The Florida Gators were able to cash in on the Vols playing the two toughest teams from the SEC West, and then they got a bye week at the perfect time. Now, Jim McElwain’s Gators are fully healthy and in perfect shape to defend their first place spot.
Luke Del rio is now fully healthy and should be ready to go, and the Gators still have the most dominant secondary in all of college football. It’s one half away from being undefeated.
The offense and defense should now be able to come together completely now after a bye week to get everything worked out.
At 5-1, Florida still controls its own destiny for the SEC Championship and even a spot in the College Football Playoff. However, they’ve only played one decent team all year, and they lost.
Now, the real tests begin. Over the next six weeks, they have to face the Georgia Bulldogs this week, the Arkansas Razorbacks next week, and then the makeup game against the LSU Tigers on the road three weeks after that.
So the fight to stay in first place in the SEC East is going to be extremely difficult.
Oh, and they still close out the year against those Florida State Seminoles on the road, making the playoff picture very difficult.