Alex Shepherd
Gators 2024 Opponents Revealed: Florida to Face Texas in SEC Debut Season
Photo credit: Alex Shepherd
Barrelling toward an expanded league without an expanded scheduling format within it, the Southeastern Conference on Wednesday unveiled the intraconference opponents each team will face during the 2024 season once the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma obtain union membership.
Each SEC team will play one of the Longhorns and Sooners in 2024. The Florida Gators will meet the former, Texas, for the first time since 1940.
Florida will play host to the Kentucky Wildcats, LSU Tigers, Ole Miss Rebels and Texas A&M Aggies, and travel to face the Longhorns, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Tennessee Volunteers and Georgia Bulldogs (neutral site in Jacksonville, Fla.) next season, as announced by the SEC on Wednesday.
Despite the league's anticipated growth from 14 to 16 teams, conference leaders agreed on June 1 to avoid drastically altering schedule dynamics for at least another year. In order to balance the additions of Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC East and West divisions will be eliminated in favor of a single standings format to determine the conference championship contenders in 2024 and beyond.
The alternative to maintaining an eight-game league schedule was to add a ninth conference game to each program's slate, an initiative that did not garner enough support for a vote in its favor at the SEC spring meetings.
"We have been engaged in planning for the entry of Oklahoma and Texas into the SEC since the summer of 2021, but the change of the membership date from 2025 to 2024 creates scheduling complexities that can better be managed with a one-year schedule," SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a June 1 statement.
"Creating a one-year schedule will provide a longer on-ramp to manage football scheduling around existing non-conference commitments of our members. It will also provide additional time to understand the impact of an expanded College Football Playoff and engage with our media partners as we determine the appropriate long-term plan for SEC football scheduling."
The eight-game schedule in 2024 will allow Florida to honor its previously scheduled out-of-conference games.
In addition to Florida's yearly, in-state rivalry matchup with Florida State of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Gators' non-conference slate next season will feature another two Sunshine State powers in Miami and UCF.
Both games will be a product of series agreements made between UF athletic director Scott Stricklin and former Miami and UCF athletic directors, Blake James and Danny White.
Florida's lone FCS opponent in 2024 will be Samford. The Bulldogs posed a legitimate threat when the programs first met in 2021, with offensive fireworks from both squads leading to a 70-52 Gators victory in Gainesville. The win marked Dan Mullen's last as UF's head coach, who was replaced by the team's current leader, Billy Napier.
Find Florida's list of 2024 opponents in full below. The Gators' official schedule will be released at a later date.
SEC opponents
- Kentucky Wildcats (home)
- LSU Tigers (home)
- Ole Miss Rebels (home)
- Texas A&M Aggies (home)
- Georgia Bulldogs (away — neutral site)
- Mississippi State Bulldogs (away)
- Tennessee Volunteers (away)
- Texas Longhorns (away)
Non-conference opponents
- Miami Hurricanes (home)
- Samford Bulldogs (home)
- UCF Knights (home)
- Florida State Seminoles (away)
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