The start of the 2023 college football season is right around the corner as the summer doldrums start to shift into fall gear. Schools around the nation are kicking off their preseason workouts in preparation for the gridiron grind that sits just a few weeks away.
The Florida Gators enter the coming campaign following two-straight losing seasons that stretched between the Dan Mullen and Billy Napier eras, with both of them finishing 6-7. Unfortunately, things do not look much more promising this year either for the second-year skipper.
ESPN’s Chris Low recently published his college football superlatives, which surveyed the sport’s landscape for the hardest and easiest schedules in 2023. According to Low, Napier and Co. have the most difficult Power Five schedule of any school in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
How would you like to play the nation’s toughest schedule as a second-year coach coming off a losing season in Year 1? Welcome to Billy Napier’s world. Florida opens the season on the road against two-time defending Pac-12 champion Utah and closes at home against bitter rival Florida State, which is ranked No. 3 and is one of the favorites to win the ACC. In between, the Gators have trips to Kentucky, South Carolina and LSU. They face No. 11 Tennessee at home two weeks after opening the season at Utah, and there’s also the annual clash with No. 1 Georgia in Jacksonville — two weeks before visiting LSU on Nov. 11. If you’re counting, that’s six preseason top-25 opponents, with four in the top 15.
Ole Miss isn’t far behind Florida on the challenge meter. The Rebels are the only SEC team playing both Alabama and Georgia on the road.
The Gators open their 2023 schedule on the road against the Utah Utes on Aug. 31, with a kickoff time of 8 p.m. EDT.
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