The 2013 Florida Gators football team represented the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

in the sport of

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

during the 2013 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Gators competed in the

Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

(FBS) of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA) and the Eastern Division of the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

(SEC). They played their home games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on the university's Gainesville, Florida campus, and the 2013 season was the Gators' third under head coach

Will Muschamp William Lawrence Muschamp (born August 3, 1971) is an American football coach and former player. He is the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach at the University of Georgia. He served as head football coach at the University of Florida fr ...

. The Gators finished the season with a 4–8 overall win–loss record, and finished 3–5 in the SEC and in fifth place in the SEC Eastern Division. The Gators suffered their first losing season since

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...

and did not play in a bowl game for the first time since

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

, when the program was on NCAA probation.

Previous season

The 2012 Florida Gators compiled an 11–2 overall win–loss record, and a 7–1 record in the Southeastern Conference. The Gators were ranked as high as No. 3 in the Associated Press and Coaches polls. They concluded the 2012 season with a loss to the

Louisville Cardinals The Louisville Cardinals (also known as the Cards) are the NCAA athletic teams representing the University of Louisville. The Cardinals teams play in the Atlantic Coast Conference, beginning in the 2014 season. While playing in the Big East Co ...

in the Sugar Bowl.

2013 recap

Following their success in 2012, the Gators were ranked No. 10 in both major polls coming into the 2013 season. They opened with a 24–6 home win over Toledo, then fell 21–16 to in-state rival

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

in a game in which the Gators gained almost twice as many yards as the Hurricanes but committed 5 turnovers, including a crucial late interception in the red zone. The Gators next beat the SEC rival

Tennessee Volunteers The Tennessee Volunteers and Lady Volunteers are the 20 male and female varsity intercollegiate athletics programs that represent the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Volunteers compete in Division I of the National Collegi ...

at home, but lost starting quarterback

Jeff Driskel Jeffrey Adam Driskel (born April 23, 1993) is an American football quarterback for the Houston Texans of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Florida, before transferring to Louisiana Tech, and was drafted by the San ...

for the rest of the season with a broken leg. Tyler Murphy finished the Tennessee game at quarterback and garnered praise for his play in consecutive wins over

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

and

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

, at which point the team's record was 4–1. The offense was held to just two field goals in the next game, a 17–6 loss at No. 10

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

. This contest would start several negative trends, as the Gators ended the season on a seven-game losing streak in which the offense struggled mightily while major injuries ended the season for a dozen starting players, including Tyler Murphy and defensive leader Dominique Easley. For the first time since the winless 1979 team, the Gators finished the 2013 season with a losing record. Several other streaks were broken, including 22 consecutive seasons going to a bowl game and a 22-game win streak against Vanderbilt. With a November loss to Georgia Southern, Florida suffered its first ever defeat to a lower division teamGSU Recap
/ref> and its first loss to a current FCS team since the winless 1946 Gators lost to Villanova.GSU story
/ref> The Gator offense was ranked 112th nationally.Florida Gators fire embattled Brent Pease - ESPN
/ref> Despite calls from the fanbase to fire Will Muschamp for the teams' performance, UF athletic director Jeremy Foley repeated several times that he would remain the Gators head coach through 2014. However, offensive coordinator Brent Pease and offensive line coach Tim Davis were fired on the day after the season finale. Muschamp hired Kurt Roper as the new offensive coordinator.

Schedule

Source:

Rankings

The Gators fell out of the AP Top 25 on October 20 for the first time since the final rankings of the 2011 season, when they won the Gator Bowl, following their third loss of the season to

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

on October 19.

Roster

Coaching staff

Players drafted into the NFL

References

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Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Florida Gators football seasons

Florida Gators football The Florida Gators football program represents the University of Florida (UF) in American college football. Florida competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division o ...