College GameDay announced where they are heading for Week 6 of the season, and to the surprise of nobody, Gainesville was not picked. The weekly pregame show is slated to head to Tuscaloosa for the matchup between Alabama and Vanderbilt.
And the fact that Alabama vs. Vanderbilt got priority over Florida vs. Texas just serves as a reminder of how quickly 2025 unraveled for the Gators.
Florida comes back from bye week 1-3
Prior to the start of the season, most Gator fans had this week six matchup against Texas circled on their calendar. This is by far the most high-profile team coming to The Swamp in 2025, and there was a pathway for this to be a top ten matchup.
Texas has struggled, but it still enters week six ranked in the top ten. Florida, meanwhile, immediately got yeeted out of the polls, and this Saturday feels more like a funeral than a celebration.
Alabama vs. Vanderbilt does have its own merits. Vanderbilt upset Alabama last year and turned Diego Pavia into a household name. The Commodores are now 5-0 and are ranked. Alabama, meanwhile, is coming off a win over Georgia and has new life after its faceplant on opening week against FSU.
But the fact that Alabama vs. Vanderbilt is the more compelling storyline nationally is emblematic of just how much life has been sucked out of Florida in a heartbeat.
Florida was featured on GameDay against Miami, and was featured in 2022 in Knoxville, but the Gators have not hosted GameDay since 2019, when Florida took on Auburn. In fact, 2019 is the only time Florida has hosted GameDay since 2013.
2025 was a chance to flip that narrative, but losses to USF, LSU, and Miami, while scoring just three touchdowns over those three games, have squashed any hope of getting the national spotlight in a positive manner for the foreseeable future.