Florida Football: Opening four Gator games have start times announced

Sometimes it can be hard to plan out Saturdays with Florida football because the start times are seldom announced in advance. We muse and speculate on start times, but once SEC plays beings, we never know for certain until the week of when games will officially start.

But with an announcement yesterday, Gatorn Nation now knows the start times for the first four games of the 2023 season.

Florida Football: All of the lights

Much to the chagrin of many Gator fans, the 2023 season will open on a Thursday. This was a decision made by Utah/Pac-12 in order to get a primetime game on Fox.

The end result is that Florida’s opener will start at 8 PM on a work night.

Fun.

The next three games will also be at night, but on its traditional Saturday night, giving fans a chance to, um, recover the following day.

There are pros and cons to a primetime game vs a 12 PM game. If you are young, a student at UF, or just someone who doesn’t have children, 7 PM games are great. You can watch some of the other big games of the day, prepare with excitement, and there is something about playing under the lights that playing under sunlight doesn’t provide.

Plus, that sunlight is brutal in September, and most fans probably don’t want to bake in order to watch Florida vs Charlotte or McNeese State.

But sometimes, it is nice to get the game out of the way and carry on with your day. It’s also nice for those that don’t live in Gainesville to get home before 2 AM.

As it stands now, there is only one other game with a known start time, the Georgia game will be at its traditional 3:30 start time.