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Early Bowl Projections: Florida Gators picked to go bowling in 2024

Untitled designby: Nick de la Torre10/29/24delatorre
Florida-Gators-Billy-Napier
Florida Gators quarterback DJ Lagway (2) is congratulated by Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier after a series during the first half at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, October 19, 2024 against the Kentucky Wildcats. [Doug Engle/Gainesville Sun]

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — After missing out on bowl season entirely a year ago, the Florida Gators are being projected to go to a bowl game this year. Brett McMurphy of Action Network released his early bowl game projections for the 2024 season and McMurphy has Florida playing a 13th game this year.

Currently, the Gators are 4-3 (2-2 SEC) with a date against the No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs slated for this Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida. The Gators would need to win two more games this season to attain bowl eligibility. The remaining schedule is No. 2 Georgia, No. 6 Texas, No. 16 LSU, No. 19 Ole Miss, and Florida State.

McMurphy has Florida winning at least two of those games and heading to the Gasparilla Bowl to face off against the Michigan State Spartans. Action Network has the Gators as a six-point favorite in that matchup. Michigan State is coming off of a loss to bitter rival Michigan last week.

The Gators haven’t gone to a bowl game since the Las Vegas Bowl in 2022. Florida lost to Oregon State to drop its record to 6-7 in Billy Napier’s first season at the helm. The Gators were just 5-7 last season, missing a bowl game. Florida hasn’t won a bowl game since the 2019 Orange Bowl — a 36-28 win over the Virginia Cavaliers.

The Gators have a lot of work to do in order to even attain bowl eligibility, playing four consecutive top-25 ranked teams over the next month. That begins this weekend with No. 2 Georgia.

“Georgia has a good football team. Offensively it starts with the veteran quarterback and a veteran offensive line, just a multitude of skill players at every position. I do think defensively they have an identity and it starts with the personnel, the height, length of the personnel. Certainly speed at the second, third level as well. Then the kicking game. They’ve got really good specialists. Kicker, punter, snapper, obviously returners, and they have good variables there that can cause some problems for you,” Billy Napier said on Monday.

“The entirety of the team obviously makes this thing a challenge. I think for our team it’s important that we zoom in on the parts of our process that can grow and improve. I think each individual player has to continue to focus on getting better. One of the reasons we’ve been able to improve is we emphasized those parts of our team. We need to continue to play with really good effort. We need to continue to take great pride in how we compete.”

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