Florida football to air postgame highlight show from spring game

Florida football won't be televising its spring game live for the second straight year,

But Florida Gators fans will get a chance to watch highlights from the spring game as part of an all-access show that will air following the game on the SEC Network and re-air on ESPN and ESPN2 leading up to Week Zero of the 2026 season. The airtime of the highlight show will be announced at a later date.

Florida's spring game is scheduled for Saturday, April 11, at noon at The Swamp. Admission is free.

The decision not to televise the spring game continues a league-wide trend of keeping spring games low key. A decade ago, airing spring games in front of large crowds was viewed as a recruiting tool. But over the last several years, the SEC TV partners have been producing fewer linear broadcasts of league spring football games. The last time a league member had a SEC Spring game on linear TV was 2024 and generally the networks were only broadcasting the league champion or national champion.

Linear broadcasts have been replaced by digital broadcasts, with UF's last spring game appearing via streaming on ESPN+ in 2024. Currently only two league teams plan on streaming their spring games live in 2026, with both being online only and not on linear television.

Some schools, such as LSU under first-year coach Lane Kiffin, have opted to scrap spring games altogether, for fear of having opposing teams pick up on schemes or tendencies. Last year, coaches feared players being discovered and leaving for the spring portal, but the NCAA has since done away with the spring portal period.

First-year UF coach Jon Sumrall said he's in favor of playing a spring game.

"Everybody is different how they want to approach it," Sumrall said. "I'm not knocking or judging if somebody doesn't want to do a spring game, that's their call. It's your team, you run your team however you want. The mindset I want our team to have is like, we are always ready to go play, and we will never back down from playing. And we have to grow a little bit different edge here than what we've had. So, we're gonna go play."

Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida football to air spring football highlights show on SEC Network