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College Football Power Flex Rankings: Top 25 (Week 2, 2025) | Gators Collapse, USF Stuns Florida
Florida Gators Coach Billy Napier is back on the hot seat, and that chair is on fire! For the first time since a 1938 loss to Stetson, the Florida Gators lost a regular season game to an in-state school not named Miami or Florida State. Chants of “Fire Billy” rained down from the stands at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium as USF shocked the Gators with a last second Nico Gramatica 20 yard field goal for an improbable 18-16 win.
Coming into the season, optimism reigned in Gainesville. Florida was coming off a season where DJ Lagway proved he was the quarterback of the future, and a late winning streak showed the program was turning the corner. Just a few months later, there is a monster road block around the corner, and Napier is plowing into it at full speed. The number of ways that the Gators collapsed is the exact reason why Napier now is feeling the heat, most personified by all of the penalties, including one for spitting by a player. On the final drive by USF, Florida was called for a 15 yard pass interference, then Baylor transfer Brandon Bett spit on a Bull lineman, giving USF another 15 yards and an automatic first down.
Bett apologized to his team and the opposing player by late Monday night (https://www.instagram.com/p/DOXNJEGDO2e) but it is a sign of a lack of discipline in Gainesville that comes straight from the top.
With USF driving late, the Gators did not use their final timeouts in a way that would help the team save time for a final drive. The series of downs that started with 1:54 on the clock ended with yet another penalty for Florida, this one for an illegal substitution that gave USF the first down that got them into field goal range, and the Gators did not use those timeout until after when it was too late. This was yet another coaching blunder that has Gator fans ready to chomp their own head guy. Buckle up Florida fans. Your next 4 games are at LSU, at Miami, home for Texas, and at Texas A&M.
While the Gators imploded, the USF Bulls kept plugging along. “Let’s keep it rolling, we are 2-0” Head Coach Alex Golesh said after the game. “It was a cool, cool moment for us”. Now the Bulls travel to Miami, and if they can somehow win there, I better not be the only columnist ranking them number one.
I’m confused about what to do with the rankings this week because of the horrible teams facing off against the top teams. How can we reward a team like Florida State for beating East Texas A&M, or Ohio State for playing Grambling? I have to ask myself, which is better? Is the combination of wins a team has better than the huge single win another team has? I am willing to listen to your input on this topic. Since we are only two weeks into the season, the schedule will even itself out over the course of the year, and the answers will be more clear.
SYNAN SAYS TOP 25 FOR THE WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 8TH
- USF (2-0) Wins at Florida, and stomped Boise State at home. Best combo of any team
- FSU (2-0) Butt kicking of Alabama is the best win by any team yet this year
- OHIO STATE (2-0) Win over Texas is 2nd best win of the year
- LSU (2-0) The Clemson win drops a notch after Clemson struggled with Troy. LSU wasn’t great beating Louisiana Tech either
- MIAMI (2-0) Win over Notre Dame still clocks in as a big one
- OKLAHOMA (2-0) showed a lot of toughness beating Michigan
- AUBURN (2-0) Beat Baylor comfortably in week 1, who went to Dallas and beat SMU
- OREGON (2-0) Beating Oklahoma State 69-3, even though the Cowboys are down this year, still turns some heads
- IOWA STATE (3-0) Now have a really good win over Iowa, and an OK win over Kansas State
- OLE MISS (2-0) Have an SEC road win
- TCU (2-0) Win at UNC may not keep them highly ranked for long
- MISSOURI (1-0) They were fun to watch in Border War win over Kansas
- ILLINOIS (2-0) Win at Duke was convincing
- GEORGIA TECH (2-0) here on strength of win at Colorado
- SOUTH CAROLINA (2-0) neutral field win over Va Tech not as impressive after Hokies lost at home to Vanderbilt
- MISSISSIPPI STATE (2-0) beat last year’s Big 12 champ Arizona State
- TENNESSEE (2-0) win over Syracuse looks less good this week
- PENN STATE (2-0) another win over a patsy and I do not want to reward them
- GEORGIA (2-0) see: comment on Penn State above
- NEBRASKA (2-0) rewarding them for win at Cincinnati
- SOUTHERN CAL (2-0) 73 and 59 points against bad teams
- UTAH (2-0) win at UCLA isn’t that good anymore and neither is Nico Iamaleava
- TEXAS (1-1) only loss by 7 at Ohio State
- NC STATE (2-0) both wins (ECU, UVA) were full of excitement
- CALIFORNIA (2-0) opening win at Oregon State is not as good as it was last week
Mike Synan
News | Sports | Politics
- After two decades in news and politics, Mike Synan is returning to his roots to write Sports as “The Sportsaholic”. Mike hosted a talk show for 6 years on WDBO after Magic home games called “Magic Til Midnight”, and spent years working as an in-game correspondent for both ESPN and Fox Sports Radio. His column “Synan Says” has appeared on both www.wdbo.com and www.floridadaily.com. He has a BS in Political Science from Clemson University. You can reach him at msynan@sportsmail.com
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