With the College Football Playoff semifinal games in the book, the stage is set for a national championship rematch between SEC schools in Georgia and Alabama after they each handily defeated Michigan and Cincinnati, respectively. Despite the results of the semifinals, there were no changes to the top four in the New Year’s Day update to the ESPN Football Power Index, as it remained UGA, ‘Bama, Ohio State and Michigan, in that order.
Florida, meanwhile, ended a disappointing season on a bad note, losing to UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl in what marked UF’s first loss to an in-state program that isn’t Miami or FSU for the first time since dropping a game to Stetson way back in 1938.
As a result, the Gators have fallen in the latest FPI update, though it was just a two-spot drop and the team remains ranked relatively highly at No. 34. That ranks just behind three 10-win teams in Oregon, Iowa and Appalachian State, and it also ranks behind 3-9 Nebraska, who inexplicably cracks the top 30. Meanwhile, the Gators finish just ahead of conference foes LSU and Mississippi State, as well as a 12-win Houston team.
FPI has been high on Florida all season, and the system still seems to view the Gators as the team that took the possible national champion Crimson Tide to the wire back in September. But since then, this hasn’t looked like even a top-40 team, and new coach Billy Napier will have a lot to work on in 2022 as he inherits a team that finished 6-7, its third losing record since 2013.
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