One of the most impressive college football turnarounds in the country was not enough to convince the Southeastern Conference media that Florida can win its division this year.
Fresh off going 7-1 in the conference and earning a Sugar Bowl berth, the pre-season media poll has the Gators third in the SEC Eastern Division.
The favorites to win the conference are Alabama and Georgia, both of which were runaway leaders in their respective divisions. The Crimson Tide got 75 percent of the 243 votes to win the conference.
That does not mean much, however, given that the media has gotten the champion correct just four times in the past 21 years.
“I hear how you all make predictions about what’s going to happen in the season … and it seems almost a little crazy to try to predict,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said Thursday. “The media has only picked the right team four times. If I was 4-17 as a coach, I’d be back in West Virginia pumping gas at my daddy’s gas station.”
Georgia won the East each of the past two years and got 149 first-place votes to capture it again. South Carolina was second with 75, followed by the Gators with 19. Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Missouri and Kentucky rounded out the division.
Alabama got 93 percent of the first-place votes in the Western Division, well ahead of Texas A&M (11) and LSU (7). The media had Ole Miss fourth, then Auburn, Mississippi State and Arkansas.
The Crimson Tide also dominated the individual honors with a conference-best seven players voted to the all-SEC offense or defense. Texas A&M, Georgia, LSU and Florida each had two. The Gators also had Kyle Christy voted first-team punter.
UF cornerback Loucheiz Purifoy and defensive tackle Dominique Easley were picked for the first team. Six other Gators were second- or third-team selections.
Texas A&M’s Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel was the first-team quarterback with 119 first-place votes, ahead of Alabama’s A.J. McCarron (67) and Georgia’s Aaron Murray.
Former Park Vista standout Tre Mason, now a junior at Auburn, was voted second-team running back. Jupiter graduate Cody Parkey, also with the Tigers, was the second-team kicker.
Miles still upset: LSU coach Les Miles continued his push for the SEC to eliminate permanent cross-division rivalries. Under the current scheduling format, each school plays six divisional game, one annual rival from the other side and one rotating team from the opposite division.
That model works against the Tigers this year. They play their rivalry game against Florida and travel to face Georgia. Those teams combined to go 14-2 in the SEC last season. Alabama, LSU’s chief competitor in the West, gets Tennessee (1-7) and Kentucky (0-8).
“A key piece to every conference is being able to describe the path to a championship in an equal and direct manner,” Miles said. “Scheduling should not in any way decide championships. There’s a repeated scheduling advantage and disadvantage for certain teams in this conference based on tradition.”
Most Florida signees enrolled: All of the Gators' new recruits are enrolled in school and ready for training camp except offensive lineman Roderick Johnson. Johnson, from American Heritage, said via Twitter he will be in school and report for camp with the rest of the team Aug. 1.
