Advertisement

Florida on verge of having no AP top 25 teams for the first time since...

If the Gators drop out, the state won’t have a team in the AP poll for only the third season out of the last 40.
 
Florida safety Tre'Vez Johnson and the rest of the Gators will probably be unranked this week. Just like every other team in the state.
Florida safety Tre'Vez Johnson and the rest of the Gators will probably be unranked this week. Just like every other team in the state. [ MATTHEW HINTON | AP ]
Published Oct. 17, 2021|Updated Oct. 17, 2021

Florida college football suffered a horrible Saturday with the Gators, Miami, USF and UCF all losing. Sunday won’t be much better.

UF entered LSU ranked 20th in the country and will almost certainly drop out of the Associated Press top 25 after the 49-42 loss. Spoiler: They’re off my ballot this week. If the other voters agree, the Gators will be unranked for the first time since September of Dan Mullen’s first season.

Related: The pressure is on Dan Mullen after Florida’s loss at LSU

Zoom out to the state as a whole, and things get worse. There’s a high likelihood that no Florida teams will be ranked this week. The last time that happened? November 2011. Florida State received votes but fell out of the rankings after a 14-13 loss to Virginia.

There were a few other times that season where the state didn’t have a ranked team, including the last ballot of October and the first in November. The Seminoles ended ‘11 (Jimbo Fisher’s second season) at No. 23.

Before that season, at least one Florida team had been in the rankings every week going back to 1982. No teams were on the penultimate poll that season, but FSU jumped up to 13th in the final poll.

A few notes on that statistic: The state had not yet established itself as the juggernaut it later became (and is supposed to be now). Miami didn’t win the state’s first national title until the next year. Also, it’s so long ago that the AP poll only featured 20 teams at the time.

All that only makes Sunday’s standings look even worse in the Sunshine State.

• • •

Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Follow our Tampa Bay Times sports team on Twitter and Facebook.