Oh, Florida!
A season that has been rocky for some of the state’s flagship college football teams (looking at you FSU, and you, Gators) got the recognition it deserved Wednesday after a weekend of extreme futility.
ESPN’s weekly Bottom 10 list of the nation’s worst teams devoted the No. 5 spot to The Sunshine State. It lumped Miami, USF, UCF, Florida Atlantic, the Gators, Stetson, Florida A&M, and Bethune-Cookman together because each team lost its game.
Bethune-Cookman received special notice for its five-overtime loss to Southern. Florida International was spared the ignominy of being on the list because the Panthers, obviously seeing what was coming, wisely scheduled an open date last weekend.
The Gators and Miami weren’t so lucky.
“The Flori-duh Gate Doors celebrated the announced retaining of coach Billy Napier by losing to Texas in a squeaker 49-17,” Senior Writer Ryan McGee penned. “And My Hammy of Florida finally spotted an opponent a lead too large for a Cam Ward comeback and took its first loss of the season, falling to unranked Georgia Tech.”
ESPN even included Florida’s NFL teams on the dubious achievement chart. The Bucs and Jaguars lost, and only the Miami Dolphins win on Monday night kept the state from a complete meltdown – giving the state a 1-11 mark for the weekend.
Wait, you ask, where was 1-9 Florida State?
The Seminoles merited their own spot on the list, coming in at No. 6 because their futility this season has been breathtaking.
“The Semi-No's are continuing to work around the Coveted Fifth Spot by earning their Bottom 10 keep the old-fashioned way, not only losing to semi/sorta/kinda ACC member Notre Dame by a scant 52-3, but also earning a pile of their own Bottom 10 Bonus Points not by firing head coach Mike Norvell, but because Norvell fired both his offensive and defensive coordinators and a wide receivers coach. In related news, over the weekend a friend of mine steered his bass boat into a giant pile of sharp rocks and reacted by throwing his shirt and hat overboard,” McGee wrote.
Like the saying goes, if you can’t kick someone when they’re down, when can you kick ‘em?
And for one steaming, wretched mess of a weekend, the football-mad state of Florida was as down as you can get.