It's the dawn of a new era of Florida Gators football. The Will Muschamp era, one which will absolutely be remembered as a disaster, is said and done with.
Jim McElwain will try to put some life into a stagnant offense, though it would be unfair to expect him to do so right away in Year 1.
2015 SCHEDULE
9/5: vs. New Mexico State
9/12: vs. East Carolina
9/19: at Kentucky
9/26: vs. Tennessee
10/3: vs. Ole Miss
10/10: at Missouri
10/17: at LSU
10/31: vs. Georgia (at EverBank Field)
11/7: vs. Vanderbilt
11/14: at South Carolina
11/21: vs. Florida Atlantic
11/28: vs. Florida State
There sure are a lot of cupcakes on this schedule for UF this season. New Mexico State, East Carolina, Vandy and Florida Atlantic should all be easy wins. Then again, two seasons ago, Georgia Southern and Vandy should have been easy wins too, and both of those home games were lost.
The SEC East is clearly the easier of the two sides of this powerhouse conference, and the fact that the West foes are LSU and Ole Miss could be a lot worse.
SEASON WIN TOTAL
The Gators won six games in the regular season last year, but that's not totally a fair assessment. They lost what would have surely been a win against Idaho to Mother Nature in a game which only featured a kickoff before getting canceled.
That's why a season win total of seven feels fair, even if the vig on the under is -150. As long as the Gators don't trip over themselves, they should have four wins in the bag, and going .500 against the rest of the SEC isn't out of the question.
OFFENSIVE OUTLOOK
Jeff Driskel had tremendous talent coming to Florida, but those talents were wasted by Muschamp. Now, he's at Louisiana Tech, and that leaves just Treon Harris to run the offense unless McElwain wants to see what redshirt freshman Will Grier brings to the table.
That said, the receivers are talented with Ahmad Fulwood, Latroy Pittman and Demarcus Robinson all returning, so if Harris can get the ball into their hands consistently, this offense will be alright.
An offensive line which has been the strength of the offense for years is returning three senior starters.
DEFENSIVE OUTLOOK
The Gators might have stunk on offense, but their defense has had nothing wrong with it. Seven starters return from last year's unit which allowed just 329.8 yards and 21.1 points per game, including one of the truly elite cornerbacks in the nation in Vernon Hargreaves.
Losing Dante Fowler to the NFL a year early will hurt, but we know that Bryan Cox Jr. and Jon Bullard should both be forces along the defensive line as well.
SEASON PREDICTION
The Gators are a tough read this year. They've got the talent to win the SEC East, which theoretically should make that +675 price on them to do so a good one. However, they're still the fourth biggest underdogs in the SEC, and they're 80 to 1 longshots to win the National Championship.
In the end, this is a .500 team and no more as we see it. The Gators shouldn't beat either of the teams they play in the SEC West, nor should they beat Florida State, even if that game is played at the end of the year in Gainesville. Throw in there the Cocktail Party against Georgia and road games against Kentucky, Missouri and South Carolina, and there are just too many potential losses for us to believe that this team has any chance to win eight games to beat that season win total.
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