Gators-Volunteers rivalry took on new meaning with arrival of a certain 'Ball Coach'
Wednesday, October 1, 2014 | Football, Volleyball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- For years, it didn't register a blip on the Southeastern Conference's sexy rivalry radar. Heck, Florida and Tennessee rarely played during the first six decades as charter members of the SEC.
Yes, here comes another history lesson, kids.
As for you old-timers? Read, revel and relive.
The first Tennessee-Florida meeting was a 24-0 win for the Vols at Tampa in 1916. Their 1932 date, a 32-13 win for Vols, was the first under the SEC flag and part of UT's run of 10 straight victories that kicked off the series.
It wasn't until 1954 that UF registered its first win over UT, a 14-0 defeat at Gainesville. In fact, the Gators and Volunteers butted heads just 15 times over the first 58 years, including a 13-season stretch (1956-68) when they didn't play at all. And when they did finally meet, it was in the Gator Bowl after the UT coach, Doug Dickey, had resigned to become UF's coach mere days earlier.
Sound feisty? Not so fast, my friends.
It wasn't until 1990 that the series truly rocketed not just to league-wide prominence but into college football's national conscience.
Like so many things about Florida football, we can thank Steve Spurrier for that.
That '90 season, of course, was Spurrier's first after returning to his alma mater for which he won the 1966 Heisman Trophy. Spurrier, everyone knows, was a Tennessee boy who never considered playing for the Vols because he was a passing quarterback and UT ran the single wing in the 1960s.
But there were built-in Smoky Mountain subplots way before he first chucked a UF vistor.
For example, did you know that in 1982, Spurrier was Duke's offensive coordinator when the Blue Devils went into Neyland Stadium and upset the Vols 25-24? In that game, UT punted the ball and downed it at the Duke 1 midway through the fourth quarter and the game ended with Blue Devils on the UT 1 after quarterback Ben Bennett -- against a defense led by Reggie White -- drove the ball 98 yards to run out the clock. 
And did you know that Duke, with Spurrier as its head coach, went to Knoxville in 1988 and pulled off another ridiculous upset of his flagship home-state school, this one by a 31-26 score?
Then came '90.
The Gators, despite going on probation three weeks earlier and learning they'd be ineligible for the conference crown, were 5-0 (3-0 in the SEC) and ranked ninth in the nation when they went to Knoxville on Oct. 13 to face the Vols (3-0-2, 1-0-1). It was Spurrier back home. It was a battle of top-five teams. It was big-time SEC football. It was prime time.
It was a blowout. 
Tennessee 45, Florida 3.
[That's the day's sports section front, right, when I was the UF beat writer for The Tampa Tribune, with some others, including Orlando Sentinel tear sheets, below]
The score was 7-3 at halftime, but Dale Carter instantly changed that to start the third quarter by returning the second-half kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown, commencing an avalanche of 38 unanswered points.
It was the worst loss by a UF team since a 44-0 shutout against Herschel Walker and Georgia in 1982 and second-worst over the previous 20 years, dating to a 63-14 wipeout at Auburn in 1970.
“Not much to say,” Spurrier groused after his high-powered offense gained just 194 yards and turned the ball over seven times. “We thoroughly got whipped in every phase of the game -- offense, defense, kicking game, the whole bit.”
Added senior cornerback Richard Fain: “Embarrassing. But hey, it's football. It happens.” 
You know what happened from there?
UF swept its final three SEC games to finish with a league-best 6-1 record, while UT was upset 9-6 the following week at home by a mediocre Alabama team to finish 5-1-1 in the league. But the Vols, by virtue of Florida's NCAA sanctions and bowl ban, got the conference title and berth in Sugar Bowl.
The following summer, at an exotic Nike coaches retreat, Spurrier reminded UT coach Johnny Majors during a cocktail party that the Gators were the best team in the SEC the year before. Majors, in turn, reminded Spurrier about that 45-3 whipping.
“We were just getting you overconfident for Alabama,” Spurrier shot back.
Those in attendance say Georgia coach Ray Goff had to intervene and play peacemaker. No, really.
And away we went.
UF won big in 1991 en route to the first SEC title in school history. In '92, the first year the SEC went to its split divisions and championship game format, UT won big and had a two-game lead on the Gators in the race for the East title only to lose a trio of games down the stretch, with UF stealing the division crown. 
Florida then won five straight in the series, led off by Danny Wuerffel's first career start and including four victories with Peyton Manning on the other side of the ball. The '96 game pitted No. 2 UT vs. No. 3 Florida, with the Gators rushing to 35-0 second-quarter lead before holding on for a 35-29 win before the largest crowd in college football history.
“They said it was going to be loud up there,” Spurrier would later crow. “I have to admit it, it was ... for pre-game warmups.”
Can't make this stuff up.
The year after Manning left, the Vols defeated the Gators 20-17 in the first overtime game in UF history, a pulsating win that fueled Tennessee's run to the '98 national championship.
Alex Brown's five sacks in '99 and Jesse Palmer's “Was-it-a-catch?” TD pass in 2000 furthered the Florida dominance, running the not streak to seven wins over eight years, but the Vols' epic 34-32 season-ending upset at The Swamp in '01 -- a game pushed back to December by the 9-11 attacks -- will be recalled as one of the most devastating defeats in school history; and not just because it denied UF a shot at the Rose Bowl national title game.
Spurrier resigned a month later.
Ron Zook went 1-2 against Tennessee, but Urban Meyer and Will Muschamp can claim a 9-0 mark since 2005, including seven straight double-digit wins. Where UF once lagged 7-15 in the series, the Gators now lead 24-19.
Let's do it again.
