12 surprising seasons Gators began unranked

Sometimes when you are trying to look something up, another thing jumps up and smacks you right in the face.

In this case, I was looking to see when was the last time Florida started a season unranked in both football and basketball (never finished that project, but I will).

And what was startling was that – if we assume the Gators won’t be ranked when the first Associated Press poll comes out – this will be the fifth time this century Florida will be unranked to start a season and the fourth time in the last nine years.

That last stat is mind-boggling, but it also shows what happens when you go through so many coaches in a short time.

But we will take this in a positive direction and Dooley’s Dozen will tell you some stories about teams at Florida who were not ranked in the preseason but overachieved their way to a nice season.

1
2018 — Dan Mullen

Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images

There was no reason to rank this team since Florida was coming off a 4-7 season and lost six of its last seven games. This was definitely a team that got better as the season went along with a blowout win over Florida State (which had won five straight in the series) and a big win over Michigan in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

2
1983 — Charley Pell

AP Photo

Charley’s building process was going full speed ahead and I don’t know why Florida was not ranked. But the Gators certainly were after beating Miami 28-3 in the opener. Miami went on to win the national title. Florida finished 9-2-1 with the losses coming by a total of eight points.

3
1990 — Steve Spurrier

Andy Lyons /Allsport

Clearly, the AP voters were not as excited about Spurrier’s return to his alma mater as the Gator Nation was. This was the only time in his 12 years at Florida that a Gator team was not ranked, which is pretty impressive. Florida…