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The Florida Gators will play the University of Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. The game will take place on Dec. 30 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Florida’s season was long and taxing. The Gators were just days away from starting spring practice when the nation was turned upside down due to COVID-19. Spring practice was canceled and the Gators’ 2020 season became uncertain. After months away from campus the team returned in June. They were met with twice-weekly COVID testing, which would turn to three times weekly. Under unbelievable circumstances they made it to the season, and what a season lay in front of them.

Twelve weeks, 10 games, all SEC opponents.

There would be no warmup game with Eastern Washington or any other delectable cupcake. First up was a trip to Oxford to face Lane Kiffin and the Rebels. They started 2-0 and had to travel to face Texas A&M. The Gators had the football, tied, and were driving before a fumble and a Texas A&M field goal handed them their first loss.

Forty eight hours later the program was put on pause as the coronavirus ran through the team. Two games were postponed, and their head coach was being attacked by the national media for his comments after the game.

It was the Florida Gators vs Everybody and the team began to embody that mentality. They would need it too. Because of the timing of their quarantine and missing two games so early in the year, they would have to play seven consecutive games to finish the season.

Florida returned from its quarantine and pounded Missouri 41-17. They traveled to Jacksonville and all but sealed the SEC East with a dominant 44-28 win over Georgia, and dropped 63 on Arkansas. The next three weeks were, in Dan Mullen’s own words, “ho-hum.”

The Gators beat Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Tennessee, but didn’t look like the wrecking ball they had in the previous three weeks. Then a 37-34 loss to LSU, a game that was supposed to happen in October but was being played a week before the SEC Championship ended the Gators’ chance at making the College Football Playoff.

Winning those games allowed Florida another weekend, making it eight-straight weekends playing another SEC team.

They weren’t given a chance but went blow for blow with Alabama, falling just six points short of an SEC Championship.

It’s been a long year, but the team will have one more chance to play together as a team.

Stay tuned to GatorsTerritory.