Report: Florida-Utah season-opening rematch could be moved to Thursday night

Florida and Utah opened their 2022 football seasons by playing each other in a thriller down in Gainesvile. Florida won that round thanks to heroics from Anthony Richardson, but there’s a return game on tap for Week 1 next fall. However, reports are now leaking that the Gators’ return game at Utah could be pushed up to that Thursday from its originally schedule Saturday date.

The Orlando Sentinel had the news first that next fall’s Florida vs. Utah game could be played on Thursday Sept. 3 rather than Saturday, giving the Utes and Gators a standalone Week 1 game that would surely attract a mammoth audience. This possibility was confirmed by the Florida Athletics website, which lists both the Thursday and Saturday dates as possibilities.

So, why the reason for the move?

Well, last year, travel was an issue for Utah. Since the two campuses are almost as far apart as you can get in the continental United States, traveling back the same night of the game, especially when jumping a couple time zones, can be taxing on the players. Also, the Utah team plane wasn’t able to leave for several hours after last year’s game due to unforeseen issues. The motivation for moving the game, reportedly, would be to give Florida an extra night in Utah so they could have a whole day for travel on Friday.

Here was the report on the issues from last year as a part of why the game may be moved: “The report cites travel to Salt Lake City as one of the reasons to make the switch, allowing the Gators to spend the night in Utah before heading back to Gainesville. Following last season’s loss to Florida, airplane mechanical issues delayed Utah’s return home by several hours.”

So there you have it. Florida vs. Utah could be kicking off on Thursday due to travel convenience.