The 2024 college football campaign’s opening kickoff is just a couple of weeks away and the preseason predictions have been coming in like hotcakes ahead of the gridiron gauntlet.
The Florida Gators are in an unenviable position of possessing one of — if not the — hardest schedules in the sport this fall. However, Billy Napier and his army of staffers have been working hard to rebuild a once-proud program and hopefully, their efforts come to fruition in 2024.
ESPN released its final preseason SP+ rankings and takeaways for college football this week, and the outlook is mildly optimistic through this lens. The Orange and Blue are 11th in the Southeastern Conference when it comes to SP+, but still crack the national top 25 coming in at No. 23.
Here’s a look at how the SEC compares in the final SP+ rankings.
| SEC Rank | Team | Overall | Offense | Defense | Special Teams |
| 1 | Georgia | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 |
| 2 | Alabama | 4 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| 3 | Texas | 5 | 4 | 12 | 17 |
| 4 | Ole Miss | 8 | 6 | 16 | 26 |
| 5 | LSU | 10 | 2 | 38 | 83 |
| 6 | Missouri | 11 | 8 | 19 | 45 |
| 7 | Oklahoma | 13 | 17 | 13 | 95 |
| 8 | Texas A&M | 14 | 11 | 24 | 73 |
| 9 | Tennessee | 15 | 14 | 20 | 52 |
| 10 | Kentucky | 22 | 28 | 31 | 39 |
| 11 | Florida | 23 | 18 | 41 | 9 |
| 12 | Auburn | 25 | 38 | 25 | 27 |
| 13 | South Carolina | 35 | 59 | 30 | 12 |
| 14 | Arkansas | 44 | 39 | 53 | 6 |
| 15 | Mississippi State | 55 | 67 | 52 | 50 |
| 16 | Vanderbilt | 89 | 68 | 104 | 72 |
The teams SP+ likes more
“Since SP+ is a power rating, it can still rank Oklahoma 13th while projecting the Sooners to win an average of only 7.6 games, just as it can rank Auburn (7.1 wins) 25th, Kentucky (7.0) 22nd and poor Florida (5.4) 23rd. But if your goal is to rank teams by their potential success levels, you probably aren’t putting any of these teams in your top 25.
“AP voters certainly didn’t: Kentucky earned just three points in the AP poll (the equivalent of ranking 40th), Auburn earned two (41st) and Florida earned none.”
SP+ vs. conventional wisdom
“The preseason polls don’t differ much from the top of the SP+ projections, and frankly, that’s disappointing. It’s a lot more fun to rail against outrageous, irrational bowl bumps and whatnot, but the top five in the AP and coaches polls are the same as the SP+ top five (albeit in a slightly different order), and no team in the AP top 11 is more than two spots away from its SP+ ranking.”
Florida’s season opener for 2024
The Florida Gators and No. 19 Miami Hurricanes square off on Aug. 31 in Gainesville, Florida, to open their schedule for the 2024 season. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ABC Sports.
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.