Gators Make Schedule Change Following 24-Team Playoff Approval

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — As college football moves to a 24-team playoff beginning in 2027, the Florida Gators are making changes to its future schedule. On Tuesday, Florida cancelled a home-and-home series against Notre Dame, which was slated to be played in South Bend in 2031 and Gainesville in 2032, according to the Associated Press.

Originally signed in 2021, the deal included a clause that allowed Florida to back out of the deal if the SEC moved from an eight-game league schedule to nine games. The league moved to a nine-game slate this season, with the expanded playoff to begin next year.

Florida's cancelling of its series with Notre Dame is the latest scheduling move after cancelling other home-and-home series with Arizona State, California and N.C. State..

The 24-team playoff, which was officially announced this week, requires Power Four programs to play 10 games against either conference opponents, other Power Four non-conference teams or Notre Dame. The Gators, in addition to its nine-game SEC schedule, face in-state rival Florida State every season, which meets the CFP's requirement.

First-year head coach Jon Sumrall spoke on the 24-team playoff this week.

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"With a nine-game SEC schedule, I’m for it. If we were still at eight SEC games, I think I might be against it because are we making the field too big?" he said on Monday. "... You’re gonna look at 9-3 in the SEC is almost, in a weird way, what 11-1 used to be. This is NFL-ish now.

"... But this league, week in, week out, the attrition on the health of your roster, the bumps and bruises you get, the competitiveness of every Saturday, I think what 9-3 has become in this conference because of the way we’ve made this schedule and we all have a P4 game on top of it, I’m for the 24-team deal because of that. "

Another by-product of the 24-team playoff is the elimination of conference title games. The final SEC Championship Game will be played this season, with the Gators all but out of contention for an appearance. Florida's 13 appearances are currently tied for second in the league's history with Georgia, while its seven victories stand alone as the second-most behind Alabama.

Sumrall said he had discussed what a new scheduling format could look like because of there no longer being a conference championship game as well as the season moving up a week, explaining that he is curious if teams will move away from having a rivalry week at the end of the season in favor of scheduling an FCS opponent ahead of the playoff to rest starters.

"I think your scheduling format does maybe change a little bit in how you’d like to play some non-conference games throughout the year and maybe not just two front-loaded and one on the backend," he said.

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