Coaches preseason poll shows difficulty of Florida football’s schedule

Florida football, as we’ve all known for quite some time, has debatably the hardest schedule in college football this fall.

Being in the SEC always brings tough opponents, but the Gators have a specifically challenging group of games that they’ll have to play in.

The Coaches Preseason Poll was released earlier today, and to get one thing out of the way, no, the Gators did not make the cut.

But the poll did reiterate just how hard this UF schedule is.

Florida football: No easing into it

The Gators play five of the teams in the preseason poll. But we can narrow that down even more and say that they’ll play five teams ranked in the top-15. Those games add up fast.

And they jump right in with two of those games in the first three weeks, playing No. 14 Utah in the season opener and No. 10 Tennessee in week three.

Then after four weeks, they get the toughest game of all of them, the Florida-Georgia matchup in Jacksonville. You probably guessed it, but the Dawgs came in at No. 1 in the poll today.

The rest of the year is some more tough games back-to-back, but none tougher than a road game at No. 5 LSU before the Gators host No. 8 FSU to finish the regular season.

Two of these games are at home (Tennessee, FSU), two are true road games (Utah, LSU), and one is in a neutral site (UGA).

Rather than look at these games as an unfair draw and a death sentence, fans should look at them the way that Napier and the team are: a challenge.

Iron sharpens iron, and this Florida team has something to prove. If you ask me, three of these games are pretty winnable in Utah, Tennessee, and FSU. Going 3-2 over these five would be very impressive, and set the Gators up for an eight-win season.

So before realignment completely changes the game, sit back and enjoy this season of pure, SEC football.