The Florida Gators will enter the 2019-2020 season with a lot of swagger and a lot of respect from sports news. Athlon has the Gators ranked at #7. Here is the top 10 projection:
- Alabama
- Clemson
- Georgia
- Oklahoma
- Ohio State
- Texas
- Florida
- Michigan
- LSU
- Texas A&M
I cannot disagree with this projection. Florida will get an early test in 229 days!
"Cannot disaggree with this projection"?
Well, if that is so, it is only because it breaks NO new ground--takes no chances whatsoever. In point of fact, "Pretty gutless" as "predictive ranking" lists go.
I mean, as is their habit, once again all they seem to have done is rank the relative order of the bowl match-ups, then winners ahead of losers in each after the fact, with a few "adjustments" based on someone's opinions as to who SHOULD have been in the playoffs in the first place thrown in...
It isn't an unreasonable starting point, I'll grant that--but it doesn't exactly display much in the way of longterm insight OR intuitive leaps of logic BEYOND the obvious.
Doesn't your gut begin to churn up all KINDS of exceptions upon reflection and consideration of said list as you go down it a second, THIRD time now? MINE certainly does!
WHATEVER the short-term future one year hence actually brings, I predict it will in fact include many of these programs--but leave a certain handful "surprisingly" OUT of the "real" picture entirely, and both jumble the eventual order AND relative progress of the rest.
If I TOO have herein "safely hidden behind the obvious", well, I think I have at least managed it with more accuracy, grace and COJONES than Athlon's typical annual weak-kneed media cop-out!
We all know that the only REAL "danger" in publishing such lists this early--in this case before the CURRENT SEASON is even OVER!--lies in UNDERrating large popular programs with national followings now.
Realistically, alumni and fans are unwise to take ANY of it too seriously--certainly not take ANY of it to heart, pro OR con, at THIS point. We have our developing impressions and opinions brewing inside each of us--and should know better than to get sucked into arguments designed to do just that: Make us feel GOOD about where we are at, currently headed, and what we therefore think others recognize...but meanwhile all that MATTERS is what the outcome will be if and when our teams have occasion to PLAY each other.
The whole aim of and process towards a National Championship Playoff system has been to ELIMINATE opinion, hyperbole and the "beauty pageant" aspects of days-gone-by from the means by which we ultimately crown such "Champions". These kinds of lists, one trying to get the "early jump" on another already, in this case on the eve of THIS year's deciding confrontation, is shallow, transparent and thinly self-promoting. But it goes on, because we LET it...The only alternative is NOT TO PLAY: Ignore it ALL, if we can; focus more on ourselves and our OWN moves.
But we don't.
Not even ME, in decrying it.
(LOL, somewhat in self-deriding frustration and embarrassment, btw...)
And now that you mention it, we WILL be turning to this very topic, and soon...We do INDEED have that "early test coming up in 229 days"--and will need to turn our attention THERE in a matter of weeks, once our personel issues are clearer and spring practices are under way.
