Now that you have clicked on our troll headline about Florida Football, we here at Hail Florida Hail are going to ask a question that we have asked in a variety of ways this season:
Why are we supposed to believe it is normal that Indiana, SMU, Miami, Texas A&M, Colorado, Boise State, Washington State, Missouri, Ole Miss, and even South Carolina are all ranked this week by the college football playoff committee while the Florida Gators are not in year three of the Billy Napier Era?
If you are keeping score at home, the first six teams we mentioned are all led by a coach who is no more than three years into his tenure with that school.
Texas A&M, Missouri, and South Carolina are all teams Billy Napier beat his first season at Florida, so the excuse of "Well, look what Napier inherited" doesn't hold water either because it implies all three of those programs have been able to surpass Florida over the past two seasons.
It may seem like all we do here at Hail Florida Hail is pile on Napier, but we are going to continue to be a site that refuses to allow Scott Sticklin and crew to make us believe that it is completely normal at the University of Florida to be so far adrift from the rankings that we can preemptively write a piece knowing the Gators won't show up in the rankings.
Last week, we wrote that of the initial top 16 teams in the playoff committee rankings, all 16 were led by a coach who had won at least nine games in that program within three years of arriving. 23 of the 25 teams ranked last week were led by a coach who had at least eight games within three years.
But Stricklin wants you to believe that as long as the Gators are playing hard, 6-6 isn't that bad.
There is a reason why the Gators weren't ranked this week.