Florida’s place in ESPN’s preseason Football Power Index comes in at No. 18, giving the Gators a solid spot in the early national picture as the model sizes up the 2026 season.
ESPN unveiled the rankings Thursday afternoon, with Ohio State sitting at No. 1 and Texas right behind it. Florida lands in a top 25 that also includes Notre Dame, Oregon, Georgia, Indiana, Miami, Alabama, LSU, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, USC, Ole Miss, Michigan, Tennessee, Penn State, Clemson, BYU, Missouri, Auburn, South Carolina, SMU and Iowa.
FPI is ESPN’s computer-driven forecast model, built to measure team strength and project what might happen next. In simple terms, it works a lot like a power ranking system, only with the numbers doing the heavy lifting.
The Gators’ placement comes with a schedule that the model clearly sees as a grind. Twelve SEC teams are in the top 25, and seven of them are on Florida’s schedule.
Florida State and Vanderbilt, both on Florida’s 2026 slate, are ranked 28th and 29th, respectively. That helps explain why Florida’s strength of schedule checks in seventh nationally.
The projections are respectable, if not flashy. ESPN’s model gives Florida a 6.7-5.3 record, a 71.5% chance to get to at least six wins, a 2% shot at winning the SEC and a 15.2% chance to make the College Football Playoff.
For now, this is the only preseason ranking on the board. Neither the Associated Press Poll nor the Coaches Poll has released its preseason rankings yet.
In Other News...
Former Florida GM Just Reignited The Billy Napier Blame Debate
Billy Napiers Florida tenure is back in the conversation, and this time the pushback is coming from inside the same orbit that once helped build it. Jason LaFrance, who served as Floridas general manager and is now an associate athletic director at James Madison, said the Gators roster in Napiers fourth year had enough talent to stack up with just about anyone in the country, a pointed assessment for a program that never turned that promise into a run at the national level.
Napier has since moved on to James Madison, where he is taking over after Bob Chesney left for UCLA, but the Florida debate he left behind is still very much alive. The Gators did not produce the kind of breakthrough season their roster suggested was possible, and LaFrances comments only sharpen the question of how much of that failure belonged to the talent on hand and how much belonged to the coaching. [Read more 🡒]
Florida Just Missed On A Priority QB Sumrall Really Needed
Florida spent real time on the trail of one of the nations most coveted young quarterbacks, and Kingston Preyear had given the Gators enough reason to stay involved. The four-star from Alabama has been on the radar as a top-tier 2028 signal-caller, and Floridas staff, under Jon Sumrall, worked to keep the conversation moving after he visited Gainesville in March and returned for the programs camp in June.
Alabama ultimately won out in the end, landing the in-state standout and leaving Florida to regroup after missing on a priority target it badly wanted in the class. For the Gators, it is another reminder that early quarterback recruiting can turn quickly, especially when a player ranked among the best at his position nationally starts narrowing the field. [Read more 🡒]
Florida Fans Are Watching Keldrid Ben For One Reason
Keldrid Ben has become a familiar name on Floridas recruiting radar, even if the path here has always pointed elsewhere. The four-star running back has been committed to Oklahoma since December, but the Gators still made a push with an offer in March and campus visits in April and May, enough to keep his name in the conversation as he heads toward a scheduled announcement about his recruitment.
For Florida fans, the interest is obvious because Ben is the type of back any staff would want to at least keep tracking. Still, the expectation around the announcement is that it will be more of a closing moment than a surprise twist, with the focus on family, friends and community as he wraps up the process and puts a final bow on the decision he has been building toward for months. [Read more 🡒]