{"id":293778,"date":"2025-08-16T22:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/293778\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T22:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:02:11","slug":"cbs-sports-and-espn-bowl-predictions-where-does-florida-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/293778\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS Sports and ESPN Bowl Predictions: Where Does Florida Land?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-football\/bowls\/predictions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CBS Sports<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/45939962\/2025-preseason-college-football-playoff-bowl-projections\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN<\/a> released their first bowl game projections for the 2025 college football season. Good news for all Gator fans, <a href=\"https:\/\/floridagators.com\/index.aspx?path=football\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Florida<\/a> did make both lists, but the bowl game might not be what most anticipate coming into a 2025 season that holds so much optimism, just two weeks out from the first kick against LIU.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, both sites have the Gators failing to qualify for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/2025\/08\/04\/analyzing-floridas-2025-schedule-is-this-the-year\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">College Football Playoff<\/a>. Instead, CBS writer Brad Crawford has Florida slated to face North Carolina in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl on Dec. 27 in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, ESPN writers Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach had the Gators playing in the Jan. 2 bowl games. Bonagura predicts Florida to face Kansas in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, while Schlabach has the Gators taking on Duke in the Duke\u2019s Mayo Bowl.<\/p>\n<p>Florida had its first winning season since 2019, going 8-5 in 2024. It is a big year for Florida, which will enter this season ranked No.15 in the AP Poll and No. 17 in the coaches poll. Head coach Billy Napier accepts the expectations and warns his team not to buy into the preseason \u201crat poison.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are fun to cover, but ultimately the games will be played this fall, and that\u2019ll decide who ends the year ranked what,\u201d Napier said on Aug. 11. \u201cWe have work to do to get ready for those opportunities, so 20 days until we spot the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we\u2019re focused on the work at hand. But hey, good to be ranked in the preseason. But we all know those are projections, and we\u2019re gonna have to go perform to earn those.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the CFP projections from both sites all have No.1 Texas, No.5 Georgia, No.9 LSU, and No.10 Miami in them.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BCrawford247?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@BCrawford247<\/a>&#39;s College Football Playoff projections just dropped. <\/p>\n<p>Who do y&#39;all think would win it all in this bracket?<\/p>\n<p>Full breakdown \ud83d\udd17 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/p5p4RY3JA2\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/p5p4RY3JA2<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vGt8CdHYU3\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/vGt8CdHYU3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; CBS Sports College Football \ud83c\udfc8 (@CBSSportsCFB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CBSSportsCFB\/status\/1956040252340011248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Four teams that the Gators are all set to take on this season, starting with a September two-game road trip against LSU on Sept. 13 and Miami on Sept. 20. They will open October by welcoming Texas to the Swamp on Oct. 4 and start November in Jacksonville for the annual border clash against Georgia on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n<p>Despite another year with a gauntlet of a schedule, Napier believes that this team is more than capable of being a playoff team; they just have to go out there and prove it to the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe absolutely have aspirations to be a playoff team. That\u2019s the intention of coming here, is to win championships,\u201d Napier said. \u201cNow, what do we know about that? It\u2019s about the work we do. It\u2019s about today. Okay. It\u2019s not about yesterday or tomorrow. It\u2019s about today. A good today leads to a good week, leads to a good month, leads to a good season, and you look up and count them up at the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No.15 Florida will get its season underway on Aug. 30 against LIU at 7pm.<\/p>\n<p> Category: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/category\/college-football\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">College Football<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/category\/feature-sports-news\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Feature Sports News<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/category\/gators-generic\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gator Sports<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/category\/gator-football\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gators Football<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/category\/ncaa\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NCAA<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/category\/southeastern-conference\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SEC<\/a>    <\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, CBS Sports and ESPN released their first bowl game projections for the 2025 college football season.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[52174,1627,331,9751,7,49,48,326],"class_list":{"0":"post-293778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-bowl-games","9":"tag-cfp","10":"tag-college-football","11":"tag-florida-football","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-football","15":"tag-sec"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115040704823830628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293778","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=293778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}