Florida Football: As AP Poll shows, Gators still fighting for respect

Following its big win Saturday night, voters of the AP Poll took notice and ranked Florida football after the Gators started the year unranked. For a program that was pegged to be terrible by the national media in 2023, getting ranked at all is a big accomplishment.

But the poll also highlights that voters’ preconceived notions about the Gators still linger three weeks into the season.

Florida Football: Make it make sense

Let’s play the blind resume game. Those are always fun.

Team A: 2-1 record. One loss was by 13 points on the road to the team currently ranked 11th in the poll. The best win was 13 points over the team that was previously ranked 11th. Also, when challenged to a fight, they won’t back down.

Team B: 2-1 record. One loss was by 13 points to a previously unranked team. The best win was over a team that went 3-9 last season. Also, when challenged to a fight, they most definitely back down.

With that in mind, which team do you think was ranked higher in the latest AP Poll?

Tennessee is currently ranked 23rd, while Florida snuck into the poll at 25th.

Based on what we laid out above, it highlights the ongoing narrative that Florida still has to fight against, even after a double-digit win over a highly-ranked team.

All but one of the voters in the poll that had Florida in their own top 25 put them ahead of Tennessee. Dave Preston of WTOP still had Tennessee 18th while putting Florida at 23rd.

What caused Tennessee to finish ahead of Florida in the final tabulations is that 22 of the voters still ranked Tennessee while leaving Florida unranked. The most egregious came from Chuck Landon of Charleston Gazette-Mail. In his ballot, Tennessee is still 16th while Florida is nowhere to be found.

In the end, the rankings are semantics for this season, and Florida still has a long way to go to justify its spot among the big boys.

But with expanded playoffs coming next season and the possibility of Florida’s ranking genuinely mattering, all will ask for is common sense and consistency.