Making a case for Florida at accept a bowl bid
By way of a 24-21 win over Florida State, the Florida Gators gained bowl eligibility for the 2021 season.
That's a sentence Florida fans weren't expecting to read when the season began 84 days ago but the 2021 season hasn't gone as expected.
Coming off of three consecutive New Year's Six Bowl games the expectations were high for the Gators. They, for numerous reasons, had their season derailed to the point where Dan Mullen was fired following a road loss to Missouri.
The players in the locker room, who have worked for months to get ready for the season rallied around each other this week to get a win over a rival, send the seniors out on a high note, and lastly for an opportunity to continue playing the game they love with the guys they consider brothers.
The College Football Playoff has, in some minds, devalued the bowl system. If you're not playing for a championship, then why play at all, some would argue.
You can't tell that to the more than one hundred players in the Florida locker room.
"All I know is they're gonna tell us where we're going and we're going. If I got anything to say, if they leave it up to me, I'd be going," Antonio Valentino said after the game. "I don't care who it is, where it is, it doesn't matter. We're going. We've got one more chance to play."
"We’ve been talking about it all week," Zach Carter said of the chance to get bowl eligible. "We knew what was at stake this game. They were fighting for a bowl. We were fighting for a bowl. We wanted it more. We wanted to get to that bowl.”
It isn't unprecedented or even rare. When Will Muschamp was fired, the Gators named D.J. Durkin the interim head coach, and he led the Gators to a Birmingham Bowl win over ECU. Jim McElwain was already in place, in fact, he did an interview with the media in the press box during the game.
Florida's coaching staff is still under contract. Four of those contracts will expire after December, but at 6-6, the Gators won't be playing in a New Year's Day bowl game. You can accept a bowl bid, allow the current coaching staff to enjoy 19 more practices and another opportunity to coach the guys they recruited and developed one more time. The new coaching staff can go out and recruit. They can use those 19 practices to get a first-hand look at the team they're inheriting, and, of course, those 19 practices can be critical for young players looking to make an impact for the next staff.
You can count interim head coach Greg Knox, who improved to 2-0 as a head coach on Saturday, in for a bowl game.
"I’m committed," Knox said when asked about a potential bowl game. "I’m committed to these players and I’m committed to going to a bowl game."
Knox was also a part of a similar situation in 2017 at Mississippi State. Dan Mullen left for Florida and Knox was promoted to interim head coach. While Dan Mullen began to build his staff and recruit for the Gators, Knox stayed back and finished out the season for Mississippi State, beating Lamar Jackson and Lousiville before accepting the running backs job at Florida.
Ultimately, though, bowl games are rewards for the players. It's the carrot on a stick that keeps them going when days get long during fall camp. It's an opportunity to spend a week in a vacation destination and get a chance to spend more time with your teammates.
Florida earned bowl eligibility on Friday. This may be a season that fans would soon forget but the players should be afforded the opportunity to play in the game they earned to play in.