GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida baseball program and eighth-year head coach Kevin O’Sullivan announced its 2015 schedule on Tuesday. The Gators’ 56-game schedule features 35 games within the friendly confines of McKethan Stadium at Perry Field, where the squad is 198-63 (.759) during O’Sullivan’s tenure. Florida went 40-23 last season and brought home its third Southeastern Conference title in the past five years on its way to becoming a national seed for NCAA play for the fifth time in six years.
UF has close to half of its games versus opponents who advanced to the 2014 NCAA Tournament, including home series against Alabama, Kentucky, Miami and South Carolina, and will have a pair of road series against teams that advanced to Omaha (Ole Miss and national champion Vanderbilt).
For the 15th-consecutive season, and the 27th time in 29 years, the Gators will open their season at home, hosting a three-game series against Rhode Island from Friday-Sunday, Feb. 13-15. Florida will be tested by the challenging 30-game SEC schedule and will also face traditional Sunshine State rivals Florida State, Miami, Bethune-Cookman, Florida Atlantic, Florida A&M, North Florida, Stetson, UCF and USF.
UF will clash with Florida State in three mid-week affairs, hosting the Seminoles on March 17, facing its archrivals on March 31 at The Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville and visiting Tallahassee on April 14. The Gators host Miami for three games over Feb. 20-22, while other foes who will visit McKethan Stadium include Stony Brook (Feb. 27-March 1), UCF (March 4), Maine (March 6-8), North Florida (March 10), Fairfield (March 11), Stetson (April 7), Bethune-Cookman (April 21) and USF (May 5).
The five, three-game SEC home series pit the Gators against Tennessee (March 13-15), Alabama (March 27-29), South Carolina (April 10-12), Kentucky (April 24-26) and Auburn (May 14-16). Florida will open the league schedule in Gainesville on March 13 against Tennessee and is not slated to face West rivals Arkansas, LSU and Texas A&M during the regular season. For the 10th-straight year, the final weekend of the SEC regular season will be contested from Thursday-Saturday before the start of the league’s tourney.
Stops on the Gators’ road itinerary include trips to Ole Miss (March 20-22), Missouri (April 3-5), Mississippi State (April 17-19), Georgia (May 1-3) and Vanderbilt (May 8-10). UF’s 2015 schedule boasts 24 games against squads that finished among the top-30 in the final version of the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).
Following the SEC Tournament from May 19-24, Florida will be seeking its 31st NCAA Tournament appearance and eighth-straight Regional berth. Regionals will take place at 16 campus sites from May 29-June 1, followed by the best-of-three Super Regionals spread out among eight venues from June 5-8. Soon after, the eight survivors will advance to the 69th College World Series in Omaha, Neb., over June 13-24.
2015 Florida Baseball Schedule
