What a Decade for the Orange and Blue
December 15, 2009 by Jim Folsom
Filed under The Nosebleeds
It all started out pretty well for the Gators. Well maybe not from the very start. On Jan 1, 2000 Florida lost the Citrus Bowl on a last second field goal to Michigan State. It was the Gators third straight defeat. They ended the greatest decade of Gator football by far (the 90s) by losing to eventual National Champ, FSU and the SEC Title game to Alabama. (Sound familiar?) But that’s when things started to pick up. The Gators made a memorable run through the NCAA Tournament by pressing the daylights out of the NCAA Field. They beat both Duke and North Carolina before dropping the NCAA Title Game to Michigan State. The football team then followed that up with a win in the 2000 SEC Championship Game against Auburn.
The momentum quickly faded however. UF’s hoops team would then suffer through five straight first weekend NCAA exits. The fans were actually grumbling a bit after the fifth one was also accompanied by the Gators top three players leaving the program. Two of which were juniors who were not exactly lottery picks. If you think the basketball team fell on hard times, the football team was a disaster.
The ’01 Gators were loaded with talent. And they had experience. They were ready to compete for a National Title. Then the unthinkable happened. September 11th, 2001. A day none will ever forget. One of the least important circumstances of that horrible day was the cancellation of many sporting events that week. For Florida , that meant the Tennessee game that was scheduled for the following Saturday in Gainesville. The game was moved to the end of the season, following the annual rivalry game against FSU. It proved to be too much for the Gators to beat FSU and UT on back to back weeks. There was also a controversial play in the FSU game that caused a stir. FSU’s Darnell Dockett allegedly hurt UF’s star Running back Earnest Graham’s knee in a pile up. Not only was Graham out for the UT game, Coach Steve Spurrier was irate. He was mad not only at FSU, but also the UF administration for not backing him up enough. After an Orange Bowl demolition of Maryland, Spurrier resigned. In came Ron Zook.
Ron Zook is the man who inspired the invention of the “fire__.com” websites. His tenure was a train wreck. Five loss seasons, players getting into trouble, the bubble screen, and the interviews. Oh those interviews. Did the head coach of the University of Florida really have to make Yogi Berra sound like an intellectual giant? If he wasn’t blowing games to Tennessee, he was losing 23 point leads to Miami. If he wasn’t stuttering his way to another embarrassment he was losing to Ole Miss. The final straw was losing to a horrid Mississippi State team in ’04. That’s when things really turned around.
In ’05 the Gators hired Urban Meyer, the up and coming hot shot that had taken Utah (who?) to an undefeated season and a Fiesta Bowl win in ’04. He was the anti-Zook. He was a hard liner with the players. He was an offensive innovator. He had a plan. He had the guys he wanted to bring in to run his offense. The fans bought in, the players bought in, the Gators were back.
Meanwhile at the O’Dome, Donovan’s Gators were quietly putting together quite a team. The media ignored the ’05-’06 team in the preseason. Most picked the Gators to finish in the bottom half of the Eastern Division. However the Gators started off 17-0. They were doing it with a bunch of sophomores and freshman, many who had seen little playing time in Gainesville before. Before the season was done, these Gators had impressed enough to gain a #3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But what happened after that is the stuff of legends. They ran through the NCAA Field that year with reckless abandon. All the way to the school’s first ever NCAA Title. And then they did the unthinkable. They all came back.
Then it was football’s turn. In Meyer’s second season things were starting to take shape. The players believed they could win. And win they did. They weren’t always impressive, but they were tough with game on the line. The most memorable game was against South Carolina. The Gators had to block three kicks, one on the final play, to eek out a 17-16 win against their old coach. They ended up winning the SEC and were picked to face might Ohio State in the BCS title game. In spite of few giving them a chance, they vowed to show up. And did they ever. It was an epic beat down. The offense clicked like it had not since the days of Spurrier. And the defense was a stone wall that would have made the Steelers proud. The result was the University of Florida to become the first school to EVER win the basketball national title and the football national title in the same year!
How do you top that? You win another hoops title. And the Gators did. This time they went into the season with a big bulls eye on their backs. But the Gators answered the challenge. They ran through the NCAA Field for the second straight year on top of winning their third straight SEC Tournament. In April of 2007, the University would stage its third national title celebration in 12 months! The three Gator juniors in the starting frontcourt, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Corey Brewer bid a tearful farewell to Gainesville before all becoming top 10 draft picks.
And if you think that’s enough, just wait. On the football field, there was a new hero. Quarterback Tim Tebow, who played the role of short yardage QB for the title winning ’06 team, was ready to take over full time in ’07. He ran Meyer’s spread offense to perfection. He ran over people, who ran through people, he passed over them. With his cohort, Percy Harvin leaving them in the dust, the two were nearly unstoppable. Tebow became the first sophomore and the third Gator QB to win the coveted Heisman Trophy.
What would he do for an encore? How about leading UF to another National Title? After an early season loss to Ole Miss, Tebow vowed that his team would be the hardest playing team in the nation for the rest of the season. They did not disappoint. The Gators blasted every team left on the regular season schedule, then beat two consecutive #1 ranked teams to win yet another NCS Title. They would not be stopped until the very last game of the decade. Before losing to Alabama in the ’09 SEC Championship Game, Florida would win 22 straight games. The Gators will start off the ‘10s in the Sugar Bowl against an unbeaten Cincinnati team with a top five ranking at stake.
So there you have it folks. The decade of the ‘00s has been a decade of Orange and Blue. Between the two major sports in college athletics, 4 National Championships, 6 SEC Championship Game wins, and a Heisman Trophy. Also another Final Four appearance and a 12-0 football regular season. It will be tough to top the last decade. That is for sure. But if the next one is even close, it will be a fun ride.
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About Jim: Thank you to the senior class of 2009! |
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