Preseason AP Poll ... Gators play 8 teams ranked in top 20

By my quick count this is how many other pre-season ranked teams the top ten will face this season.

1. Georgia - 5
2. Ohio State - 3
3. Oregon - 2
4. Texas - 4
5. Alabama - 5
6. Ole Miss - 3
7. Notre Dame - 3
8. Penn State - 2
9. Michigan - 4
10. Florida State 3

 

Those last 5 games...
Week b4 Florida
#1 Uga...Bye...jax
#4 at TX...Bye
#13 Lsu...Ala
#6 Ole Miss...Bye
#10 at Fsu...Charleston Southern

 

Ouch. How on earth did that happen

 

Heck Mizzou only plays 2 rank teams

 

Tough sledding, but gotta embrace it the challenge. Time for the coaches and players to earn their salaries/scholarships.

 

Florida is unranked in the preseason for only the 3rd time since 1988-90.

FWIW, on ESPN's College Football program today, the analysts were asked which teams are overrated on the AP Poll.
Sam Ocho instantly said Miami.

When asked what teams were underrated, another person said Texas A&M.

 

I’m not bashing Scott Sticklin because I don’t know what, if anything, was said to Greg Sankey when this schedule came out but it’s pretty obvious we were given no consideration for playing meaningful non conference games. I’m afraid I would have voiced my displeasure very loudly.

 

Again. Look at last year.

 

Thing is, of the 8 teams we play in the pre-season Top 25 who are currently ranked in the Top 20, they can’t all finish 11-1 or 10-2.

It can’t happen.

Too many SEC teams knocking each other off.

Georgia has a surprisingly tough schedule, for starters.

 

Good.

Can we beat 4 of the 8?

 

Sure is a lot easier to win 10 games when you only play three or four decent teams

 

Mention that to a Nole fan and it flys right over their head.

 

Nah they complain about our out of conference schedule...which always looks harder than their in conference schedule oddly enough.

 

They are pretty delusional. They don’t like Bowden quote of the sec being too tough either.

 

Oh god. I’d love to know your opinion when we lose another road game to Free Shoes University.

 

Yeah, that SEC group or committee, whoever made that schedule, did NOT make our schedule this tough on accident. The above makes it quite clear that these good teams even got respites before they play us.

How should we phrase this... It's a complete dereliction of duty to make an equally formidable schedule for all SEC teams... they should be all the same, or is it collusion to sabotage our team and schedule?

At any rate, I welcome the challenge (IT IS fun for me the spectator, fan) and I know our team and players don't give a damn about the apparent difficulty in our schedule. They have welcomed that challenge.

 

Scott Strickland needs to at least clarify how this happened. How does Missouri play 2 ranked SEC opponents(neither have 2 week bye to prepare for them) and we play 6 Ranked SEC opponents and 3 of them have a 2 week bye to get ready for us? The AD's job is to help the program win Championships. Well, he get's an "F" on scheduling.

We could beat 5 top 20 teams and still be left out of the play-off, which means we would have more top 20 wins than the teams in the playoffs. How does that makes sense?

 

No one has ever successfully coached at that level.