Gators like to play at home
Jacksonville.com reports that Florida consistently refuses to play stronger out of conference teams unlike other SEC powerhouses. For example, in 2005, Arkansas played at SoCal and Tennessee played at Cal in 2007 and then at UCLA in 2008. Georgia took the long distance flight to Arizona State last season and this season LSU traveled to Washington. Next season, Alabama is playing a home-and-home against Big 10 powerhouse Penn State. SEC schools are scheduling difficult non-conference BCS opponents, but it appears Florida doesn’t want to take part in any of these match-ups.
It’s widely known that under Coach Meyer, Florida refuses to travel and will only play non-conference games on their terms. Florida refuses to play schools like Oklahoma and USC on a home-and-home basis. If they were to play these schools at all, it would have to be either in the post season or on a one-and-done deal at Florida. However, amongst pressure, Florida’s athletic director may entertain a neutral site match-up, but that seems unlikely based on Florida’s scheduling model. As Coach Meyer states, “we would certainly be open to scheduling a BCS conference opponent-as long as it was in Gainesville.” Meyer wouldn’t even dare schedule his former employer Utah because he does not want to leave the comforts of Florida.
Now this isn’t a knock on Florida. The way the BCS system works, it doesn’t make sense to schedule challenging non-conference games if it is likely you will be ranked in the preseason top 10. Basically, schedule the easiest non-conference games, win out, and then you are in a BCS bowl. Unfortunately, it’s that simple and it’s understandable why Florida sticks to its scheduling model.
