The Jon Sumrall era began in Gainesville amidst much fanfare after Florida football secured a 66-21 blowout of the FAU Owls in the Swamp last Saturday. The offense looked potent under new offensive coordinator Buster Faulker, while the defense still has room for improvement under first-year defensive coordinator Brad White.
Following college football's Week 1 action, ESPN's Bill Connelly released his first SP+ update of the regular season, with the Gators now ranked 15th overall with an 18.6 SP+ rating. That represents a five-spot improvement over his final preseason rankings and a 3.4-point improvement from the previous rating.
Looking deeper into the numbers, Florida's offensive SP+ of 33.5 ranks 21st in the nation, marking a 3.1-point and 19-spot
improvement from the last update. Meanwhile, the defense checks in at 13th with a 15.5 rating — a one-spot drop and 0.3-point decline — and the special teams remain at 17th with a 0.5 rating.
The Gators are joined by 10 other SEC schools in the SP+ rankings top 25, headlined by Georgia (No. 2), followed by Texas (No. 4), Texas A&M (No. 8), LSU (No. 9) and Oklahoma (No. 10) among the top 10. The remainder of the top-25 representatives are Alabama (No. 11), Tennessee (No. 12), Florida (No. 15), South Carolina (No. 19), Ole Miss (No. 20) and Missouri (No. 22).
ESPN's Week 1 SP+ top 25 rankings
About ESPN's SP+ ratings
"SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year," Connelly states.
"Early in the season, ratings are based primarily on preseason projections, including special teams ratings. Over the course of the season, preseason numbers are slowly phased out from week to week."
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida moves up in ESPN's SP+ metric after Week 1 win over FAU
