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O’Gara: Florida’s schedule already looks less historically daunting than expected
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I’m saying this to the slumped-over Florida fan who used his tall boy High Noon as a pillow as he watched the depressing final minutes of the season-opening loss to Miami. That guy, and perhaps Florida fans everywhere, needs a little bit of good news.
No, it isn’t that Brandon Spikes hopped in a time machine and he’s returning to the middle of the defense, nor is it that Steve Spurrier is putting down the golf clubs and picking up a headset.
(I’m convinced that you could give a 79-year-old Spurrier a week to watch practice, figure out his personnel, watch some film on the upcoming defense and he’d still put up 35 points. I was at his AAF debut and the amount of times I said “the HBC still has it” was through the roof.)
But there’s good news — Florida’s historically daunting schedule might not actually be historically daunting.
Difficult? Yeah. I realize that could be irrelevant because the Florida team that showed up in Week 1 might not be good enough to beat any SEC team, especially with how impressive Diego Pavia-led Vandy looked in an upset of Virginia Tech. But the Gators dodged a bullet by not facing the Commodores, who beat their first “Core-4” squad since 2022 … against Florida.
Think about it, though. The 5 games to end Florida’s schedule were the reason that schedule was believed to be historically daunting. Here’s what that looks like after Week 1:
- vs. 1-0 Georgia in Jacksonville
- at 1-0 Texas
- vs. 0-1 LSU
- vs. 1-0 Ole Miss
- at 0-2 Florida State
That group is a combined 3-3 after Week 1.
A big part of that “not historically daunting anymore” discussion is related to FSU, which went from a 13-win program to a preseason No. 10 team that might have to fight to make it to a bowl game. It’s not too early to say that. We can remove FSU from the argument for why the Gators have such a gauntlet to close the season.
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We can’t remove LSU from that, but the Tigers’ struggles down the stretch against USC were alarming. A team with a decorated offensive line ran the ball 6 times for 3 yards in the 4th quarter. The improved Tigers’ defense showed promise but struggled to stop a first-time starting quarterback in Miller Moss. For the 5th consecutive year, LSU left a season-opening game with a loss and questions galore.
Of course, all 4 of those season-opening losses became a distant memory when Florida and LSU met. LSU is riding a 5-year winning streak against Florida, which is the Tigers’ longest win streak ever in the rivalry.
But LSU showing weakness in the opener at least quieted the notion that it was destined to look like an obvious Playoff team from start to finish. In a weekend when any notion of “winning” came and went somewhere amid Cam Ward turning into Brett Favre, LSU and FSU showing vulnerability was a slight victory for Florida. The jury is still out on Texas and Ole Miss, neither of which faced a team that could stay on the field with them.
(Georgia didn’t, either, but Florida fans didn’t need me to remind them that the Dawgs are in a class of their own until further notice. This is a safe space, not a troll space.)
That’s significant because the discussion entering the season was that with each loss in those first 7 games, the pressure will mount for Billy Napier. It’s possible that those last 5 games won’t matter because Napier won’t be able to show enough progress in the first 7.
Speaking of those first 7 games, let’s not pretend those were going to be a picnic for Florida. Miami somehow looked better than advertised, Nico Iamaleava dazzled in his opener (albeit against an FCS foe) while a Kentucky team with 3 consecutive wins against the Gators cruised to a lightning-shortened shutout against Southern Miss (who was led by Tate Rodemaker … AKA the FSU backup that won in The Swamp last year).
But on the bright side, first-7 opponent Texas A&M might’ve had an even worse offensive start than Florida. The Aggies’ offensive dysfunction also came at home. It also came against a Notre Dame defense that figures to do that to plenty of teams on that cakewalk schedule, but again, it beats the alternative of A&M beating a top-7 team to start the season.
Three of the preseason AP Top 25 teams on Florida’s schedule lost in troubling fashion to start the season. And FSU, of course, decided that 1 collapse wasn’t enough and it needed another to show the world just how removed it was from last year’s squad. If there was a silver lining for Florida during an epically embarrassing opening weekend, that was it.
Cheer up, High Noon pillow guy. You can sleep slightly better knowing that Florida’s path to survive might not be as historically daunting as we once thought.
You know, assuming the Gators decide not to sleep through any more fall Saturdays.
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Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
