Eight or nine? Billy Napier weighs in on future of Florida Gators schedule
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — There will be plenty to discuss next week for the SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Florida but nothing more pressing than what to do with the future schedule. With the addition of Texas and Oklahoma in 2024, the league will need to change its conference schedule. What does that mean for the Florida Gators and Billy Napier?
The league has settled on one of two options. There is an 8-game format and a nine-game format. Eight games would mean one permanent and seven rotating opponents yearly. A nine-game format would have three permanent opponents while the other six rotated yearly. The second model allows for traditional rivalries to remain, while the former would limit Florida-Tennessee or Alabama-Tennessee to bi-annual events.
Future scheduling was on the docket this time last year for the spring meetings. Rather than make a decision on what to do — eight or nine — the league kicked the can and now we’re here. The SEC will add two new teams after the upcoming season. The College Football Playoff will also expand to 12 teams.
What does Billy Napier think?
Last year, Napier went to spring meetings as the new kid on the block. He kept his head down and didn’t make waves. Napier felt, as a first year coach in the league, that it wasn’t his place. Now, after spending a year in the
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“You know this time last year, we go to the spring meetings and, you know, it looked like we were heading toward nine. You know, maybe, it’s back and forth now. We’re gonna play eight, we’re gonna play nine, I don’t know the answer to that,” Napier said on Monday. “You know, my job is to play whatever schedule they put in front of us. I think, very much that is up in the air.”
Florida is in a unique position schedule-wise. They have an annual non-conference game with Florida State each year. Other SEC teams like South Carolina (Clemson), Georgia (Georgia Tech), and Kentucky (Louisville), have similar in-state, non-conference rivalry games. Florida also has future non-conference tilts scheduled with Miami (2024, 2025), UCF (2024), USF (2025), N.C. State (2026, 2027), Cal (2026), Colorado (2028, 2029), Arizona State (2028, 2031), and Notre Dame (2031, 2032).
“I think you have a bit of a pulse. You’d be surprised, there’s quite a bit of dialogue leading throughout the year throughout the spring leading into those meetings. I think we all have a little bit of an awareness of the things that are on the docket to discuss,” Napier said. “What I do is I seek feedback from all parts of our organization and we kind of go in with material, do the same thing with the oversight committee. Any of those policy things or big picture things we try to include the entire staff to develop some consensus and bring our opinion to the table.”
Spring Meetings begin on May 30 in Destin.
