It came as no surprise that Florida Football was not ranked in the US LBM Coaches Poll, which was previously known as the USA Today Coaches Poll, which was revealed yesterday. In fact, the fact that Florida garnered 11 votes in the poll—a surprising number—was rather surprising.
Before the 2024 season, Florida’s schedule has eight rated teams in total. Three players that we believe are ranked too high in the preseason poll are as follows.
Kentucky (Granting Ballots)
It’s absurd that Kentucky, like Florida, is getting any votes at all in the poll, even though they aren’t officially rated. Over the last several years, Kentucky’s pattern has been to exert all of their energy on Florida before fading back to a mid-level club.
Despite all the buzz about Kentucky being a football school, the Wildcats have only ended a season ranked once since 2019. They have finished 7-6 the previous two seasons.
Voters who supported Kentucky appear to be placing their hopes in transfer quarterback Brock Vandagriff, a formerly highly regarded prospect who has almost not played a snap in three seasons.
Miami (19th)
Even if Florida manages to finish 8-4, Billy Napier hasn’t earned the right to be ranked going into 2024 after being 11-14 in his two seasons in Gainesville.
For the same reason, given that Miami is 12-13 under Mario Cristobal, it is unexpected that they are receiving as much praise as they have given.
They did land Cam Ward via the transfer portal, as we pointed out yesterday, but they also had a ton of guys go out. Though they had one of the top five recruiting classes in 2024, the class was mostly dependent on thirteen three-star talents. There were more than 10 three-star players on any other squad in the top 15.
Ranking Miami 19th at the beginning of the season seems high given that they have just once ended the season ranked since 2018.
Ole Miss, sixth
Ole Miss has the best chance of defeating Florida out of the three teams on this list. On the playing field, though, the Rebels are now in a position they have never been before.
Being extremely active in the transfer portal, Lane Kiffin and team ended up with a top-five portal class that featured Princely Umanmielen of Florida.
And Ole Miss would have sneaked in as one among the last teams if the previous season had included a 12-team playoff.
In actuality, though, Ole Miss has never been rated higher than eighth since 2016, and the Rebels have a losing record (7-8) versus ranked opponents since Kiffin took coach in 2020.
Kiffin will thus have to decide whether to start them at sixth and give them inside placement in an effort to show that Ole Miss is more than just a gatekeeper in 2024.
