![Florida head coach Jon Sumrall celebrates a score during the first half an NCAA football game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, September 5, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_3000,h_1687/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ReutersImages/mmsport/213/01m2163g1gx2g31qx9sy.jpg "Florida head coach Jon Sumrall celebrates a score during the first half an NCAA football game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, September 5, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
The new AP Poll is out, and Florida finds itself in the exact same position it did prior to the start of the year. The Gators are not ranked and are the team receiving the 2nd most most among the unranked teams.
Translation: Florida is essentially ranked 27th.
It’s all semantics and Florida will have more than its fair chance to prove itself this year, but there seemed to be some wild inconsistency with the poll as teams moved up and down all around the Gators while Florida stayed put.
Florida given the same spot in the updated AP Poll
Boise State took Oregon to the wire in their opener, and despite losing, the reward for the Broncos was moving up ahead of Florida to be the top team receiving votes outside of the top 25. Oregon was moved down four spots despite their win.
So if we are to follow that logic that being forced to win close against a team that is ranked below you results in a drop, why was there no movement with Ole Miss and Louisville? No. 9 Ole Miss needed a walk-off field goal to beat No. 24 Louisville, and yet both teams stayed exactly where they were last week.
Michigan was punished for kind of, sort of beating Western Michigan, and the Wolverines are now behind the Gators in the receiving votes category, but Houston was litteraly pushed up a spot even though they only led by six points against Oregon State with six minutes to play.
The Jeff Sagarin computer rankings have Oregon State at No. 102, by the way.
Mind you, that is also with the backdrop of Washington being moved down two spots for a very similar type of game against No. 77 Washington State.
Florida was a 26.5-point favorite against FAU and won by 45 points, beating the spread by 18 points. That resulted in zero movement. Virginia was a four-point favorite against NC State and won by 26 points, beating the spread by 22 points. Never mind that NC State is now No. 63 in the computer rankings; apparently, that performance was so impressive that Virginia went from receiving one single vote to now being straight up ranked No. 25.
The reality is that Florida will probably need to beat Auburn to sneak into the top 25, but it won’t be until the Ole Miss game that Florida has its first real chance to prove the voters wrong.
If we had to guess, Jon Sumrall probably likes it that way.
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