Look, let’s be honest: Whatever happens on the field for the rest of the 2022 season for the Florida Gators football team is unlikely to matter all that much beyond this season.
Florida is 4-4, and needs two wins over some mix of Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, and Florida State to earn bowl eligibility — though, one reckons, the glut of bowls might be great enough that a 5-7 Florida team might be given the great honor of being one side of an ESPN-run bowl to make sure that all-important late-December TV slot is filled. Getting to play in a bowl would give Florida’s coaches a chance to go through the vaunted bowl practices that the sages of college football have all decreed are crucial to the development of a team, rarely even broaching the possibility that a bunch of young men might actually prefer to be at home for the holidays during a break between semesters, and that any football practices during that time might have diminishing returns if a team is not immediately vying for a national championship.