Florida Football's bowl opponent has key member hit transfer portal

Florida Football has officially learned the bowl game they will be playing in this year. The Gators have been slotted into the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa and will be taking on the Tulane Green Wave, who lost in the AAC title game over the weekend against Army.

But as is the case with a lot of bowl games, don't expect rosters to be at full strength, and while Florida appears it will have its full complement of players, Tulane just had a key member of its roster announce it will hit the transfer portal.

Florida Football: Portal season

Darian Mensah was a two-star QB out of the class of 2023 who redshirted last year. He took over this season as the starter this year and had a 65.9% completion rate with 2,723 yards passing and 22 TDs against just six interceptions.

Tulane lost close games against Kansas State and Oklahoma before going on a run in the AAC that had them in contention to be one of the top five conference champions and a shot at the playoffs if they could win out. But Tulane lost to Memphis in the regular season finale and then lost to Army in the AAC championship game to finish the season 9-4.

ESPN's Pete Thamel, among others, is reporting that Mensah is opting to hit the transfer portal ahead of their bowl game against Florida. It is assumed he would not play in the bowl if that is the case, although Florida did have Emory Jones play in the Gasparilla Bowl in 2022, even though he had announced he was going into the portal.

The backup for Tulane is Ty Thompson, a former top 50 overall prospect who signed with Oregon but has seldom played during his college career.

Florida takes on Tulane on December 20 at 3:30 PM at Raymond James Stadium.