Florida football: Gators on the wrong end of odd scheduling quirk

Florida football has one of the toughest 2023 schedules in America, and they don’t have much to look forward to on that front next season either.

But as if the teams that Florida had to play weren’t hard enough, they’re also on the wrong end of a peculiar scheduling quirk that spans over their next three games.

Starting this week against South Carolina, each of the Gators’ next three opponents will all be coming off of a bye week.

Having that extra week off to recover from injuries and gameplan for Florida won’t do the Gators any favors when they head into those games.

Florida football: An added layer of difficulty

It’s very strange to see the bye weeks for Florida’s opponents all line up in order like this. Granted, Florida and Georgia share that same bye week before they meet.

But before they take on the Gators, both South Carolina and Arkansas will have that week off to get ready.

For obvious reasons, this isn’t ideal.

Once we get more into the week-in and week-out SEC schedule, injuries are going to start to pile up for a lot of these teams.

In the Gators’ case, they were missing two starters on the offensive side of the ball in Trevor Etienne and Kinglsey Eguakun, both with short-term injuries that bye weeks would likely fix.

Now, in two tough games against the Gamecocks and the Razorbacks, Florida won’t have that privilege while they’re opponents will.

It adds an extra layer of difficulty when it comes to game planning for these matchups, and makes the challenge a little easier for the other side.

Regardless of the bye weeks, Florida is in a three-game stretch where 2-1 would be great, while 1-2 would be a struggle. 0-3 is something that we don’t really want to think about.