GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The first time Florida and Missouri played in a football game,
Steve Spurrier's team trailed by three touchdowns in the fourth quarter before frantically staging a comeback that fell short because of a trio of failed two-point conversations.
That would be
Steve Spurrier, the player, not the coach. His Gators lost 20-18 that afternoon.
The date was Jan. 1, 1966. The place was the Sugar Bowl (the actual stadium, by name) in New Orleans. UF trailed 20-0 after three quarters, but Spurrier, then a junior, bracketed a pair of touchdown passes around a short scoring run in the fourth period, with the last score a 21-yarder to
Charley Casey with just over found minutes to play. After each TD, Florida coach
Ray Graves ordered two-point attempts, each ending with incompletions. The case can be made, of course, that kicked points-after would have given the Gators a 21-20 win, but the space-time continuum doesn't work that way.
Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwich (left) and former UF coach Dan Mullen (right). Don't remember? Confused? Read on.
Anyway, Spurrier finished 22 of 45 for a bowl-record 352 yards — an astounding total for that era — and used that performance as a springboard to a Heisman Trophy-winning senior campaign the following fall. Good stuff.
It would be 46 years before Florida and Missouri played again. The Tigers, along with Texas A&M, officially joined the Southeastern Conference for the 2012-13 athletic season and were placed in the league's East Division for football. They've played annually since, with a dead-even 5-5 record along the way and some ridiculously lopsided wins for Mizzou. In fact, before last year's dramatic, last-second one-point triumph at Columbia, Mo., the Tigers' average margin of victory in the SEC series was an astounding 24.5 points, with all three of UF's head coaches —
Will Muschamp,
Jim McElwain and
Dan Mullen — drubbed at least once.
Who knows what will happen Saturday when the Gators (3-2, 0-2), now under
Billy Napier, play host to the Tigers (1-3, 0-2) in their homecoming meeting at Spurrier/Florida Field, but below is reminder of what happened those previous 10 times.
