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| SJS College Football Extravaganza |
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| Decade In Review | ||
Here are the second 5 of my 15 greatest wins of the decade for the Florida Gators:
| #6 The SEC Has A New Master | ||
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Maybe if you asked Steve Spurrier, this would be at the top of his list. It is the game he considers to have put to rest the old Florida hang ups of never winning the big game, the one that announced to the SEC that Florida under Spurrier would be a force to be reckoned with. Florida was travelling to 16th ranked Alabama, the Alabama that was the personification of SEC excellence and tradition. Thanks to its 50-7 win over lowly Oklahoma State, Florida was also ranked: 24th. Safety Will White was the player of the game, grabbing 3 interceptions against ball-control Alabama. The game was a defensive struggle, not unusual for Alabama but not typical early-90s Florida. The Gators sputtered offensively in the first half, stuffed twice on fourth and one and once on third and one on conservative play calls. In the second half, Alabama scored quickly to bring its lead to 10-0, when Shane Matthews led a pass-driven drive culminating in a 9 yard TD pass to Terrence Barber. Ahead 10-7, the Tide looked to take control of the game, marching down to the Florida 14. On a Gary Hollingsworth pass bound for a TD, White grabbed one of his picks. The play saved the game, but also left Florida on its own 2 yard line facing an incredible Alabama rush defense. So Spurrier made a gutsy play call. Matthews dropped back deep into his end zone and threw the ball as far as he could to Ernie Mills. Mills caught the bomb and wasn't taken down until he reached the Bama 30. An Arden Czyzewski field goal tied the game. In the end it was a special teams play that won it. Jimmy Spencer burst through and blocked an Alabama punt and reserve defensive lineman Richard Fain took it in for the touchdown. |
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| #7 A Weight Has Been Lifted | ||
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The storyline for this SEC battle starts with what happened in other games. Florida had lost to Florida State in the last week of the regular season, and the Seminoles seemed destined to meet Nebraska for the national championship game, given that undefeated Arizona State was scheduled to play in the Rose Bowl. But earlier on Championship Saturday, the Texas Longhorns had scored a stunning upset in the first-ever Big 12 championship game, putting Florida back in position to play for the national title. First they would have to beat Alabama (9-2). The Tide were ranked just 15th that year, but had only given up 5 TD passes during the regular season and figured to match up fairly well against a Gator team that wasn't able to block the furious FSU pass rush the previous week. The worst the Tide had done against the pass all year was 260 yards allowed, good enough for first in the nation. That changed after 3 quarters of action against Danny Wuerffel. Florida played like a great weight had been lifted. The 1996 team was the highest scoring Florida team ever, and the offense flowed easily in the SEC championship game. Virtually every offensive star had a huge evening: Reidel Anthony had 11 receptions and 3 touchdowns, Jaquez Green averaged over 35 yards per catch, Fred Taylor averaged 6.3 yards per carry, and game MVP Danny Wuerffel threw for over 400 yards and 6 touchdown passes, both SEC Championship game records. Perhaps surprisingly, Alabama, which had averaged 24 points a game, rang up 30 against a talented Florida defense, in part due to a huge evening by Michael Vaughn (142 yards receiving and 2 TD) and a gutty performance by Freddie Kitchens. Down 24-7 at halftime, Bama rallied. The Tide closed it to 24-21 when UF punter Robbie Stevenson couldn't pull in a low snap and was gang tackled at the 5 yard line. Florida seemed to take control with a TD drive and good special teams play, stopping the Tide at the 6 yard line on the ensuing kickoff, but Kitchens hit Vaughn on a 94 yard TD pass that silenced a majority Florida crowd in the Georgia Dome. But if the game had turned into big ballplays, Alabama was in the wrong game. Wuerffel, calm as ever, answered with an 85 yard bomb to Green to bring it to 38-28. Six plays later (4 by Alabama, 2 by UF), Wuerffel hit Anthony for the clincher. Florida would get to face Florida State again in a Sugar Bowl rematch. |
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| #8 If We Can't Win It, You Can't Win It | ||
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For the second time in history, Flordia State came into the Swamp ranked number one in the nation. The Gators, on the other hand, were a disappointing 8-2 in their title defense season, and were already out of the SEC championship game, destined for the Citrus Bowl. But they had one nice streak going: they had ruined FSU's national title hopes two straight years. They went for the trifecta. It was one of the most exciting Florida-Florida State games ever, featuring six lead changes and great performances on both sides of the ball. Fred Taylor, the early goat, would emerge as one of the stars. After scoring a touchdown in the first quarter, Taylor then fumbled twice leading to 10 FSU points. Sam Cowart, star Seminole linebacker, scored a TD on the first fumble and contributed to the second one. Early in the second quarter, Thad Busby, aided by some nice Travis Minor runs, engineered a drive for FSU's third score, 17-6. Then UF stopped beating themselves, and starting beating FSU. Spurrier's innovative quarterback rotation scheme of Doug Johnson and Noah Brindise began to pay off, resulting in two second quarter scores to bring UF's halftime advantage to 18-17 (a failed point after and two unsuccessful 2 point tries). After an FSU field goal, Fred Taylor truly made amends by following a Rod Frazier block en route to a 61 yard TD run. The Seminoles responded and took the lead on the ensuing drive, capped by a 10 yard Travis Minor score. In the fourth quarter, with about 3 min to go, an FSU drive stalled on the 2 yard line. A TD would have meant an insurmountable 33-25 advantage, but the Noles settled for a FG. Then, the huge pass from Doug Johnson to Jaquez Green. The 63 yard bomb was perfectly thrown, hitting Green in stride as he blew past FSU corner Samari Rolle. Then a powerful 15 yard run by Taylor led to his 1 yard score, giving Taylor the best stat line a UF runner has but up against an FSU defense in the Spurrier era: 162 yards, 7.4 ypc, 4 TD. |
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| #9 A Tale of Two Halves | ||
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A lot was made in 1995 and 1996 about who was the better quarterback: Peyton Manning of Tennessee or Danny Wuerffel of Florida. En route to what would be an undefeated regular season for the Gators, the two quarterbacks were the feature performers in a classic SEC showdown in Gainesville. The game ended up being a tale of two halves. In the first half, the game resembled the showdown of #8 vs. #4 predicted by the national media, the second looked like a scrimmage between the Gators and Gainesville High School. That first half ended Tennessee 30, Florida 21. The Volunteers took the lead with a tremendous Manning to Marcus Nash combination that the young Florida secondary had trouble covering. At 23-14, the Gators appeared to make a huge play when safety Lawrence Wright made the Gator hit of the decade, a flying, jarring tackle of Vol receiver Joey Kent that you still see from time to time on college football promos. But on the next play, Wuerffel fumbled while scrambling, and Raymond Austin took it 46 yards for the score. Wuerrfel recovered, commanding a long drive that ended with an 11 yard TD pass to Ike Hilliard with just 9 seconds left in the first half. Besides drawing the Gators nearer to a win, it sounded the warning to Tennessee of the 41-7 half that was to come. The Gators got a big stop on the Vols' opening drive of the third quarter when kicker Jeff Hall missed a 22 yard field goal. After a UF score, Tennessee tailback Jay Graham fumbled on the next possession, and cornerback Fred Weary returned it 42 yards to the Vol 30. Another Wuerffel to Hilliard TD pass (the fourth of the day) made it 34-30. It was UF's first lead. Tennessee would lose 4 fumbles on the day, stumbling and bumbling through the second half, while the UF offense operated flawlessly. Florida got big runs from Terry Jackson (119 yards), Fred Taylor, and a 19-yard TD run by Reidel Anthony, while holding the Volunteers to just 124 yards on the ground. Wuerffel threw four TD passes and scored another on a sneak in that second half alone, on the way to establishing an unbelievable 29-39-6TD/1INT stat line. The best quarterback, I like to think, won and won big. |
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| #10 "The Catch" | ||
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Steve Spurrier's Gators emerged from the decade without a single loss to an unranked team. To be sure, such a streak requires a little good fortune, such as when your losses come against teams barely in the top 25 or when your unranked opponents tend to be pretty horrible. But the mark against unranked teams came 3 seconds away from being blown in 1993, when a very good Florida team nearly gave away a game against a very bad Kentucky Wildcats club. It was such a bad game, that the only way you could see it was pay-per-view. Some buddies of mine and I paid to see starting quarterback Terry Dean throw an ungodly 4 interceptions, and freshman Danny Wuerffel come off the bench in the second half to throw three more. A combination of a good Gator defense and a bad Kentucky offense minimized the damage, as Kentucky got only 10 points off of those 7 Gator turnovers. Nonetheless, the Wildcat option, led by quarterback Pookie Jones, was giving the defense enough fits that Florida was down in the final moments, 24-20. The only bright spot was that Wuerffel seemed to be finding a good rhythm with a formerly low-on-the-depth-chart wide receiver Chris Doering. After a Kentucky punt, Florida took the ball on their own 42-yard line. Spurrier decided to stick with Wuerffel as the lesser of two evils. Wuerffel was cool in the waning moments, going 3 of 5 to move the Gators down to the Kentucky 28. Kentucky's bend don't break defensive scheme had essentially worked: unable to tie with a field goal, UF had at most two plays left to get a TD with just 8 seconds left in the game. Spurrier later said that he strongly considered kicking a tying field goal then and there, but in the end opted for one final play. Wuerffel dropped back and threw a perfect strike to Doering running a post route over the middle. In what became known as "The Catch", Doering went up in front of a Wildcat DB in the middle of the field, coming down with the winning score with just 3 seconds to play. |
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