Florida got its first look at what life in the 16-team SEC will look like on Wednesday night when the conference revealed the scheduled opponents in 2024. Dates and times are still TBD, but the lineup is set.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the scheduling issues of the offseason, here’s the short version. The SEC will stop using divisions in ’24 and simply have the top two teams play in the SEC Championship Game. The schedules for that one season will consist of eight conference games, with a permanent rotation yet to come.
The schedule will certainly make things feel different. The Gators will only play three current SEC East opponents in 2024: Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It will be the first time that UF hasn’t played South Carolina or Missouri since each entered the conference, and it’ll be the first schedule without Vanderbilt since 1991.
The Gators will also play LSU, their current designated cross-division rival, so one other regular rotation game remains. However UF will also square off against Texas A&M, the Mississippi schools, and newcomer Texas. The Wildcats, Tigers, Rebels, and Aggies make up the home lineup. The Vols, Longhorns, and two Bulldog opponents are the road matchups, though the one against UGA is in name only since it’s in Jacksonville as always (for now).
Florida will have a total of 11 teams in what now make up the Power 5 conferences on the schedule, since the non-conference will have FSU, Miami, and new Big 12 outfit UCF. Only the game against FCS Samford fits the traditional cupcake mold, though the last time the teams played was more interesting than it should’ve been.
It looks daunting, and odds are it’ll be a real gauntlet. That said, there are potential reasons why the schedule may not end up as tough as it looks. It could, of course, be tougher than it looks because “surprise portal outcome” is always on the bingo card these days. However a lot of these programs are not without their questions. Here are some of them, in alphabetical order.
Florida State
Much has been made of Mike Norvell’s portal work. He’ll need to keep pace on the transfer treadmill if he doesn’t want to fall off from what looks like a peak year in 2023. How do you feel about what’s behind Jordan Travis at quarterback? Yeah, exactly.
The best player on defense, Jared Verse, should also be off to the NFL after this season. Norvell could just find and land another playmaker like he did Verse, but there aren’t many in the portal who are truly up for grabs each year. A step or two back after this season is probably a safe bet.
Kentucky
UK has Liam Coen back at offensive coordinator, but will it be more than a one-year stay? Will it work out again, or was 2021 a happy accident? Who can Kentucky find to replace NC State transfer QB Devin Leary, who has just one year of eligibility left? And can the Wildcats repair their offensive line? Its effectiveness has fallen fast after the untimely passing of former OL coach John Schlarman in 2020.
LSU
The Tigers do seem to be in good shape now and for the future, but they will have to replace QB Jayden Daniels after this season. The staff is reportedly high on Garrett Nussmeier — yes, the son of Doug — but he hasn’t been The Man behind center yet.
Miami
The Mario Cristobal era hit with a Muschamp-ian thud, complete with some ugly losses, quarterback struggles, game management questions, and overall an unexciting offense. Recruiting had been a bright spot, powered by NIL largesse by megabooster John Ruiz.
Ruiz’s company MSP Recovery/LifeWallet is in serious trouble, and so is Hurricane recruiting. The southern UM presently has ten commits, with nine of them being 3-stars in the 247 Sports Composite. Even with one such player being a kicker (a position that never gets above three stars) and another an offensive lineman (a position where value can be found by good scouting at the 3-star level), you can tell things just aren’t the same this year as last. One wonders how things will look another year out.
Ole Miss
Will Lane Kiffin even visit the Swamp in 2024? He reportedly was close to taking the Auburn job last year. I don’t think it’s a secret that Ole Miss isn’t really anyone’s idea of a Forever Job, and Kiffin is well known for his wandering eye.
With so much of the team built on portal finds, can the roster survive if the head coach leaves? How much loyalty is there to Ole Miss as opposed to Kiffin?
Miss State
New head coach Zach Arnett is a defensive guy, and his first big decision was to ditch the Air Raid. His new OC is Kevin Barbay, who was an off-field (2014-17) and on-field (2019-21) assistant to Jim McElwain. He’s yet to run an offense without the head coach being an offensive guy himself. You ready to buy into the Bulldogs longterm?
Tennessee
Josh Heupel had a breakout season in his second year in Knoxville, but he saw diminishing returns in his time at UCF. It wasn’t just the record declining each season, as the advanced computer ratings agreed that things slid over time. This century of college football is littered with head coaching tenures that saw big Year 2 jumps followed by third and fourth-year slumps. Heupel needs to prove whether he has staying power or not.
Texas
Steve Sarkisian has only ever finished with more than eight wins once, in his first season at USC in 2014. The asterisks to that stat is that he took over Washington when it was in terrible shape and his time in LA was cut short by off-field personal problems. However, he did plateau in Seattle with four straight 5-4 conference records before leaving for the Trojans job.
Sark appears to have put his past troubles behind him, and good on him for that regardless, so he may be ready to find a way to win double digits finally. Or, he might still just be Eight Win Steve.
Texas A&M
So, how long do you suppose Jimbo Fisher and Bobby Petrino — and their massive egos and abrasive personalities — can constructively coexist?
The Bottom Line
Were I making this kind of list for any of the above teams, I could go on and on about Florida’s own questions for 2024. The topic could be its own entire article, so I’m not going to run them all down here. UF is far from living in a settled place like Georgia, who I didn’t bother to mention because there’s no point.
However, few teams are truly in a stable place. A lot can change from one season to the next. The Gators do look in for some big tests in 2024, but any number of them could turn out to be quite different than they appear today.