Florida Football: The 2019 Gators peaked just one week too late

Florida football has had a great season in 2019, but they unfortunately needed to peak just a few weeks earlier against Georgia

2019 was a season filled with tons of high expectations. Even with the injuries they faced, they were expected to compete for the SEC East. When Kyle Trask proved that he was capable of replacing Feleipe Franks at quarterback, this team continued to push through this season.

Unfortunately, Florida had one of the tougher schedules from top contenders in the SEC. They already had to face Georgia on a neutral field, but they also had to play Auburn and at LSU in the SEC West. Outside of playing the Tide instead of Auburn, that’s about as bad as it can get. They also had a rivalry game to start the season against Miami. Although the Hurricanes are not a top team like we thought they might be, rivalry games to start the season can get crazy.

Despite the loss to LSU, Florida completely controlled their own destiny going into the Georgia game. If they managed to beat the Bulldogs, they even had a mulligan game in the SEC to at least still make it to the SEC Championship. However, they weren’t able to get it done that week.

Since that loss, Florida has looked like one of the best teams in the conference. They’re as healthy as you can hope for in November, and they’ve won their past two games by a combined score of 79-6. I know these are against two of the worst teams in the SEC East, but they have struggled in previous games that probably should have been blowouts.

With them playing so well now, one can only wonder what would’ve happened if they were playing UGA this week as opposed to three weeks ago. It appears that Florida has really peaked late in the season, and that’s what you would usually hope for in college football. The bad news is that they had their two toughest challenges in the middle of their schedule.

With limited games in college football, every second on the field counts. Timing is everything, and it just wasn’t there for the Gators this year. However, it looks like they’ll be ready to get fans hyped about next year with their bowl game, similar to how they did against Michigan last season.