Florida Gators 2020 football schedule revealed

The Florida Gators found out their final two opponents for the 2020 football season on Friday.

The Florida Gators will host Arkansas and travel to College Station to take on Texas A&M.

The Arkansas game will be a homecoming for former Florida quarterback Feleipe Franks. Franks missed most of the 2019 season after suffering a leg injury before graduate transferring to Arkansas last spring. The Gators last played Arkansas in Fayetteville in 2016, a 31-10 Razorback win.

Florida will travel to College Station for the first time since 2012. That was the Aggies first SEC game as a member of the conference and the first game for Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel.

The Gators will also play their previously scheduled eight conference opponents. That includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Missouri, LSU, and Ole Miss.

The league had considered multiple options for the final two cross-divisional opponents. One option was to add the two cross-divisional opponents from the 2021 and 2022 schedule, which would have resulted in Alabama and Texas A&M being added to the schedule. Another option was utilizing and considering the strength of every team’s schedule and adding two opponents appropriately based on that criteria.

“We made every effort to create a schedule that is as competitive as possible and builds on the existing eight Conference games that have already been scheduled for 2020,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a release. “This schedule is a one-year anomaly that we have developed under unique circumstances presented by the impact of COVID-19.”

“The SEC office and Commissioner Sankey have worked tirelessly to help its member schools and our student-athletes move forward given unprecedented circumstances; from putting together detailed medical plans, guaranteeing scholarships for athletes that wish to opt-out, to plotting a course for what seasons and schedules could look like. Given all the unknowns we face, today’s announcements regarding the SEC initial COVID-19 management requirements, along with the identification of two additional opponents in football, provide a solid framework in the hope the Gators are to compete in a healthy environment at some point in the 2020-21 school year,” Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin said in a statement.

The full week-by-week schedule will be released next week, but Florida’s game with Georgia is firmly set on October 31. With the game being held in Jacksonville it is too difficult to move and coordinate with the city of Jacksonville and work around the Jaguars’ schedule.

Every team will have a scheduled bye week on December 12, the week before the scheduled SEC Championship in Atlanta. That week can be used to make up any games that were postponed due to COVID-19 reasons, or used as an off week prior to the Championship game.

FULL Schedule
Alabama: Kentucky, at Missouri
Auburn: Tennessee, at South Carolina
Arkansas: Georgia, at Florida
Florida: Arkansas, at Texas A&M
Georgia: Mississippi State, at Arkansas
Kentucky: Ole Miss, at Alabama
LSU: Missouri, at Vanderbilt
Missouri: Alabama, at LSU
Mississippi State: Vanderbilt, at Georgia
Ole Miss: South Carolina, at Kentucky
South Carolina: Auburn, at Ole Miss
Tennessee: Texas A&M, at Auburn
Texas A&M: Florida, at Tennessee
Vanderbilt: LSU, at Mississippi State

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC