When Georgia Tech plays at Miami on Saturday, and when Georgia plays Florida in Jacksonville a week later, the Yellow Jackets and Bulldogs will face two of the more storied programs of college football’s recent decades.
They’ll also face unranked teams that have losing records in their respective conferences this season.
So far, this has been a dreary football season in the Sunshine State, where not one team — not Miami, not Florida, not Florida State — is ranked in the latest national polls.
You have to go back to Dec. 6, 1982, to find the previous time the Gators, Hurricanes and Seminoles were simultaneously unranked. Until last week, at least one of the teams — and often all three — had been ranked in 472 consecutive polls.
“It’s definitely weird not to see any of those teams ranked,” said Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray, who grew up in Tampa. “But it’s not to say they don’t have talent because, I mean, they have plenty of talent, all three of those teams.”
The teams have a combined record of 10-9 this season. FSU and Miami have matching 3-3 (1-2 ACC) records, while Florida is 4-3 (2-3 SEC) and on a three-game losing streak.
Two weeks ago, all three teams lost — just the second time since 1978 they had been beaten on the same day. Florida lost again last week to Auburn, while Miami and FSU bounced back with victories over North Carolina and Duke, respectively.
Still, of the 118 ballots cast in this week’s Associated Press and coaches polls, not one voter included a Florida school among the nation’s top 25 teams.
ESPN analyst Lee Corso said he doesn’t do a double-take when he sees the polls without a Florida representative. He pointed out Florida and Miami have new head coaches this season — Will Muschamp and Al Golden, respectively — and FSU has a second-year coach, Jimbo Fisher. Muschamp and Fisher are in their first head-coaching jobs, Corso noted.
“So it’s a transition period,” Corso said. “That will take care of itself within four years from now. You’ll see all three of those teams be back and be at the top four years from now.”
For now, though, they aren’t playing up to their brand names.
Historically, they are among the top 15 or so college programs in drawing national TV ratings. Last season, the Florida-Penn State Outback Bowl drew the highest rating of any non-BCS bowl, and the FSU-South Carolina Chick-fil-A Bowl drew the third highest.
Gary Stokan, president of Atlanta’s Chick-fil-A Bowl, said the Florida teams’ absence from the national rankings is notable more for uniqueness than for significance on the business of the game. College football’s TV ratings seem unaffected in the short term by the on-field fluctuations of any particular teams, and Florida, FSU and Miami remain on pace to be bowl-eligible. But Stokan said it’s good for business when the Florida teams thrive.
“I think college football typically has been better served when they are in the Top 25,” Stokan said. “Because (a) their fans are passionate, (b) their TV ratings are excellent and (c) they bring great, passionate teams to wherever the play, whether a road game or a bowl game.”
All three teams have played in the Chick-fil-A Bowl within the past seven years, and all moved the needle in terms of bringing fans to Atlanta and drawing TV audiences, Stokan said.
Two of the teams were ranked at the start of this season, FSU No. 6 and Florida No. 22. Miami also received votes in the preseason poll.
AP poll voter Seth Emerson, of the Macon Telegraph and Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, had FSU No. 3 in his preseason poll and also had Florida in the Top 25. By last week, he, like all other voters, had dropped both from his ballot.
“To be honest, it didn’t occur to me until [later],” he said, that a ballot without a Florida team on it constituted a historical rarity.
“It’s not like I sat there on Sunday and said, ‘I’m about to send in a poll without any of these three teams in it,’” Emerson said. “But for various reasons they’re all in transition.”
Stokan has attended games of all three teams this season. He said the common threads are transitions to new offensive and defensive systems (Florida and Miami) and quarterback injuries (Florida and FSU).
Miami is “a strange team” that hasn’t put together back-to-back wins or losses, said Corso, who added that Tech “has got to throw the ball” to beat the Hurricanes. As for Georgia-Florida — a matchup the Gators have won 18 of the past 21 years — Corso forecast “a tremendous ballgame” that will hinge on the play of the UGA defense, especially if Gators quarterback John Brantley returns from an ankle injury.
In the end, no one expects the Florida teams to be down for long.
FSU’s Fisher, on an ACC teleconference, called the three teams’ simultaneous absence from the polls “pretty bizarre” but pointed out Alabama and Auburn had down cycles not long ago. Alabama was a combined 13-13 in 2006-07 and Auburn 13-12 in 2008-09.
“Now they’re winning national titles,” Fisher said, referring to Auburn’s last season and Alabama’s in 2009. “It will come. We’ve all got good players, and we’ll all fight through whatever adversities.”
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