Florida
Florida opens SEC play with rare top-10 matchup at Kentucky
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Top-10 matchup in the regular season have been rare for the Florida Gators in program history. They’ll open SEC play this year with back-to-back games against top-10 teams, starting at No. 10 Kentucky (11-2).
Saturday’s matchup marks the 23rd time UF has been in a top-10 matchup, and only five have taken place in the regular season previously. It hasn’t happened since No. 8 Florida visited top-ranked Kentucky in 2012.
The Gators (13-0) have lost the last seven top-10 matchups they’ve been a part of, with their last win coming in 2007.
“This opportunity is incredibly exciting,” UF coach Todd Golden said of the SEC opener at Kentucky. “Two top-10 teams going at it first game of league play, and for us to get this opportunity in what we anticipate to be a really raucous environment, you know, I think will be a great challenge for us.
“We got a little bit of a taste of it in Charlotte. It wasn’t on Carolina’s home floor, but it was pretty close to a dominating North Carolina crowd. And we weathered the storm in that game. I think this one will be even more challenging, and I know our guys are excited to get out there, though, and give it a shot.”
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The matchup will feature a pair of top-10 scoring offenses. The Wildcats rank No. 3 nationally at 89.0 points per game and the Gators are ranked ninth in the country at 87.4 PPG.
Oklahoma transfer Otega Oweh leads Kentucky with 15.9 points per game and 20 steals. Also scoring double figures are Lamont Butler (13.3 ppg), Jaxson Robinson (11.9), Koby Brea (11.9), Andrew Carr (11.3) and Amari Williams (10.1).
When asked what kind of challenge UK poses offensively, Golden replied, “A big one.”
“They’re a top 10 offense. They’re very good offensively. I think this game is going to come down to two things for us on the defensive end. It’s going to come down to really having a great understanding of their personnel, knowing what each specific guy (does). They’re playing seven, maybe an eight-guy rotation right now, with Kriisa being hurt. So, knowing exactly what each of these guys is trying to do offensively is incredibly important, as well as executing our coverages.
“I think for Kentucky, it’s going to be really important for us to execute guarding them the way we want to guard,” Golden said. “And if we can do those two things for 40 minutes, we’ll be in good shape. But they are hard to guard, and they do some good things offensively, and they play through their bigs on the perimeter. They’re more, you know, four and five out. So again, just if we can execute and know our personnel, we’ll give ourselves a good chance.”
Williams also leads the Wildcats with 8.5 rebounds per game and 22 blocked shots, while Butler has a team-best 45 assists. Florida (No. 1) and Kentucky (No. 9) also rank in the top 10 nationally in rebounds per game, so the battle on the boards will be key.
The Gators won the last meeting in overtime on Kentucky’s floor, as Walter Clayton Jr. knocked in one of his seven 3-pointers with 3.0 seconds left in regulation and another to take the lead with 1:35 left in overtime.
UF is going for back-to-back wins at Kentucky on Saturday for just the third time in series history (2006/2007 and 1988/1989).
“Last year was special, just climbing back, getting into the game. We’re down, and then Walt hitting that big 3 to send us into overtime, and then just winning overtime was special,” Florida senior guard Will Richard said.
“That’s top level. Winning at Rupp is definitely big time. It’s a great environment. There’s a lot of history and tradition there. So, it’s always fun to go to Rupp. … I’m excited. I feel like we’re prepared. So, I’m ready to go.”
Former Georgia Tech interior offensive lineman Harrison Moore is expected to transfer to Florida, according to CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz.
The direct connection between Moore and Florida is offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner. Moore, a former three-star recruit, played in 10 games as a true freshman under Faulkner, playing 184 total snaps at left guard, center and tight end. Pro Football Focus gave him a 68.8 offensive grade — No. 12 among freshman interior linemen with 100 or more snaps — 67.8 run-blocking grade and 72.0 pass-blocking grade.
He became a starter in 2025 — five games at left guard and four at center — playing 11 games. His PFF grades took a dip to 63.6, 65.5 and 68.4, respectively, but still ranked inside the top 30 among underclassmen with 500 or more snaps.
247Sports ranks Moore No. 229 overall among all players in the 2026 transfer portal cycle and No. 11 among interior offensive linemen.
Florida’s interior offensive line room
Florida’s interior offensive line returns starting left guard Knijeah Harris and backup guards Roderick Kearney and Tavaris Dice Jr. Moore slots in nicely at center with All-American Jake Slaughter out of eligibility and Marcus Mascoll moving on. Noel Portnjagin and Marcus Mascoll are in the portal, and Damieon George Jr. and Kamryn Waites have exhausted their eligibility.
Moore would compete with redshirt freshman Jason Zandamela for the starting center role, or Kearney could move to center and Moore could play guard.
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.
Florida Tech students working on prototypes of a robotic manatee
Florida Tech students working on prototypes of a robotic “Mechanatee” manatee for a variety of research possibilities.
This past year brought mixed milestones for manatees: near-record deaths for young sea cows but also a bit more seagrass for grazing, some new scientific insights and other hints of hope for 2026.
While they kept dying in droves, sea cows on the Space Coast — among their most important feeding spots — found more seagrass in the northern Indian River Lagoon. And a landmark legal ruling mandated that Florida’s most popular threatened species will soon swim in cleaner waters and must be fed lettuce to prevent winter starvation.
Here’s how the year in manatee news played out:
More manatees died but more also live
Good news arrived in recent years regarding the overall sea cow population. Florida estimated in 2021-2022 that its manatee population was between 8,350 to 11,730, up from estimates of less than half of that only a few decades ago.
But in 2025, Brevard County topped Florida’s manatee deaths, with young sea cows continuing to be the hardest hit, despite the local seagrass gains. State biologists suspect the young are still perishing as a result of a long-term famine.
Brevard typically leads Florida sea-cow deaths, because most seagrass (manatees’ main food) grows here in the 72-mile-long county’s portion of the 156-mile-long Indian River Lagoon.
According to the most recent stats from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, through Dec. 26:
- Brevard had the most deaths: 118 manatees died in Brevard, compared to 100 in 2024. Lee County was second highest in 2025, with 113 manatee deaths.
- Brevard’s deaths included: 9 by watercraft; 3 other human causes; 50 perinatal; 13 cold stress; 13 natural; 9 undetermined; and 21 not necropsied.
- Statewide: 628 manatees died, topping the previous two years of 556 in 2024 and 546 in 2023. That still was less than the five-year average of 719 manatee deaths. Those deaths included: 97 by watercraft; 9 from a flood gate/canal lock; 9 other human causes; 135 perinatal; 33 cold stress; 63 natural; 50 undetermined; and 232 not necropsied.
- One in five Florida manatees died within a year of birth: The 135 so-called “perinatal” manatee deaths — those that die within a year of birth — were 21% of the overall 628 manatee deaths last year. That was less than the record 149 perinatal deaths through Dec. 26, 2024, which increased to 154 total perinatal deaths for that year. But 2025 topped the five-year average of 104 perinatal deaths.
More landmark legal protection
In May, a federal judge ruled that Florida has to temporarily stop approving new septic tanks near the northern Indian River Lagoon and plan to start feeding manatees again when they are faced with winter starvation.
Brevard is offering homeowners financial help to meet that and other state septic-tank mandates.
The new manatee rules will remain in effect until the state gets a federal permit that allows so-called “incidental takes” of threatened manatees, the judge ruled. Incidental take refers to the unintentional (but not unexpected) death, injury, or harassment of a protected species during otherwise lawful activity.
In a separate legal battle, conservation groups have for several years been suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reclassify manatees from “threatened” back to “endangered.” Last year, the service declined to return Florida manatees to “endangered” status, a ruling environmental groups continue to challenge.
New manatee rehab opens at Brevard Zoo
Last year, Brevard Zoo took in the first two manatee patients — Churro and Randa — at the zoo’s new $2.1 million sea cow rehab center. As with the zoo’s sea turtle rehab, the facility is not open to the general public. But on April 4, the zoo gave Gov. Ron DeSantis a behind-the-scenes tour as the zoo celebrated the center’s opening with a ribbon cutting.
Florida Tech makes strides with robotic manatee
In 2025, Florida Tech students made leaps forward with a robotic manatee, called “Mechanatee.” They hope in years ahead to use the robot to study real manatees in the wild without disturbing them. The robot will mimic the movements and communication of manatees to gather data on their behavior and habitat. The project is still in its early stages, but the team hopes to eventually test Mechanatee in Belize.
Other sea-cow scientific breakthroughs:
Several other groundbreaking studies in 2025 showed, among other things, that a popular herbicide is suppressing manatee immunity, that sea cows aren’t nearly as longstanding Florida natives as once thought and are sophisticated navigators.
- In January, University of Florida researchers found that the popular herbicide glyphosate can reduce manatee immune cell activity by more than 27%. That suggests sea cows living near high agricultural or residential runoff are more vulnerable to diseases and infections, even if they aren’t directly starving.
- Manatees are relative newcomers to Florida: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says on its website: “As its name suggests, the Florida manatee is native to Florida and is found primarily in coastal areas throughout the state.” But a landmark study in the journal PLOS One released in January 2025 by University of South Florida found almost no manatee bones in more than 70 Native American settlements older than a few hundred years. That suggests manatees only likely began migrating from the West Indies when the climate started heating up, beginning at the end of the 19th century with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the USF researchers concluded. Cooler temperatures lasting until the late 1800s probably kept cold-sensitive sea cows from migrating much north of the West Indies, USF concluded.
- In April, a study lead by New College in Sarasota used post mortem MRIs to find that manatees are more sophisticated navigators than previously thought. “Despite this apparently ‘simple’ brain, manatees in the wild show some cognitively sophisticated behaviors, particularly in the realm of navigation,” the authors wrote. “Future work in manatees should examine local and global brain connectivity related to spatial navigation and other complex cognitive capabilities.”
Contact Waymer at (321) 261-5903 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com. Follow him on X at @JWayEnviro.
Florida
Florida’s political sphere reacts to Nicolas Maduro’s capture as former Venezuelan president awaits court appearance
Now that the United States has captured Nicolas Maduro and intends to prosecute him and members of his family, CBS News Miami’s Jim DeFede brings us the latest developments and the fallout following the Saturday morning strikes.
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Lt. Gov. Jay Collins/(R) Florida
Ambassador Frank Mora/Former U.S. Ambassador to OAS
Raul Stolk/Expert on Latin America
Jon May/Represented Manuel Noriega
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