Folks, we made it.
The start of the 2021 college football season is here. And after a bizarre 2020 season in which fans were largely absent from the stands, non-conference games were largely eliminated and several leagues, such as the Pac-12, were essentially rendered pointless, we finally have at least some return to normalcy in the sport.
Things are so back to normal, in fact, that Florida is once again opening the season with what should be an opponent it easily disposes of. Florida Atlantic comes to town, a program that the Gators have played three times since 2007 (and most recently in a wild 2015 game that went to overtime), and the Owls are led by a second-year coach who UF fans know well.
Former Florida State coach Willie Taggart was handed the reins in Boca Raton ahead of the 2020 season, and his first-year returns were a bit average. After finishing 11-3 in 2019, the team fell to 5-4 in the shortened pandemic season. With a 4-2 record in Conference USA play, FAU finished just half a game behind Marshall in the East division race.
Taggart will coach his first game in the Swamp this Saturday. The Gators defeated his Seminoles at Doak Campbell Stadium in 2018, but Taggart was fired in the middle of his second season before he got to coach a game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
The Gators are expected to once again compete for the SEC East and, potentially, a playoff spot. They should easily dispose of the Owls, but season openers tend to be unpredictable, and this Florida Atlantic team could easily provide a more challenging matchup than next week’s road game against USF.
Here’s your full primer on the Gators’ season-opening opponent.
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