GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA — For the Sunshine State, the 2021 college football season alluded to the possibility of uncertainty, top 25 appearances and conference championships. Florida and Miami qualified as the cream of the crop within areas enriched in some of the sport’s top recruiting hotbeds. Other hopefuls — UCF and FAU — held a chance at cracking the New Year’s Six bowl bid for the group of five.
But, disappointments derailed Florida towards a zero-team Top 25 showing for the first time since 2011. It started off when Miami, the highest-ranked team in the preseason polls, lost to Alabama. Chaos ensued, with the Hurricanes now unranked — 2-4 to be more specific — and on the verge of their worst season this century.
Florida State earned the spoil of the victors after Week 1 despite dropping their opener to Notre Dame. Why? They brought the Irish to overtime, showing off the late game heroics of QB McKenzie Milton in the process. But if you traversed the behemoth of Doak Campbell Stadium today, the echoes of crying FSU fans after losing to FCS Jacksonville State would ring out in unison.
And now Florida — the defending SEC East champion — is almost certain to lose their title. The Gators fell to LSU on Saturday amidst drama surrounding the head coaching position in Baton Rouge.
“We’ve got to play better,” Gators coach Dan Mullen said Saturday. “We’ll evaluate it all. We’ve got to coach better, play better, look at our personnel, make sure we’re putting guys in the right position to make plays and get better.”
UF stands at 4-3 and has still yet to play the Georgia Bulldogs. That will transpire in a week in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.
Group of Five
FAU and UCF also find themselves with slow starts after a pair of blowout losses. The Knights, who entered 2021 with a new head coach and rebirth of College Football Playoff hopes, dropped two games early before being blown out by No. 2 Cincinnati this past weekend. The program is now .500 and risks missing a bowl game during the first year of the Gus Malzahn tenure.