of optimism here and there. Will Muschamp was the Kirby Smart of his day in terms of hotshot coordinator destined to get a high profile head coaching job; some folks thought Dan Mullen would recreate his UF heyday.
Muschamp’s first team was No. 21 in the consensus, showing a little trepidation about Meyer’s departure and the tumultuous 2010 season. After UF barely made the postseason in 2011, there was a second-year surge expectation for 2012 that got them all the way up to… No. 21. Yes, they would’ve had to improve over ’11 just to fulfill the previous season’s expectations.
You can guess that the expectations were higher after the 11-2 campaign in ’12, and you’d be right. The 2013 team landed at No. 12, but no one foresaw the injury plague that was to come. There was real dysfunction in the coaching ranks to be sure, but it took the long losing streak that year to reveal it to all.
With Muschamp on the ropes for 2014, the preseason media still thought he had a pretty good chance to keep his job. The Gators were in the Also Receiving Votes (ARV) section, but only second at No. 27. Every print magazine that you could name that was around at the time had UF in the top 25, with only some computer models and websites leaving the Gators out of the rankings.
So that was the Muschamp era. Florida was expected to be a top 25 team each of the first three years and a marginal one in the fourth. Coach Boom managed to get his team in the final rankings just once, however.
Enter Jim McElwain. After how Muschamp crashed and burned, not a single publication notable enough for Stassen to include had UF in its preseason top 25. Naturally then, the team won ten games and went to the SEC Championship Game. Mac’s second team finished first in ARV to essentially be No. 26, and that one also went to Atlanta — and finished top 15 in both major polls instead of No. 25 as UF did the prior season with a better won-loss record.
Now, after consecutive division titles, the media was ready to believe in McElwain and Florida. The Gators were No. 15 in the preseason polls. Were you ready to believe? I wasn’t, as Mac had skated by on a lot of close wins in games that shouldn’t have been close if UF was that good of a team. He buckled under pressure and was gone after Jacksonville.
Then it became Mullen time. He was expected to fix things straight away, as his first team was No. 21 in the preseason. Thing is: he did fix some things, mostly having to do with what the offense did on game day. Both his first two teams finished in the top ten, anchored by the sneakily good recruiting that McElwain’s staff had done. The Gators finally had top ten expectations at No. 8 in 2019, and Mullen got them there with a No. 6 (AP Poll) and No. 7 (Coaches Poll) finish.
The 2020 campaign was of course when things began to slide. Expectations were high, with Florida slotted to be another top ten team at No. 7 in the consensus. The floor fell out from under the defense, however, and UF was merely a top 15 team by season’s end. The Gators were exactly at No. 15 in the 2021 consensus with most of the media apparently predicting an end to the downward turn after the way ’20 ended, but Mullen was mentally checked out and lost his job during the season.
Finally, we get to Billy Napier. Everyone knew things were a mess by Mullen’s end, and Napier didn’t promise a quick fix. Accordingly, only one publication put UF in the preseason rankings — College Football News picked them No. 11 (?!?!?) — and UF was in the ARV section at No. 37.
So with a new transfer quarterback in Graham Mertz coming in and the team in Napier’s critical second year, were expectations higher for 2023? Yes, but only just. A mere two publications ranked UF, but that was enough to move the up to No. 28 in the ARV section.
But what about last year? The brutal schedule was looming, yet did anyone new believe in Florida despite it? In a word, no. The same two publications ranked UF, with one being ESPN FPI interestingly enough, and no one else did. The Gators ended up No. 36 in the ARV section. It says something about how tight the ’23 consensus was and how closely clustered teams are in the ARV bin that roughly the same preseason ranking affected the placement so much.
In any event, the exact No. 12 placement in this year’s consensus may not hold for UF, but the Gators likely will be a preseason top 15 team. People are high on DJ Lagway and the defensive improvement from last year, so I do think they’ll stay in that range.
Which means that this year is truly the first one in which a Napier team has had appreciable preseason expectations. The No. 12 spot is an important one because it’s at the borderline of the College Football Playoff. UF is a borderline Playoff team in the expectations (yes, I know because of the G5 champ guarantee that No. 11 is probably the last at-large getting in).
Mullen’s lack of recruiting work ethic versus his predecessors are the thing that finally put Florida into a lasting rut. To be sure, Napier could’ve shown more sense of urgency in his rebuild. However, Napier’s starting point really was low, and everyone the struggles coming.
Now, those struggles are expected to be over. Let’s all hope they truly are.