Florida football is riding high on a two-game winning streak against a pair of top-25 teams, which has quickly turned the season around and has the Gator Nation looking forward to a postseason appearance.
Victories over the LSU Tigers and Ole Miss Rebels have reinforced the program’s commitment to third-year head coach Billy Napier, whose team faced the toughest schedule in the country — and in recent memory — this fall. Now 6-5 with a rivalry game remaining on the slate, a winning season in Gainesville is not unfathomable.
The Orange and Blue have been climbing up the rankings during its recent surge, which includes an 18-spot jump — the biggest move this week — to No. 34 in CBS Sports writer Chip Patterson’s rerank of all 134 FBS schools.
“Back-to-back wins against LSU and now Ole Miss have presented our voters with a difficult thought experiment: Do you rank Florida based on its loss count or the quality of those losses?” Patterson asks.
“The Gators are 6-5, but all five of the teams that it’s fallen to are in the top 20 of our current CBS Sports 134, including four teams in the top 11. It’s going to be difficult to crack the top 30 with five losses, but it’s clear the Ole Miss win has led to a reassessment of Florida’s profile.”
Florida now sits between the No. 33 Iowa Hawkeyes and No. 35 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
CBS Sports re-rank top 10
The top three schools remained unchanged, with the Oregon Ducks once again perched at No. 1 while the Ohio State Buckeyes held onto the second spot followed by the Texas Longhorns. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish moved up two places to No. 4 and the Penn State Nittany Lions kept hold of the No. 5 spot.
The Georgia Bulldogs moved up to No. 6, followed by the SMU Mustangs, Indiana Hoosiers, Miami Hurricanes and Boise State Broncos, respectively, to round out the top 10.
What’s next for Florida?
The Gators will face the Florida State Seminoles inside Doak Campbell Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 30. The game will kick off at 7 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ESPN 2.
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