We are currently just 66 days away from Florida football’s opening game of the 2022 season against the Utah Utes to start the [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag] era in Gainesville. The Gators’ new head coach’s debut campaign is expected to be a difficult one, both from the perspective of personnel changes as well as a grueling overall schedule.
But what about the Southeastern Conference slate set for the Orange and Blue this fall? CBS Sports’ Barrett Sallee recently ranked the SEC’s 14 teams by strength of schedule with the Gators landing in the dead middle of the pack at No. 7. Here is how Sallee broke things down for Florida.
First-year coach Billy Napier and the Gators will host what should be a Top 10 Utah team at home in the opener, which is immediately followed by a matchup vs. a dangerous Kentucky team in the Swamp. Simply put, they better be ready to go right out of the gate. They have road games at Tennessee and Texas A&M, and have the always-difficult matchup vs. defending national champion Georgia in Jacksonville, Florida. They’ll close out the regular season on the road against intra-state rival Florida State. If there is a silver lining, it’s that they get four SEC games at home instead of having three and counting the neutral site game vs. Georgia game as their fourth.
Things look pretty tough for Napier’s squad next season but at least the SEC schedule is not quite so daunting. The program has a high hill to climb when it comes to getting back to respectability and the place to prove it is against conference opponents. Of course, any Gators fan knows to expect the unexpected when it comes to conference play these days.
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