![Florida head coach Jon Sumrall speaks to the team after the Orange and Blue game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, April 11, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2589,h_1456/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ReutersImages/mmsport/213/01kz6ytmfktzv8k1wy9s.jpg "Florida head coach Jon Sumrall speaks to the team after the Orange and Blue game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, April 11, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
For the 4th time in the last five years, the Florida Gators find themselves unranked in the preseason coaches' poll. The poll has lost its significance in the playoff era, but it is still normally in line enough with what most other polls spit out.
Ohio State got the nod as the preseason No. 1, and Oregon was voted No. 2.
There are some ranked ahead of the Gators we could question, and we would like to think where Florida has started in this poll isn’t where they are going to finish. Still, this poll is a reminder of the uphill battle Jon Sumrall faces and a reminder of just how much of a hit the Gator brand took from the previous era.
Coaches’ Poll leaves Florida unranked once again
Although Billy Napier never finished a year ranked, he was given the benefit of the doubt last year and started last year No. 17 in this same poll.
Oops.
It’s easy to look at teams like Penn State and Clemson and wonder why they got such a huge bump while Florida was largely left for dead, but in a lot of ways this is probably the way Sumrall likes it.
The reality is that Florida hasn’t finished a season ranked in five years and has won more than six games just once over that span. And as much as we think Florida has a roster that we would take ahead of a ton of teams who did get ranked, everything surrounding the Gators is such a mystery right now.
We wouldn’t view this poll as disrespect as much as we would view it as a sense of reality. The positive news is that this poll paints a picture of the opportunity that lies ahead of the Gators in 2026. Five teams Florida will face this year did get ranked (Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, and Missouri). The latter two within that group have some massive question marks that surround them.
Ultimately, what this poll paints a picture of is that 8-4 should be the minimum expectation for Sumrall to claim 2026 as a success. It’s also a reminder that 9-3 or beyond isn’t that crazy to dream of. But we had a lot of these similar dreams last year, and as we all found out together, nightmares are dreams too.
Florida has nowhere to go but up in 2026.
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