Florida football: Report says Gators add West Coast teams to future
Well, I guess Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin knew what he was doing. His Twitter all-call has yielded a couple of nice future opponents for Florida football.
It wasn’t long ago that Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin hit the Twitterverse to find future opponents for Florida football.
Now, according to a report from Only Gators, Stricklin’s social media work has yielded fruit.
The report says Florida football will have a home-and-home series with both Arizona State and Cal between 2026 and 2031.
The Gators will get California at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in 2026 and make the return trip to Berkeley the next season.
Attention ADs from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 or Pac-12 … @GatorsFB is looking to add additional Home-and-Home series against P5 opponents. Let’s connect and schedule quality games the fans want to see! #GoGators
— Scott Stricklin (@ScottStricklin) October 22, 2019
In 2028, Florida will travel to Tempe, Arizona to take on the Sun Devils in 2028 and Arizona State will come to Gainesville in 2031.
It would bring about a couple of firsts for the Florida football program.
First, they have never played a regular-season football game in Arizona. The last time they had a regular-season game in California was 1983 when they took on Southern Cal in Los Angeles.
Here’s when they played Southern Cal in Gainesville the year before:
Florida football has played Cal before — beating them 21-17 in 1974 and 41-13 in 1980 in Tampa. The Gators have never played Arizona State.
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Stricklin is getting ever-closer to filling the Florida football non-conference schedule.
So far, Florida will host Utah in 2022 and return to Salt Lake City in 2023. They also have a home-and-home with Colorado — also of the Pac-12 — hosting the Buffaloes in 2028 (the same year they travel to Arizona State) and traveling to Boulder in 2029.
In 2024-2025, Florida football will have a home-and-home with Miami. The other non-conference home-and-home is with Texas in 2030 and 2031.
For timeline purposes, here’s how the Florida football Power 5 nonconference schedule looks:
2020 — at Florida State
2021 — vs. Florida State
2022 — vs. Utah; at Florida State
2023 — at Utah; vs. Florida State
2024 — vs. Miami; at Florida State
2025 — at Miami; vs. Florida State
2026 — vs. California; at Florida State
2027 — at California; vs. Florida State
2028 — vs. Colorado; at Arizona State; at Florida State
2029 — at Colorado; vs. Florida State
2030 — vs. Texas; at Florida State
2031 — at Texas; vs. Arizona State; vs. Florida State
Next. Gators No. 10 in CFP rankings, and that's okay. dark
Remember, No. 10 Florida football will host Vanderbilt at noon Saturday, Nov. 9 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.