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Florida football: Gators No. 10 in CFP rankings, and that’s okay

By Matthew Clark

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 02: Lawrence Cager #15 of the Georgia Bulldogs rushes after a catch during a game against the Florida Gators on November 02, 2019 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 02: Lawrence Cager #15 of the Georgia Bulldogs rushes after a catch during a game against the Florida Gators on November 02, 2019 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /
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With the way this season has gone for Florida football, I wasn’t really sure what to expect in the way of the first College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday.

I can’t say as I am too terribly disappointed in the placement of Florida football in the first iteration of the College Football Playoff rankings.

The rankings, released Tuesday night, have the Gators at No. 10 — exactly where they are ranked in the latest AP Top 25 poll.

And, that’s okay.

If you consider the kind of season we’ve had with losing Feleipe Franks and a whole host of other injuries, a questionable offensive line, a new quarterback who, up until now, had not started a competitive game of football outside of family flag football, in seven years, isn’t too bad.

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I mean, we have a quality top 10 win over Auburn — who is ranked No. 11 in the CFP — and our losses are top 10 losses — to LSU (ranked No. 2) and Georgia (ranked No. 6).

Our scheduling of Towson and Tennessee-Martin didn’t seem to make a huge difference in the committee’s mind.

Overall, it seems Florida football was judged on what they have done thus far and not necessarily on the strength of schedule — although, I suspect that was a secondary qualification considering we are ranked ahead of undefeated Baylor and Minnesota as well as several one-loss teams like Wake Forest, Cincinnati, Memphis and Boise State.

All of those aforementioned teams have a pretty low strength of schedule — especially compared to that of Florida football.

These first rankings are about what I expected.

We knew we weren’t going to be in the top six after Saturday’s 24-17 loss to Georgia, but I didn’t think the College Football Playoff committee would hammer us too hard because we don’t have any “bad” losses on the resume.

I mean, it’s not like we lost to South Carolina … oops, nevermind.

The other thing about this is that it’s going to change. Consider that LSU and Alabama (No. 3) play each other this weekend. The loser here is going to fall down the College Football Playoff rankings.

Penn State (No. 4) plays Minnesota (No. 17) this weekend and Ohio State (No. 1) two weeks later. Oregon (No. 7) still has games with Arizona and Arizona State before the Pac-12 championship game where they could face Utah (No. 8).

Oh, and Georgia still has Missouri (NR), Auburn (No. 11) and Texas A&M (NR) as well as Georgia Tech (NR).

The bottom line is Florida football is sitting in a nice position.

As there is the potential for upsets and the strong likelihood that some of the teams ahead of Florida won’t be in a matter of weeks, the Gators — provided they take care of business with Vanderbilt, Missouri and Florida State — could see themselves move up higher.

Next. Gators still have a lot to look forward to. dark

Remember, No. 10 Florida will host Vanderbilt at noon Saturday, Nov. 9 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

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