Charlotte 49ers add game against Florida to 2023 football schedule

The Charlotte 49ers have added the Florida Gators of the SEC to their 2023 football schedule.

The game will be played Sept. 23, 2023, at Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville. The Gators will be the fourth SEC team the 49ers will have played in their brief history. Charlotte visited Kentucky in 2015, Tennessee in 2018 and will face the Volunteers again in 2020. The team also will play South Carolina in 2022.

The 49ers won’t face a “Power 5” team on campus at Richardson Stadium until Duke visits in 2021.

Charlotte’s other nonconference games in 2023 are at Maryland and at home against Georgia State. A fourth nonconference game, likely against a Football Championship Subdivision opponent, has yet to be scheduled for that season.

The 49ers’ nonconference schedules aren’t complete beyond 2022, and athletics director Mike Hill told the Observer on Tuesday that games against other SEC teams are being considered.

The 49ers will receive $1.55 million from the Gators for the ‘23 game, according to Hill. Negotiations for the game might have been helped along by HIll’s history at Florida, where he was the Gators’ executive associate athletics director for external affairs before coming to Charlotte in 2018.