Florida football's annual opponents for the next four years are set to be Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky, according to a report for On3 today by veteran college football and SEC reporter Chris Low.
Low is as well-connected in the conference as anyone, and his report comes ahead of a scheduled announcement from the SEC and its member institutions on Tuesday.
Each of the 16 SEC teams will play its three permanent opponents every season for the next four years, beginning in 2026. The remaining conference fixtures will rotate through the other 12 teams over the course of those four years. SEC officials are expected to review the new schedule setup after year four.
The draw for UF will likely be considered a good one within the football program. Preserving the rivalry with Georgia was a given. Plenty of teams were in consideration for the remaining two spots, including traditional powers Tennessee, LSU and Auburn. Tennessee-UF losing its annual status is a blow to traditional SEC rivalries. Such is the price of expansion.
The new permanent opponents come as the SEC expands from eight to nine conference games annually. So each team will still get a home-and-away with all other non-permanent SEC opponents at some point in the four-year window.
Drawing UK and USC preserves old SEC East Division ties, and it also pits the Gators against two teams with less historical success than many of their conference rivals. Given the brutal schedule of the last two years - a brief shuffle following the addition of Texas and Oklahoma to the conference - that will be a welcome reprieve.
It should be noted that UK and USC have both experienced above-average success recently. While neither has pushed all the way to playoff contention or conference titles, they haven't been pushovers, either.
The Wildcats-Gators rivalry stretches back for decades. While it has historically been one-sided in UF's favor, UK has gotten the better of UF recently, winning three of the last four games in the series.
The official announcement from the conference is expected to come tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 23.
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