The Florida Gators are catching heat for their 2025 schedule, but not for the reasons you’d expect. Sure, they have a brutal SEC slate featuring matchups against Georgia, Tennessee, LSU, and Texas, but one game has stood out for all the wrong reasons: their season opener against the Long Island Sharks, an FCS program that most casual fans have probably never even heard of.
It’s one thing to schedule a lighter opponent as a tune-up game, but this matchup has been roasted across the college football world for being a total dud. Longtime SEC analyst Paul Finebaum didn’t hold back, calling it “completely unwatchable” and questioning why a program of Florida’s caliber would even bother scheduling it. He’s not alone—many fans have voiced their frustration, saying they’d rather see Florida take on a real challenge — or even a reputable FCS teams rather than a team from Long Island that has no business on the same field as them — instead of what looks like an easy blowout win.
To be fair, the Gators aren’t the only team guilty of throwing an FCS team into their schedule. This has been a common practice in college football for years, with big-name programs adding these games to guarantee a win while helping smaller schools secure a paycheck. But at a time when fans are calling for more competitive matchups—especially with the expanded College Football Playoff—these kinds of games feel even more unnecessary.
But, let’s be honest here: If you’re going to schedule an FCS opponent, why not make it an in-state school?
For Florida, this game does nothing to help their reputation. After struggling in recent seasons, head coach Billy Napier is trying to get the program back on track. If the Gators want to be taken seriously as a contender again, scheduling FCS opponents in their season-opener like Long Island isn’t the way to do it.
Would a game like this be acceptable if Florida didn’t already have one of the toughest schedules in the country? Maybe. But when you’re in the SEC, every game counts, and fans want to see matchups that actually mean something. Instead, they’re getting what looks like an early-season snoozefest—one that might not even be worth watching past the first quarter.