College football is right around the corner having now passed an important milestone in the annual SEC media days event which concluded on Thursday. Now that each member school has had a chance to speak their piece, the media has taken what they have learned this week and begun projecting its predictions for the coming fall.
The Athletic’s Seth Emerson published his SEC football expectation tiers on Friday, with a more bullish opinion on Billy Napier’s second year at the helm than many of his colleagues. He included the Gators among three other conference programs he believes are playoff-caliber: “Be in the Playoff or in serious contention consistently.”
The other SEC teams sharing the tier with the Orange and Blue are the Texas A&M Aggies, Tennessee Volunteers and Auburn Tigers.
Emerson has the Georgia Bulldogs, Alabama Crimson Tide, LSU Tigers, Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners in the top tier as consistent, realistic contenders for a championship. The rest essentially just need to be respectable.
The Gators open their 2023 schedule on the road against the Utah Utes on Aug. 31, with a kickoff time of 8 p.m. EDT.
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