Florida has won two New Year’s Six Bowl games since coach Dan Mullen took the job in December of 2017. But its ultimate goal — the College Football Playoff — has remained elusive.
Getting there likely requires winning the SEC East, and to do that, Mullen almost certainly has to do something he hasn’t done at UF: beat Georgia. This Gators team may return more talent in 2020, but that hasn’t stopped most pundits from giving the preseason edge to the Bulldogs.
But in a roundtable from The Athletic’s college football staff predicting the College Football Playoff, reporter Bruce Feldman picked the Gators to make the CFP for the first time since its inception in 2014.
Alongside Clemson, Oklahoma, and SEC compatriot Alabama, Feldman sees UF landing in the final four.
Here’s what he likes about Mullen’s squad this fall.
Florida: Most of the rest of the top teams in the SEC have had some level of turnover either at the coordinator level or in their quarterback room, which figures to be a much bigger concern than usual given how the pandemic affected the offseason. The Gators, meanwhile, kept their core pieces in place and seem primed behind quarterback Kyle Trask to make a Playoff run.
Florida’s challenging 10-game conference schedule, which includes matchups with teams ranked in the preseason top 25 like Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M and Tennessee, could make a playoff run a tough feat, but if there’s any team Mullen’s had that is in a position to do it, it’s this one.
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