2024 FTBL Preview: Inside the Schedule -- Florida Gators

FLORIDA GATORS

2023 Record: 5-7

2024 FPI Projection: 6-6

2024 Over/Under Total: 4.5

(Eds Note: Win total is 4.5?!?! Yikes)


BIGGEST GAME: Miami (August 31)

In a season where the Gators have next to no margin of error, they have to come out of the gate ready to play against a team with a lot of experience and size and expectations. The good news is the game is at home, it's going to be a hot, steamy mid-afternoon game with a crowd that will be rabid and fighting heat exhaustion all at once. Miami provides a heck of a challenge for a team that honestly could've used a much easier opening week to make sure the new parts all work together. There's a lot to unpack with this game. Are the Hurricanes as good as we think they are? Can D.J. Lagway give the Gators some real hope in his first game? Does the losing coach of this game survive the season? Like I said there's a lot to unpack. 


TRAP GAME: at Mississippi State (September 21)

If Florida is going to get to a bowl game in 2024, it has to be 5-2 going into the treacherous final five games on the schedule. A noon game (actually 11 a.m. local time) in Starkville isn't likely to draw a lot of attention, but for the Gators it could be their most important game of the first half of the season. Florida doesn't have too many games that they will go in as a clear favorite and should win with a little bit of room to spare. Mississippi State is one of the those games, but it's on the road and it's an uninspiring opponent. This is the sort of game that will be a great indicator of how the locker room feels about Billy Napier


POTENTIAL UPSET: UCF (October 5)

UCF is an interesting team and depending on where Florida is through four games in the season this could easily be the first game that Lagway starts. The Knights are in their second year of power conference play and have made some nice additions to both sides of the line. Florida should be reminded of the last time these two teams played -- UCF beat Florida 29-17 in the 2021 Gasparilla Bowl. There probably aren't many players from that game still at Florida, but the few that remain should remind everyone else that this is a game they don't want to lose. 

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