August optimism is cheap.
Excuses and alibis from past failures have expired.
The time has come for the Sunshine State to prove it under the lights.
As football fans in this once-dominant pigskin peninsula, we want more in 2025.
We deserve more.
Excuse my cynicism, but I’m tired of the blind optimism that comes with fresh playbooks and shiny new uniforms.
No more.
This year is different.
From the major college programs to the NFL franchises, Florida football is littered with teams, coaches, and players who have something to prove — not to their fan bases, not to the talking heads on TV, but to the scoreboard. Until they do it — until they win the games that matter — I refuse to buy a single ounce of the preseason hype.
Show me, don’t tell me.
Let’s start right here in Orlando, where once upon a time coach Scott Frost was the golden boy of Orlando. In 2015, UCF went 0-12. Winless. Hopeless. The joke of college football.
Frost was hired from Oregon’s coaching staff, and within two seasons he pulled off one of the most remarkable turnarounds in modern college football history: a perfect 13-0 season in 2017, a Peach Bowl win over Auburn and a self-proclaimed “national championship” that still gets under Alabama fans’ skin.
He was young, he was charismatic, he looked good in a camouflage coaching cap.
And then he bolted for Nebraska.
That’s when the fairy tale turned Grimm. At Nebraska, Frost was a disaster. His record: 16-31. Zero bowl games. A staggering 5-22 mark in one-score games – which basically means if there was a close game, you could count on Frost to lose it. And Nebraska fans, a patient bunch when it comes to corn harvests, had seen enough. They fired him three games into his fifth season rather than wait a few weeks to save $7.5 million on his buyout. When they’d rather eat $7 million rather than watch you coach another game, then you’ve reached a special kind of rock bottom.
Now Frost is back at UCF, trying to rekindle the magic. But here’s the problem: UCF isn’t in the American Athletic Conference anymore, where they could feast on the likes of Temple and Tulane. They’re in the Big 12 now, where trips to Colorado, Iowa State and BYU aren’t just tough; they’re humbling.
Two seasons ago, their first in the Power 4, the Knights finished 6-7, went 3-6 in the Big 12, and lost to Georgia Tech in the Gasparilla Bowl. Last year, the bottom fell out, the Knights went 4-8 and coach Gus Malzahn bailed out to take a lesser job as an offensive coordinator at FSU.
Frost has to prove he can still coach. And UCF has to prove they belong with the big boys. Right now, they look like a Group of Five team playing dress-up.
Which brings us to the University of Florida, where Billy Napier’s team rattled off four straight wins to close the 2024 season — including a win over rival Florida State that sent Seminoles fans into an offseason of therapy. The Gators finished 8-5, and Napier was spared from the hot seat … for now.
But let’s be honest: If Florida opens this year 2-4, Napier will be one bad press conference away from real estate agents leaving cards on his desk.
This is a program with a championship pedigree — three national titles, eight SEC championships and a fan base that still hears Steve Spurrier’s voice saying “God has smiled on the Gators” every time they pass the “Welcome to Gainesville” sign. But since Urban Meyer left in 2010, the Gators have gone through four permanent head coaches, two interim coaches and have exactly zero SEC titles or appearances in the College Football Playoff to show for it.
Napier’s record at Florida: 19-19 overall, 10-14 in SEC play. That’s not the blueprint of a program builder; that’s the résumé of a guy clinging to middle-tier relevance.
And it’s no secret that the SEC is a meat grinder, with six teams ranked ahead of the Gators in the preseason rankings. If last year’s November streak was the start of something big, then hallelujah! But until Florida strings together 10-win seasons and beats Georgia; it’s just a mirage in the Swamp.
Meanwhile, up in Tallahassee, no program fell harder or faster or more embarrassingly last season than Florida State.
Two years ago, the Seminoles went 12-0 in the regular season, won the ACC, and were in the College Football Playoff hunt until a late injury to quarterback Jordan Travis. They were snubbed by the committee, but they had momentum. They were “back.”
Until they went 2-10 last season.
Let me repeat that: Two wins. Ten losses. One of the biggest collapses in modern college football history. From a perfect regular season to a perfect mess.
Most of the losses weren’t even close. Notre Dame beat them 52-3. SMU walloped them by four touchdowns. Coach Mike Norvell insists that last year was an anomaly and resulted from too many misses in the transfer portal. Whatever. The fact is FSU fans don’t want excuses; they want results.
Norvell’s safety net is his massive contract buyout, which makes firing him financially painful. So instead of a pink slip, he got an offseason gift: the ability to hire Malzahn as offensive coordinator. Malzahn, the former UCF and Auburn coach, is tasked with reviving an offense that was dead-last in the Power 4.
However, even more astounding than FSU going from ACC champs to ACC chumps in one season is the fact that the Miami Hurricanes joined the ACC in 2004 and still has never won a conference championship.
Twenty years. Zero ACC titles. That’s like buying beachfront property two decades ago and still you’ve never stepped foot in the ocean.
The Hurricanes have had more head coaches (five) than 10-win seasons (three) since joining the conference. Their most recent conference title of any kind? It was in 2003, when they were still in the Big East. Their last national championship? That was 2001, when Larry Coker was on the sideline and flip phones were cutting-edge technology.
Last season looked like it might finally be different — until it wasn’t. Coach Mario Cristobal’s Hurricanes started 9-0, then lost to double-digit underdogs Georgia Tech and Syracuse down the stretch. It was the same script Miami fans have seen since the Golden (Al) years: early swagger, late collapse.
This year’s big gamble is quarterback Carson Beck, a high-priced transfer from Georgia who looked more like a passenger than a driver last year in Athens. Miami is betting Beck can be this year’s version of Cam Ward. In fact, Cristobal is betting his credibility on it.
Until Miami hoists an ACC trophy, “The U is back” is just a hashtag.
And just like Cristobal, his Miami-Dade County neighbor, Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, must show us that he, too, can deliver late in the season when it matters most.
McDaniel is the NFL’s quirkiest head coach. He wears Yeezys on the sideline, cracks self-deprecating jokes in pressers and lets his stars have plenty of rope. The players love him. The fans love him. But the standings? The standings are less romantic.
McDaniel is 28-23 in three seasons, with two playoff appearances and zero playoff wins. The Dolphins haven’t won a playoff game in 25 years. McDaniel has to prove he can win in January. And that means controlling a locker room where Tyreek Hill quit on the team in the season finale, then told reporters he wanted out of Miami.
McDaniel is purportedly demanding accountability and running a tighter ship this season, but is anybody really buying that “Club Mike” can suddenly transform himself into “Military Mike”?
Then there’s quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who’s missed time in four of his five NFL seasons. He must prove he can stay upright for 17 games and become the true franchise quarterback the Fins haven’t had since Dan Marino limped into retirement following a 62-7 playoff beatdown at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
And speaking of the Jaguars, five years ago they drafted Trevor Lawrence with the No. 1 pick and hired Urban Meyer as coach. That lasted 13 games before Meyer’s scandal-plagued exit. Then came Doug Pederson, who steadied the ship temporarily and won the AFC South — only to flame out a year later.
Now, the Jags have hit reset again, hiring Liam Coen as coach. Coen’s reputation as a “quarterback whisperer” comes from his work with Matthew Stafford in L.A., Will Levis at Kentucky and Baker Mayfield last year as offensive coordinator with the Tampa Bay Bucs. His mission: make Lawrence the franchise quarterback Jacksonville thought they were drafting in 2021.
Lawrence is entering Year 5 and the Jaguars are a miserable 25-43 during his tenure as the face of the franchise. He’s had more turnovers than any player in the league during that span.
Meanwhile, rookie phenom Travis Hunter — the Heisman winner who played both sides of the ball at Colorado — has been drafted to do the unthinkable and become the NFL’s first full-time two-way star since Chuck Bednarik in 1962.
And, yes, this all sounds great in August, but I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ve experienced this Jags-to-riches hype train before, only to watch it derail by Halloween.
Finally, we wrap up this Florida football reality check with the Tampa Bay Bucs, who have been the pride of the Sunshine State since Tom Brady shockingly touched down in Tampa and gifted the team a Super Bowl in 2020.
However, since Brady retired, the Bucs have essentially been the heavyweight in a featherweight fight, beating up on a division where 9-8 is enough to get you a playoff home game. But when they face the big boys in January, they fold faster than a cheap pup tent.
Winning the NFC South the past four years hasn’t been an accomplishment; it’s been a participation trophy. Todd Bowles is 27-24 as Tampa’s coach, including 0-3 in the playoffs. Mayfield had a career resurgence season last year, but let’s not forget: Cleveland gave up on him. Carolina gave up on him. The Rams gave up on him. One great year in Tampa doesn’t erase that.
If the Bucs want to be taken seriously, they have to beat the league’s elite. Otherwise, they’re just the nicest house on a block of foreclosures; paper champions of a paper-thin division.
We can print the T-shirts, tweet the hype videos and spin the excuses. But until somebody in this state hangs a real banner, Florida football is just a loud, sunburned tourist talking big at the bar and ducking the bill when the check comes.
From Gainesville to Miami, Jacksonville to Tampa, Florida football is a masterclass in selling hope and delivering mediocrity. Every August, we’re promised a return to glory. Every January, we’re left holding empty bags.
The lights will come on soon enough, and when they do, we’ll see who’s for real and who’s just another Florida fraud.
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen
