Ceiling-Floor: Best and worst case scenario for the Florida Gators after Samford

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The seven days following the Florida Gators ‘ season opener felt more like seven months. Saturday’s win over the Samford Bulldogs was cathartic. Yes, the opponent was inferior, but Saturday’s win opened a window into the future as true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway dazzled and set records.

“We all understand the level of competition and the opponent,” Florida head coach Billy Napier said. “We have a tremendous amount of respect for Coach Hatcher and Samford, but better teams and better opponents are coming.”

This week, that opponent will be the Texas A&M Aggies and the beginning of SEC play. With a 1-1 record, what is the Gators’ ceiling and what is their floor?

Ceiling: 7-5

In the next two weeks, Florida will face first-year head coaches in Texas A&M’s Mike Elko and Mississippi State’s Jeff Lebby. Elko’s Aggies scored just 13 points at home against Notre Dame, who turned around and lost to Northern Illinois at home the next week. The Aggies beat up on McNeese State (52-10) last week to right the ship. This will be a huge test for A&M on the road for the first time. I picked Florida to win this game but Vegas has the Aggies as a 4.5-point favorite.

This is a huge game for Napier. The Gators no-showed at home against Miami. They can’t start 1-2 at home and Napier might not survive a repeat of the season opener this Saturday.

I still think the Gators can win each of their next two games and make it four in a row with a win over UCF. That would be a 4-1 start before a tough road game in Knoxville, which I don’t think they will and won’t predict them to win. Kentucky looks more winnable and will be a must-win game for Napier and the Gators to avoid four-straight losses to a program that used to be an afterthought on the schedule. Florida State might be awful, which could end the season on a high note. Call that six wins (Samford, A&M, Mississippi State, UCF, Kentucky, FSU). Florida would need to win just one more over Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss, LSU, which won’t be given or easy but is possible, mostly against LSU or Ole Miss at home.

Floor: 4-8

I bumped the floor up one win after Saturday. Right now I would have these three games as losses, and I don’t know that anything I see from Florida this week will change that: Tennessee, Georgia, Texas. Let’s go ahead and give Florida wins over UCF (a game that I think I’m the only one looking at as a possible tough matchup), Mississippi State, and Florida State.

Texas A&M might have a first-year head coach but the Aggies have an experienced quarterback and a defensive coordinator in Jay Bateman who has intimate knowledge in the offense that he’ll gameplan for this week. The Aggies are favored to win the game, and we learn every week that the men and women who set betting lines don’t build palaces in the desert for being wrong. A loss to A&M in the same fashion could be Napier’s last game at Florida.

The Gators’ defense will face a tough test this week with Coner Weigman and the Aggies. They’ll face a road test the following week against Jeff Lebby, a fantastic offensive mind. Kentucky is coming off of a bad loss to South Carolina but they’re a team that has owned Napier’s Gators. The end of the season is as advertised. Georgia, Texas, and Ole Miss are as good as we thought they were. LSU looks like its found a great quarterback in Garrett Nussmeier and LSU has owned that series for the last decade. If Florida falls down this path, they’ll likely have an interim for those games and the season finale against Florida State.

Florida Gators 2024 schedule

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