Florida is up to No. 8 in the AP poll and is in the top ten for the first time since 2021. It’s a fair enough ranking, though, as we argued yesterday, there is a case to be made that the Gators could be in the top five.
But when looking into the specific votes that certain AP voters gave, there was one submission that is so detached from reality that had Gator fans everywhere turning their heads.
One AP Top 25 submission hasn’t paid attention to Florida
We here at Hail Florida Hail try to make it a point not to start media wars because oftentimes nothing good comes from them. But plenty of Florida fans took note of the poll that Matt McGavic, out of Louisville, submitted.
In his submission, McGavic had Florida at No. 15 he had Ole Miss at No. 7.
Wait, what?
McGavic was asked about this curious choice, on social media and his explanation might have made things worse:
“Last week, I had Ole Miss at No. 5 and Florida rounding out my ballot at No. 25.
In my eyes, giving UF a 10-spot bump for one game a month into the season seemed like a fair move.
I didn’t want to put a team I had 25th all the way up into the top 10 (unless it was like the first week), especially since while their offense is obviously great, their defense is… shaky.
Ole Miss I still have top-10 because I’m very high on them still and they do have that great win over LSU (I intentionally placed them ahead of the Tigers because of H2H).”
Soooooo, because one didn’t think Florida was going to be good at the start of the season, we still have to pretend like they aren’t good? And head-to-head matters for Ole Miss and LSU (who is also ahead of Florida in his poll), but it doesn’t matter for Florida and Ole Miss?
And to further highlight how bad this explanation is, the rationale for why LSU is ahead of Florida is in part because Florida’s defense is shaky. The same defense that held Ole Miss to fewer points than LSU allowed.
This showcases one of the very real problems the AP Poll has had since the dawn of time. Voters cling to their preconceived notions of what they thought a team was going to be and frequently refuse to make changes based on what actually happens in front of them.
To demonstrate how asinine this line of thinking is, there are plenty of Gator fans, including we here at Hail Florida Hail, who were highly resistant to Jon Sumrall being hired back in November. How foolish would any of us look if we still clung to our preconceived notion of Sumrall compared to the actual job he has done since arriving in Gainesville?
Voting is a thankless job, but it is one that carries real consequences as the season progresses. And if, one-third of the way into the season, we can’t adjust our opinions based on new information in front of us, then why are we voting in the first place?
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