Florida is carrying the kind of preseason buzz that can turn into a burden fast. Around the program, the expectation for 2026-27 is clear: anything less than a Final Four will feel disappointing. That’s the standard the Gators have set for themselves after a year in which they earned a No. 1 seed and then got knocked out by Iowa in the second round, only to bring back almost everyone from that team.
That profile was enough to put Florida at No. 1 in the AP preseason poll heading into the season. It’s a deserved honor, but it also drops the Gators into a tricky neighborhood historically. Preseason No. 1 has not been a great place to be if you’re measuring success by March.
Florida can point to one useful bit of history: it was also the preseason No. 1 team for the 2006-07 season, and that group went on to win back-to-back national titles. But in the modern game, the top spot in October has rarely translated into the kind of postseason run Florida wants now.
Over the last decade, only one preseason No. 1 team - Gonzaga in 2020-21 - made the Final Four. Six of the nine preseason No. 1 teams from that span failed to get even as far as the Elite Eight, not counting Michigan State in the canceled 2019-20 season.
The numbers get even starker when you widen the lens. In the nine tournaments dating back to the 2017 edition of March Madness, only eight of the 36 teams ranked in the top four of the AP preseason poll ended up reaching the Final Four. Meanwhile, 19 of the 36 Final Four teams in that stretch started the season outside the top ten.
UNC in 2008-09 remains the last preseason No. 1 team to win the national championship.
Florida, though, has something many preseason favorites don’t: actual evidence that this group can do it. Four starters were major pieces of the 2025 national title team, and the roster change from Xaivian Lee to Denzel Aberdeen was essentially the only major swap after last year’s No. 1 seed season.
Sunday’s exhibition loss to Baylor wasn’t a clean start, but there was at least a silver lining. Florida had one of the roughest shooting performances imaginable and still pushed the game to overtime before falling.
In Other News...
Tramell Jones Jr. Just Gave Florida A Reason To Believe
A freshman making his first career start is rarely asked to steady a program against a top-10 opponent, but Tramell Jones Jr. walked into that kind of assignment and gave Florida exactly the kind of calm it needed. The Gators rallied from a 17-3 deficit to beat seventh-ranked Texas 27-24, and Jones played a central role in getting them back into it, completing 22 of 35 passes for 155 yards and two touchdowns.
For Florida, the win was about more than surviving an early hole. It was about seeing a young quarterback handle pressure, keep the offense moving and give the Gators a chance when the game tightened late. The defense finished the job with a late fumble by Texas quarterback Arch Manning, but the bigger takeaway in Gainesville is hard to miss: there is at least a reason to believe Florida has found something it can build on. [Read more 🡒]
Florida Suddenly Has A Bigger Opportunity Than Anyone Expected
Floridas win over Texas came at exactly the right time, giving Billy Napiers team a needed jolt after a season that has already swung from a 4-0 start to back-to-back losses. The bigger picture around college football has been just as unpredictable, with results across several conferences reshuffling expectations almost every week, and Florida has managed to keep itself in the conversation despite the early turbulence.
With the bye week now in hand, the Gators are in a better spot than many projected before the season, both in the SEC race and in the overall record chase. The Texas victory did more than settle things down for a day, too, because it left Floridas preseason goals still within reach as the schedule moves into its next stretch. [Read more 🡒]
BYU Just Turned The Big 12 Race Into Something Much Bigger
A wild Saturday across college football sent shockwaves through the AP poll, and BYU was one of the biggest beneficiaries after upsetting Notre Dame to climb to No. 2. The chaos was unprecedented, with five of the top seven teams losing on the same day for the first time in AP history, and Miami surged to No. 1 after its double-overtime win against Florida State.
For Florida fans, the broader picture is just as striking because the Gators were part of a day that helped redraw the national conversation in a hurry. Ohio State held off Indiana, Tennessee beat Alabama, Florida knocked off Texas, and Auburn beat Georgia, turning what could have been a routine Saturday into a rankings reset that left the Big 12 race and the rest of the playoff picture looking far more volatile than before. [Read more 🡒]