Florida football snuck into a bowl bid with a home win over the Florida State Seminoles on the final game of the 2021 regular season. In a year that many had hoped to see the Orange and Blue in the College Football Playoff, or at least in a fourth-straight New Year’s Six game, instead, the Gators find themselves in a lower-tier consolation game — the Gasparilla Bowl against the Central Florida Knights.
This will be the first time UF has played in the Tampa Bay area game while UCF has made four prior appearances — tied with the Marshall Thundering Herd for most in the bowl series’ history. While Florida has little direct history in the bowl game formerly known as the magicJack Bowl, the St. Petersburgh Bowl (and a brief stint as the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl in 2014), as well as the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl before taking on its current title, there are still many ties to Gainesville and the state over the years.
Take a look below at the full history of the game, which has been played both at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburgh as well as Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. Note that the 2020 iteration, which was scheduled to be called the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl, was canceled due to the COVID pandemic.