Lots of people try and rank college football teams, but that ignores the fact that only teams from one state actually matter. Because clearly things need to be ranked in list format, Riptide is here to rank Florida's seven FBS teams. Join us this week as we witness the debut of a possible QB superstar and USF's sudden and sad demotion from their imagined "Big Four" to Florida's "bottom three."
1. Florida State Seminoles
1-0, 41-13 win against Pitt
"Oh shit, he's actually really good," said fans of every other team on this list while watching last night's FSU-Pitt game, which quickly turned into an ESPN-produced debutante ball for redshirt freshman QB Jameis Winston.
Winton completed 25 of 27, produced four TD passes and ran one into the end zone himself for good measure. This is the kind of classic Florida college QB talent that one day really could have a shot of at least getting cut from the Patriots.
Sure, it was just sad, modern-day Pitt, but every non-Noles fan in the state had to struggle with the fact that FSU might actually really be "back." They also all suddenly became really big Clemson fans.
2. Florida Gators
1-0, 24-6 win against Toledo
Unconfirmed reports out of Gainesville suggest that a still unidentified 26-year-old wearing a blonde afro wig, a mustache that was clearly just a piece of felt attached to his face with a piece of scotch tape, and carrying poorly forged identification that just read "Jim Jebow, NCAA eligible freshman," attempted to break into the Gator's locker room just before kickoff. Witness claim the man attempted to convince head coach Will Muschamp that he'd make an excellent last-minute, walk-on addition to the team. He was dragged away screaming, "But I won a playoff game!" Despite this disturbing scene, the Gators still managed to shake it off and pulled a convincing win against Toledo.
3. Miami Hurricanes
1-0, 34-6 win against FAU
Sure, the Hurricanes homer in me really wanted to latch on to the fact that the Hurricanes beat their mid-major opponent by a bigger margin than the Gators beat their mid-major opponent, but I'm really not trying to jinx anything before Saturday. Though, the NCAA will probably take care of that anyway.
4. UCF Golden Knights
1-0, 38-7 against Akron
The Golden Knights made their debut last night as an official member of an AQ-conference, which would be a bit more exciting if it wasn't the sad renamed remnants of the Big East.
5. FAU Owls
0-1, 6-34 loss to Miami
O, the Miami homer in us does think that a blow-out loss to the Hurricanes is more honorable than FIU's blow-out loss to Maryland.
6. FIU Golden Panthers
0-1, 10-43 loss to Maryland
Ah, the promising [insert name of the old guy who replaced Mario Cristobal for reasons no one understands] era begins! At least they don't have to worry about battling out with FAU this year for the title of worst team in the state.
7. USF Bulls
0-1, 21-53 loss to McNeese St.
USF fans on Saturday must have felt like Billy Ray Cyrus watching the VMAs. We almost felt bad for them. All those sad young freshman attending their first football game, getting drunk off of Natty Lite, carefully painting their body parts in green and gold, only to watch their team suffer what is pretty much unquestionably the most embarrassing loss by a college football team ever. Seriously, no I-A/FBS team has lost to a I-AA/FCS team by this large of a margin in recorded history. Ever!
Then we remembered that this is the USF fan base. The people who put up a fucking billboard declaring they were now part of Florida's "Big Four" after beating Miami and FSU one time each during down years. This is the program that decided to end a natural rivalry series with UCF because they thought they were too good for them. This is the team that thought all they had to do to become the next Notre Dame is hire an ex-Notre Dame coach's kid. It was all an awful lot of gumption for a group of people who by and large couldn't even get into FSU. Sorry kids, Florida football dynasties aren't built in a decade.
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