Florida, Kansas Continue Surprising 2024 Campaigns With Midseason Turnarounds

Florida and Kansas kicked off the 2024 season with much different expectations after contrasting finishes to 2023. However, their campaigns have followed similar trajectories, as the Gators and Jayhawks have emerged as two of the most impactful 6-5 and 5-6 teams the game has seen.

Both teams shook up the College Football Playoff race in Week 13, but more importantly to each respective program, they continued impressive midseason turnarounds.

In Florida’s case, a 24-17 win over No. 9-ranked Ole Miss was the program’s most noteworthy victory since the peak of the Urban Meyer era.

Seriously. According to Florida athletic communications, the Gators last beat Top 25 opponents in consecutive weeks when they capped off the 2008 season’s Bowl Championship Series title with a run of three straight wins over Florida State, Alabama in the SEC Championship, and Oklahoma in the title game.

The shadow of the Meyer era has loomed large over Gainesville throughout current Gators coach Billy Napier’s tenure. The timing of Netflix’s release of the documentary Swamp Kings, which celebrated Florida’s two national championships under Meyer while downplaying some of the more unsavory elements surrounding the program at the time, couldn’t have been worse.

Swamp Kings dropped just as the 2023 Gators were starting a dismal 5-7 season—Florida’s third straight sub-.500 finish and second in as many years under Napier. Post-Meyer predecessors were on short leashes, getting dismissed two years after a Sugar Bowl appearance (Will Muschamp), less than a full season removed from consecutive SEC Championship Game appearances (Jim McElwain), and a year after another SEC title game run (Dan Mullen).

Expectations may have suggested the same for Napier. Heck, one of the many interchangeable ESPN shows even theorized about Napier’s job security before his second season had even kicked off.

Opening this campaign at 3-3, with losses by 24 points to Miami and 13 points to Texas A&M—both at home—precedent suggested Napier wouldn’t have made it to Halloween. Florida had every reason to punt on 2024, but by continuing to soldier on, the Gators have reached this point.

“Leadership is very hard, and I think these guys have stepped up in a major way,” Napier said following Saturday’s win. “That first month of the year was a challenge in every facet. Young people, at that point, have got to decide who they want to be and what they’re about.”

Florida is finding its identity on the defensive side of the ball, holding both LSU and Ole Miss to fewer than 20 points in the last two weeks. Saturday’s win also signals a possible way forward for the Gators to continue building on this strong finish.

Bryce Thornton, a sophomore, was dynamic against Ole Miss with two interceptions. Caleb Banks and Tyreak Sapp, both juniors, made 2.5 and 1.5 sacks, respectively.

Whereas previous Florida coaches saw early success but diminishing returns, this era of Gators football is showing encouraging growth. Building a program can be a long, frustrating process, but Florida is beginning to produce results.

Few programs understand the arduous process of building like Kansas. Between the Pepper Rodgers-coached Orange Bowl team of 1968 and Lance Leipold’s debut in 2021, almost as many Jayhawks teams won one game or fewer in a season (eight) as qualified for bowl games (nine).

Leipold hasn’t worked under the same kind of shadows in Lawrence as those looming over Napier in Gainesville. So when the career-long overachieving coach’s 2023 Jayhawks went 9-4 and finished ranked in the Top 25, it was a surprising achievement.

When Kansas regressed to 1-5 midway through 2024, with no FBS wins to its credit, the general vibe among the fan base was one of business as usual. A few Jayhawks supporters photographed at a 35-31 loss at Arizona State on Oct. 5—the fifth of five straight losses—wore paper bags over their heads, one with a reference to the 1998 film The Waterboy scrawled on it reading, “We suck again.”

Now, after winning three straight—all against teams ranked in the top 20 and harboring Playoff aspirations—Iowa State, BYU, and Colorado—Kansas most certainly does not suck. The Jayhawks may be the most meaningful team in altering the complexion of the Playoff race since the committee began revealing weekly rankings.

“I’m so proud of this group and our coaching staff because so many people had written this team off,” Leipold said following Saturday’s 37-21 victory over Colorado. “Everyone was frustrated, pointing to things that should’ve been changed or done differently. But this group stuck together, stayed committed to the process, and did everything we asked of them.”

Buffs wide receiver Travis Hunter entered Week 13 widely considered the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy—and to his credit, he caught for 125 yards and two touchdowns, possibly strengthening his case.

But while Hunter was celebrating his success with Heisman poses, Devin Neal was celebrating a win.

Neal rushed for 207 yards and three touchdowns, caught for 80 yards and a fourth score, and as a hometown product, he put a stamp on the kind of performance that will live in the pantheon of Jayhawks running backs, alongside The Kansas Comet Gale Sayers.

“I said it before, that a lot of guys would have given up on this,” Neal said in his postgame interview with Fox Sports. “But it’s special. And you see the crowd that showed up today; we built this. We take a lot of pride in that.”

From winless in 2020 and 1-5 just a few weeks ago, Kansas is now one Week 14 victory over Baylor away from advancing to its third straight bowl game—an unprecedented feat in Jayhawks history.

That Kansas has never been to three straight bowls underscores just how different that program is compared to Florida. But in 2024, there may not be two more similar teams with more surprising imprints left on the college football landscape.