Florida vs. Missouri game postponed to Oct. 31 as Gators deal with COVID-19 outbreak

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As the No. 10 Florida Gators continue to deal with a COVID-19 outbreak that has already forced the team to postpone this Saturday’s game against the LSU Tigers, the Gators are set to announce the postponement of another game as well. The Florida vs. Missouri game, set to be played Oct. 24 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida, will be pushed one week to Oct. 31, the SEC announced Friday night, confirming an OnlyGators.com report.

As of Wednesday, the Gators had 21 players (18 on scholarship) and multiple coaches test positive for COVID-19. All are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. Including at least 10 additional players quarantined due to contact tracing and others the regular injury list, Florida would’ve had less than 50 scholarship players available for Saturday’s game against LSU if it had been played on Saturday.

All members of the Florida football program — from players to coaches to extended staff — were sent home indefinitely on Wednesday. Daily COVID-19 testing is ongoing.

With those who test positive for COVID-19 required to isolate for 10 days and those targeted for contact tracing forced to quarantine for 14 days, it was unlikely that UF would be able to face Mizzou as scheduled.

Missouri was set to play Kentucky on Oct. 31. Rather than simply move the game back one week to their shared bye of Nov. 7, the SEC pushed Missouri-Kentucky up to Oct. 24 with UK forced to move its scheduled game with with Georgia back to Oct. 31. The Missouri-Vanderbilt game, postponed earlier in the week, was rescheduled to Dec. 12.

As such, neither Florida nor Georgia will have their regularly scheduled bye weeks ahead of the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party on Nov. 7.

Florida-Mizzou is now the 33rd FBS game postponed this season and seventh game this week alone.

Check out the Gators’ updated 2020 schedule below.