Florida Gators Projected to Play in Most Prestigious Bowl Yet

The latest bowl projections by The Athletic placed the Gators in a bowl game they have deep historical ties to

The recent run by the Gators lands them their highest-rated bowl projection to date / Doug Engle/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Florida Gators have had another notable bow projection come in - arguably the best bowl they have been projected to play in yet. 

The Atheltic released its latest round of bowl projections, matching up the Gators against Duke in the Gator Bowl. 

While this bowl is technically on the same footing tier-wise as the Las Vegas Bowl, Music City Bowl and Liberty Bowl, it still has the most historical prestige. Historically, it gets the better teams and matchups, has the longest history and the name just holds that much more weight. 

Official tiering doesn’t take away from the de facto tiering. 

It’s literally ranked a tier above by the SEC than the other potential bowls the Gators could end up in, such as the Birmingham or Gasparilla Bowl. 

Florida also has a storied history of playing in this bowl game. If they were to play in it this year, they would tie Clemson for the most appearances with 10. They currently hold a 7-2 record in Gator Bowl games. 

It was the first bowl game they ever played in back in 1953. Their first four bowl appearances were all at the Gator Bowl along with five of their first seven. Slowly, as the Gators got better as a program, they played in even bigger bowl games. This along with there being more bowl games to be selected to, the Gator Bowl has become far less common. The last appearance in the game came back in 2012 when a 6-6 Florida team beat a 6-6 Ohio State team 24-17. 

Florida also has a lot of history playing in Jacksonville as well. The Florida-Georgia Game has been played there every year - except two years in the 1990s and two more years later this decade - since 1933. 

Should Duke end up being on the other end of the matchup, it would be their first time in the game. So, there’s some history involved in this matchup. 

To see the other potential bowl projections for the Florida Gators, click here.