{"id":198642,"date":"2025-07-11T11:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T11:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/198642\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T11:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T11:27:11","slug":"college-football-expert-gives-exciting-florida-gators-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/198642\/","title":{"rendered":"College Football Expert Gives Exciting Florida Gators Take"},"content":{"rendered":"

College Football Expert Gives Exciting Florida Gators Take<\/a> originally appeared on Athlon Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Florida Gators football program seems to be on the rise. After entering the 2024 season on the hot seat, head coach Billy Napier<\/a> turned the team around in the final four games, ending the year on a winning streak.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Because of this resurgent stretch, which included back-to-back wins over the No. 21 LSU Tigers and No. 9 Ole Miss Rebels, Florida fans are excited for the future of Napier and the rest of the team.<\/p>\n

With this excitement growing around the Gators, college football expert On3’s J.D. PicKell <\/a>had a very interesting take on the pulse of the Florida fan base as the 2025 season approaches.<\/p>\n

\"Florida<\/p>\n

Florida Gators head coach Billy NapierMatt Pendleton-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

“If you’re a Florida fan, I think you’re pulse, heading into 2025, after the way you finished 2024, was like ‘tell me why we can’t go make the College Football Playoff,” PicKell said.<\/p>\n

While making the 12-team playoff may seem like lofty expectations for a Gators team that went 8-5 a year ago, the wealth of talent on Florida’s roster is definitely a plus going into 2025.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The Gators will return star quarterback DJ Lagway<\/a>, who will be entering his sophomore season. As a freshman last year, Lagway appeared in all 13 games while making seven starts in place of injured Graham Mertz. In those starts, the former five-star recruit and top signal caller in the country boasted a 6-1 record.<\/p>\n

“Florida fans, I understand,” PicKell continued. “I hear what you’re saying because you finished hot with four in a row, like we said. Your quarterback looks like the five-star he was out of high school, you got top-20 production back from last year. You’ve been patient.”<\/p>\n

This patience is something the Gator faithful is running low on. After finishing under .500 in each of Napier’s first two seasons and getting over the hump in 2024, Florida fans believe this year may be “playoff or bust.”<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jul 11, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College Football Expert Gives Exciting Florida Gators Take originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Florida Gators football program…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[385,332,18684,380,2391,7,2496,7211,7207],"class_list":{"0":"post-198642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-billy-napier","9":"tag-college-football-playoff","10":"tag-dj-lagway","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-gators-football","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-graham-mertz","15":"tag-lsu-tigers","16":"tag-ole-miss-rebels"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114834364719738363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}