Believe it or not, Gators among top ‘underdog contenders’ in 2024

The 2024 season is in many ways a make-or-break season for head coach Billy Napier. However, the potential outcome easily varies from catastrophic to triumphant depending on how the ball bounces this fall, with plenty of room in between those extremities

Many metrics predict a sub-.500 finish for the Florida Gators, which would mark the program’s first streak of four consecutive losing seasons since the 1930s. Then some foresee an even 6-6 finish to the regular season and others are bullish enough to call for a winning campaign.

The Athletic’s Peter Keating and Jordan Brenner published a list of their seven best underdog contenders for the College Football Playoff and included the Orange and Blue among the unheralded ranks. The Gators are a distant darkhorse candidate to make the expanded postseason bracket but are given plus-25,000 odds heading into the fall.

What the Gators have going for them

“Navigating the expanded SEC is a daunting task and the league’s media members project the Gators to finish 12th in the conference,” the authors offer. “Sportsbooks have set their over/under win total at just 4.5. So that’s not encouraging information.”

However, things have been looking up in Gainesville of late, and maybe with a little bit of mojo, Napier and Co. can find the flow.

“But Billy Napier added another top-20 recruiting class, not to mention the nation’s fifth-ranked transfer class. QB Graham Mertz enters his sixth year in college (four at Wisconsin, two at Florida) and is coming off a season in which he threw 20 touchdowns and just three interceptions.”

However, one cannot ignore the brutal gauntlet of a schedule that the Orange and Blue face in 2024.

“Is Florida likely to find enough wins in a schedule that includes Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss, LSU and Tennessee? Probably not. But the same could have been said of any of our 14 historical underdogs, and the Gators share several traits with those teams.”