The Day the SEC Tide Turned for the Gators
Friday, September 19, 2014 | Football, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Alabama and Florida were charter members of the Southeastern Conference when the league opened shop in 1933, but only played 14 times over the next 56 years.
Then came 1990, which happened to be when Steve Spurrier, the former Heisman Trophy winner, returned to his alma mater as head coach and instantly made the series between the Gators and Crimson Tide not only significant in the conference, but beyond.
Over the next 10 seasons, UF and Alabama played nine times, with six of them directly factoring into deciding the league champion, including five meetings in the SEC Championship Game. 
Yet, ask Spurrier (left) which of his half-dozen victories over the Tide he holds dearest, it's not the 35-0 blowout of '91 that marked Bama's lone defeat of the year, or the richly satisfying SEC title-game wins in '93 and '94 or even the '96 offensive eruption that launched the Gators in the national championship game against Florida State.
No, it was the first one.
Spurrier and his team were coming off a rousing debut the week before and were now playing the inaugural SEC game of his UF coaching tenure. The Gators went to Bryant-Denny Stadium ranked 24th in the country, but also amid the specter of an NCAA investigation into rules violations under former Coach Galen Hall, the findings of which were expected to be announced the following week.
The game did not begin well for the Gators, giving it the look of just another one of those games -- for years and years -- they rarely, if ever, won.
From that day on, the mindset of all things Florida football, internally and externally, changed forever.
Rest assured, some hardcore, old-school UF fans will be talking about that Sept. 15, 1990, meeting when the Gators (2-0, 1-0) and Tide renew the series that dates to 1916 with their 38th meeting Saturday in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
With that in mind, to the capsule we go.
FOR HISTORICAL CONTEXT (Headlines of Sept. 14, 1990)
* Armed with metal detectors, tracker dogs, boats and all-terrain vehicles, more than 150 military personnel and law officers began a two-day search of southwest Gainesville's wooded areas, seeking clues that might link suspect Edward Humphrey to the murders of five college students. Police and sheriff's deputies first targeted areas nearest the three murder sites and the Hawaiian Village apartment of Humphrey, the 18-year-old University of Florida freshman listed as one of several suspects.
* Executions that week in Oklahoma and Illinois signaled an era of more frequent use of the death penalty in more states, according to legal experts. With 124 other Illinois death row inmates and at least two murderers in New Jersey and California nearing the end of their appeals, capital punishment appeared likely to become more common in non-Southern states. All but 16 of the 138 executions since the Supreme Court cleared the way for the resumption of the death penalty in 1976 had taken place in Southern states.
* In Moscow, the most far-reaching economic reform plan to be drafted in the Soviet Union since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution aimed at transforming the world's first Communist country into a land of shopkeepers, mall-business owners, private farmers and stockholders within two years. The full text of the “500 Days” program endorsed by President Mikhail Gorbachev earlier in the week included proposals for the largest bankruptcy sale in world history and the denationalization of 80 percent of the Soviet economy by the end of the decade.
* In sports, the Atlantic Coast Conference's invitation to Florida State to join the eight-team league received unanimous approval by the state Board of Regents. Broadway producer Robert Nederlander, promising to bring front office stability and fiscal sanity to the New York Yankees after George Steinbrenner's 17 1/2 years, was unanimously approved by Major League Baseball owners as the team's new general partner. And the Cincinnati Reds were on the verge of clinching the National League West Division en route to their World Series sweep of the Oakland A's, who had the best record in baseball by a whopping eight games over Pittsburgh (and N.L. MVP Barry Bonds).
* The hit movies were “Die Hard II,” starring Bruce Willis, “Ghost,” with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, and “Dick Tracy,” which Warren Beatty produced, directed and starred in alongside the likes of Al Pacino, Madonna and a host of other A-list actors making cameo appearances.
* On the tube, “Law & Order” began its third season on NBC, with a switch in its main cast. Sam Waterston debuted as district attorney Jack McCoy, replacing predecessor Michael Moriatry in his DA role as Mike Stone.
* On the radio, “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips, “It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette and “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O'Connor were the chartbusters that year.
THE SETUP
A week earlier, the Spurrier Era had opened in grandiose fashion, with the Gators destroying Oklahoma State, 50-7, behind an offensive outburst of 567 total yards and a sparkling 332-yard passing debut from sophomore quarterback Shane Matthews.
Now, it was time to open SEC play.
UF had not won at Tuscaloosa in 27 years (a run of four games) and was 1-9 in the 10 previous meetings against Bama since Coach Ray Graves and his team celebrated that famous 10-6 defeat of the Tide and legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant in 1963.
The Crimson Tide had suffered a brutal 27-24 home upset the week before at the hands of non-conference foe Southern Mississippi, a defeat that doesn't look so bad nearly a quarter-century later given a kid named Brett Favre was the opposing quarterback.
Considering Alabama had lost the final two games of the '89 season (the regular-season finale against Auburn and Sugar Bowl game against Miami), plus the USM defeat, the Tide was facing the prospect of losing four straight for the first time since 1956.
No way, right?
Way. 
THE GAME
Matthews passed for 267 yards and a touchdown, while Florida's defense forced four turnovers -- including three interceptions from sophomore safety Will White (left) -- as the Gators shocked the Tide with a 17-13 come-from-behind victory.
UF fell behind 10-0 early in the third period after Matthews was held to just 65 yards passing and the Gators twice were stopped on fourth-down gambles by Spurrier in Alabama territory in the first half.
But, then came a Florida flurry of 17 points over eight minutes that spanned the third and fourth quarters.
Matthews finally mounted a drive, moving the Gators 10 plays and 67 yards, capped by a 6-yard scoring pass to Terrence Barber that cut the lead to 10-7 with 3:35 left in the third period.
Bama, behind quarterback Gary Hollingsworth, marched to the UF 14, where it faced a third-and-5. Hollingsworth floated a pass toward tight end Lamonde Russell near the goal line, but White stepped in front of the play at the last minute, extended high into the air for the ball and tip-toed in bounds for an interception at the Florida 2.
On the very next play, Matthews backed into his end zone and air-mailed a bomb for wideout Ernie Mills straight up the middle of the middle that was good for 70 yards to the Tide 28. Six plays later, Arden Czyzewski tied the game at 10-all with a 23-yard field goal.
Florida forced an Alabama punt on the next possession. Just before the snap, cornerback Jimmy Spencer saw something in the Tide alignment and suggested he and linebacker Ephesians Bartley switch places, with Spencer moving inside.
Up the pipe he went, thumping punter Stan Moss' kick, which bounced into the end zone where Richard Fain fell on the ball for the touchdown and 17-10 lead just 15 seconds into the final quarter.
The Gators had all the momentum and all the points they'd need to finish off the game, with White's third interception (above photo) sealing the victory in the closing moments.
THE QUOTES
* “We were behind, on the road, against a big-time opponent and we were able to come away with a victory. That really made it a special win, not just for me and the team, but for all Gators. This is one we'll remember and hopefully help us down the stretch.” -- Spurrier
* “I think we've got something special here. It's tough to say, but I don't think we'd have pulled this one out last year.” -- UF fullback Dexter McNabb
* “We wanted it and went out and got it. ... I don't care if you intercept 12. It don't matter if you don't win.” -- White
* “That's the kind of game that puts a player on the map.” -- Fain, the senior cornerback, on White, his secondary mate.
* “I felt I could get there. I knew I had it before I blocked it.” -- Spencer
* “I've never seen anything like this since I've been here. Right now, I think we're a championship-caliber team. We came back to beat a great team with great tradition and did it right in their backyard. You have to have something special inside you to do that.” -- UF senior offensive tackle Glenn Neely
* “We improved over last week, but the bottom line is we lost. Football is a game of plays and a couple times we didn't make them.” -- Alabama coach Gene Stallings
EPILOGUE
Three days after the win, the NCAA announced the findings from its Committee On Infractions. The Gators received a one-year bowl ban, which made them ineligible for the SEC title. It was a crippling penalty for a senior-laden team suddenly rejuvenated by supremely confident coach who know all the buttons to push.
UF went on to finish 6-1 in the conference, edging out Tennessee (5-1-1) for the best record in the league. But, what could have been the first SEC title in school history was wiped away by that probation, yet Spurrier never forgot what that September day in Tuscaloosa meant for the direction of a program that went on to claim five of the next six SEC titles (and seven in 12 years).
“The 1990 Alabama game is still, probably, the most important [victory] our coaching staff has had,'' Spurrier said in 1998, mere days before the next time he took the Gators to Bryant-Denny (and won 16-10). “It was the start of all the championships we've been fortunate enough to win.”
