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Florida Gators Projected to go 2-10 in the 2024-2025 season · The Jake Wimberly Podcast

• 0:08
  All right, hey. One of our favorites reached out this weekend shared me
• 0:12
  his latest college football hour glass projections for the SEC. I gotta get him
• 0:18
  back on the show. Jake Wibberley ESPN Radio out of the state of Mississippi.
• 0:22
  Jake, how's it going, brother Michael? What's doing? Good?
• 0:26
  President's Day? So trying to get some work done on a holiday here,
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  man, I appreciate you having me on today. Yeah, Jake, Oh,
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  bad, bad, bad bad. You're gonna get me in trouble already.
• 0:37
  People think I already hate the Gators because I'm a Tennessee grad. I
• 0:40
  got nothing against the Gators, even though they beat Tennessee. What is it
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  like sixteen at eighteen? But that's neither here nor there, because according to
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  your model, this is the number one we'll get into all these teams,
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  Jake. But the number one team that stood out. I don't know what
• 0:54
  Billy Napier did to you, Jake. You got the Gators your bottle,
• 0:57
  I should say Florida going two and ten, two and ten, Jake,
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  I mean, if this happens, I mean, I don't know if billion
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  a p ercs October, he probably doesn't, right, So let me give
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  a little backstory, and like you and I spoke about off the areas,
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  you know, I'll have all this stuff ready to go and where you can
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  read about it, podcast on it here coming up in about a month,
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  you know, right at the end of March, madness. I'm working through
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  all the conferences right now, we start with the Southeastern Conference and then work
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  through you know, all the Power Forward Now conferences and the G five conferences,
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  and then of course I'll have my playoff projections and all that stuff.
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  But I started with the SEC and you know, now that recruiting is over
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  at least this cycle, we will have another transfer portal windows, so there'll
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  be an opportunity for guys to move around a little bit. But I said,
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  hey, I think we've got enough data to really start turning out what
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  men totals will look like working through schedules. So we'll start with Florida and
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  just kind of a revision's history here. The model that I use has several
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  factors in it. One is a talent ratio model that rings the talent of
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  the team. So I, as I told you, I have combed this
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  thing back to about two and a half years of true recruiting numbers, and
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  then you have to go about two years of transfer portal numbers because no longer
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  can we say, hey, we you know Alabama finished number one of recruiting,
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  or Georgia four straight years have the number one roster talent in the country.
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  Well they may, but do they really. If you want a great
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  example of that, look at how competitive Auburn was with Georgia and Alabama last
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  year and could have won both of those games. And I think a lot
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  of that is because of that Georgia and Alabama do not have any longer.
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  So we use a talent portion of it. Returning quarterback number is part of
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  it. A coaching staff number is part of that. What I call my
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  impact ball catcher metric, which is highlight wide receiver rooms because I think wide
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  receiver rooms are extremely important in college football. And then there's an offensive and
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  defensive efficiency portion of it. So it brings it all together to create a
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  ranker for each team. And then I look at the games, and then
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  you know, what does the schedules look like? You know, for instance,
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  where Florida has by far the hardest schedule in the Southeast and conference,
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  you know, Auburn kind of gets the pass, ole Mis gets kind of
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  a past. Missouri kind of gets the pass this year and they still have
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  pard schedules, but nothing like Florida. So so when you look at Florida,
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  you know this year and you know, you know, coaching wise,
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  Billy Napier has been one of the worst in the Southeastern Conference. Really you
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  can only say, you know, if you go up to Arkansas and Vanderbilt,
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  is there is there work staffs in the in the conference. And then
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  of course you look quarterback play, pretty nice quarterback play with Graham mertcy know,
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  that's kind of middle of the back, you know, receivers wise,
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  what we call impact ball catcher metrics is that could be kind of middle of
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  the back. And then you look at Florida offensive and defensive scoring efficiency off
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  last year and project that forward. They were twenty eighth in the country offensively,
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  eighty six defensively. So when you compound that with a schedule for Florida
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  that starts out with Miami and they're going to be, you know, an
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  underdog and guess the Miami Hurricanes a very good I think Miami Hurricane team that
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  could be the best Miami Hurricanes team we've seen in probably a decade. It
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  could be they're gonna be an underdog in that game. I think that win
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  that's gonna be big, that's gonna that's gonna catapult them. But without just
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  going through the whole schedule, I've got Florida with one to what I call
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  one possession games, three four about seven one position possession games, meaning that
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  those are games that could go either way. I've gone with a close loss
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  to Texas A and M. Believe it or not, I having a close
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  loss on the road to Mississippi State just because Mississippi State plays Toledo the week
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  before. Florida places to Texas A and M the week a week before as
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  well Central Florida. I have Florida winning a close win. Then you go
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  at Tennessee and Kentucky and then a bye week, Georgia at Texas lsu Ole
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  miss in Florida. I mean, look at Michael that is I don't know
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  the Ohio State and Georgia want that schedule. So they're going to be an
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  underdog in most of those games. And if Billy Napier just consist team and
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  if you believe it, look Megas set their win total at six five and
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  a half to six. There's a reason for that. They set that number
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  so they can get plays on both sides of the line, so to speak.
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  A lot of people will say over six or five and a half just
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  because oh yeah, Florida, for sure. I tend to go under that.
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  I haven't been two wins. I think it can go equal around four
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  wins and maybe five some of these one possion games. It's gonna be a
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  tough year in games. Yeah, But it's just it's kind of pathetic,
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  in't it, Jake, Because as we've grown up, I mean, and
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  a lot of places say this, Jake, but it's true. At Florida,
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  the standard is to compete for championships. You know, obviously you're not
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  gonna win one every year. Hecky, Alabama, Georgia don't win one every
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  year, but they at least compete for it. So it's just whether it's
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  two wins, whether it's five wins. Even if we go over the top
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  and give them a bunch of these one possession games and say they won six
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  or seven, is that good enough? In year three of a coaching tenure
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  at a place like Florida, I would argue it is not, so I
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  don't know. I would. I would bet you, Jake. There's a
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  lot of Florida fans if you gain truth, Sirum, they're saying, I
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  hope we go too inten so we get us a new coach at here that
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  knows what the hell he's doing. You do it? Yeah, I agree,
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  And you know that's the thing is is Florida should not be in this
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  position. I mean, Florida should be in my estimation where Alabama has been.
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  Not necessarily maybe nobody's going to make that run for ten years that Saban
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  had, but competing for playoff spots, you know, they need to be
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  competing against Georgia, competing against Texas, competing against the Oklahoma's of the SEC.
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  And for whatever reason, you know, outside of Steve Spurrier and Urban
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  Meyer, you know, Dan Mullen with one new year, six day Bleigim,
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  Michael Wayne, I think maybe had a nine win season. It just
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  hasn't happened there for some reason. And I think there has to start against
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  them self evaluational why that is a case at a place like Florida where they
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  should be. They should be at the top and they should expect to be there