GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Headlined by big travel plans and an early season showdown with the defending MCLA Division I national champions, the Florida men’s lacrosse team has released its schedule for the 2020 regular season.

Florida will play a 16-game slate with regional trips to Columbia, S.C., Athens, Ga., and Auburn, Ala. A spring break trip to southern California rounds out regular season travel.

The Gators’ schedule is chock-full of top-tier competition, including six of the final Top 25 Division I teams, four of the final top 10 teams, and three Division I conference champions.

“The 2020 schedule is the strongest we’ve faced in the decade that I’ve been a part of Gator lacrosse,” said Florida coach Garrett Hanrahan. “Our goal as a program is to win SELC and MCLA championships, and to get there, we need to prove that we can beat the best teams in the country.”

The Gators start the season at home on Feb. 1 against North Florida -- the 2019 SELC D-II champions -- before packing up the bus and heading north to take on the Bulldogs and Gamecocks.

The Gators return home to face LSU -- the 2019 Lone Star Alliance D-I champs -- and East Carolina before traveling to Alabama for games against Auburn and Purdue. Then it’s on to Orlando International Airport for a flight to Los Angeles to face off against West Coast talent.

“Trips out west are one of the best parts of the MCLA experience for East Coast teams,” Hanrahan said. “I cherished these trips as a player, and I consider it a privilege to still be taking these trips as a coach. I’m excited for this year’s group to have their own West Coast lacrosse experiences, many of them for the first time. The competition is fierce, the setting is unlike anything most of these guys grew up with and the memories last a lifetime.”

The Gators’ SoCal schedule kicks off with perennial MCLA power Chapman and wraps up against UCLA. The Gators will have little time to recover from jet lag and In-N-Out burgers as Arizona, Virginia Tech and Liberty come to The Swamp just a few days after Florida’s return from the West Coast.

The final stretch of the regular season will see the Gators battle for an SELC tournament bid with in-state rivals Central Florida, South Florida and Florida State. Florida takes on the Seminoles in Tallahassee this year in the Sunshine Showdown on April 17.

2020 Florida Men's Lacrosse Schedule

* - indicates an SELC Southeast subdivision contest
# - indicates contest at Auburn, Ala. (Auburn)