Bound for the CFB Top Ten: Cue Up “Happy Days Are Here Again”
Update: The new AP poll is out, and Florida is No. 8. “The Gators’ 24-point win over Mississippi on Saturday earned them a 13-rung promotion to No. 8, their highest ranking since 2020 and first top-10 appearance since 2021,” the AP wrote.
By Buddy Martin
GatorBaitMedia.com
Jerri Spurrier walked into the media lunchroom a little out of breath and smiling like it was the good old days again. She’d been dropping in on tailgates across the way, and the former First Lady of Florida football was still feeling it.
“I don’t know when I’ve seen them so happy,” she told us. “Everybody is happy!”
That was before kickoff.
That was before the No. 21 Gators took No. 4 Ole Miss out to the woodshed, 52-28, on one of those glorious Saturdays in The Swamp that Gator Nation will be telling its grandchildren about. The grandchildren will pretend they haven’t heard it before.
So cue the music. “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
The song goes back a ways. Milton Ager and Jack Yellen wrote it right before the Crash of ’29, and it showed up in the movie “Chasing Rainbows.” Franklin D. Roosevelt later rode it all the way to the White House. Barbra Streisand made it haunting, and she and Judy Garland made it immortal. The lyrics are still under copyright, though, and the lawyers get twitchy when you print them. So I have a better idea.
Let Gator Nation write its own version. Something tells me this happiness is going to stick around long enough to need a second verse.
The Computers Have Spoken
If you’re into that FPI projection stuff business ESPN keeps selling, it’s described as “a measure of team strength meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of a season, representing points above or below average.” In plain English, it’s a slide rule with a marketing department.
But this time the slide rule agrees with the eyeballs. It says Florida is favored in everything but the Texas and Georgia games. That’s 10-2, and 10-2 gets you into the playoff. When the new poll comes out within 48 hours, this team is a lock for the Top 10.
Editor’s note: The new polls are out, and Florida is No. 8 in both. The Gators jumped 13 spots in the AP Top 25 (1,272 points) and 14 in the AFCA Coaches Poll (1,214 points).
I’m not sure it qualifies for a worst-to-first trophy. It does look like a clean move from the outhouse to the penthouse, and nobody even had to call the movers.
I believe in enjoying the moment. After a win like that, in a Ben Hill Griffin Stadium rocking hard enough to register on seismographs in Waldo, with every power broker in college football suddenly checking his notes, I say soak it up and sing it loud: “Happy Days are here again!”
About That Rat Poison
The people who predict and project for a living are all calling Florida a Top 10 team now. Some are whispering maybe top six or seven. That’s where the caution comes in.
We all know what Nick Saban says about “rat poison.” In Gainesville, we’ll call it “Gator poison.”
Nah. This Sumrall fellow isn’t swallowing any of it.
Missouri is next, and Sumrall has already told his team that Saturday in The Swamp is history. Somehow long-suffering Gator fans, people who spent years guarding against despair, are now being told to guard against overconfidence. It’s a nice problem to have, like complaining that your new boat is too fast.
It’s all part of the Sumrall routine: “I just want to go 1-0 every week.”
Sure enough, by Sunday afternoon the chips began falling Florida’s way in the new AP poll.
Bringing the Fire
Along with the laser focus, the grit and the stubbornness comes a fire in the man’s belly, and it seems to light up his whole football team. The people close to the program notice. One player’s dad heard him speak and said, “I’d run through the wall for that guy.”
Tim Tebow said it best last Saturday: “Coach, thank you for bringing the fire back to this program.”
That’s like the world’s most famous arsonist tipping his cap to the new guy for setting a few fires of his own.
Happy days, indeed. Quick! Somebody start writing that second verse now.
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