Florida–Tennessee football rivalry

Florida–Tennessee football rivalry

Florida Gators Tennessee Volunteers
First meeting	October 28, 1916
Latest meeting	September 26, 2015
Next meeting	September 24, 2016
Statistics
Meetings total	45
All-time series	Florida leads, 26–19
Largest victory	Tennessee 45, Florida 3 (1990)
Longest win streak	11 (Florida 2005–present)
Current win streak	Florida, 11 (2005–present)

The Florida–Tennessee football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Florida Gators football team of the University of Florida and the Tennessee Volunteers football team of the University of Tennessee. The Gators and Vols first met on the gridiron in 1916, and have competed in the same conference since Florida and Tennessee joined the now-defunct Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1910 and 1895, respectively. However, a recognized rivalry did not develop until the early 1990s due to the infrequency of earlier meetings; in the first seventy-six years (1916–1991) of the series, the two teams played just twenty-one times.

In 1992, when the Southeastern Conference (SEC) expanded to twelve universities and split into two divisions, Florida and Tennessee were both placed in the SEC's Eastern Division, and have met annually on the football field since then. The rivalry quickly blossomed in intensity and importance, as both squads were perennial SEC and national championship contenders throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

Schedule

Florida and Tennessee's football teams first met in 1916, when both schools were members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association. They each joined the Southern Conference in the 1920s, and were founding members of the Southeastern Conference in 1932. Despite these common affiliations, a true rivalry did not develop between the programs for a long time because they played so sparingly.

Florida and Tennessee met infrequently for over half a century, often going many years without meeting on the gridiron. From 1916 to 1969, they played on a total of 13 occasions. The SEC became a 10-member league in the late-1960s, and a new scheduling formula had the teams play slightly more often, meeting seven times over the next 21 seasons. The SEC became a 12-member league in 1992 and split into two divisions. Both Florida and Tennessee were placed in the SEC's Eastern Division, and they have met annually ever since.

Florida and Tennessee met on the third Saturday of September almost every year from 1992 to 2013, with the rivalry often serving as the first significant test of the season for both teams. (The lone exception during this period was 2001, when the game was postponed until December 1 due to the September 11th terrorist attacks.) The traditional scheduling was briefly discontinued in 2014, when the addition of two new members to the SEC temporarily scrambled the usual dates of many traditional conference rivalries and moved the Florida–Tennessee game to October. The game was moved back to its usual late-September date for 2015.

Other sports

As long-time members of the same conference, Tennessee and Florida have long competed in many other sports besides football. Men's basketball in particular became a heated rivalry for a time in the mid- to late-2000s, when coach Bruce Pearl's Volunteers squads challenged coach Billy Donovan's national championship-winning Gators teams for supremacy in the SEC's Eastern Division. However, the schools' football rivalry has consistently received more attention from fans and media over the years.

Series history

Early history

Tennessee dominated the early series, winning their first 10 meetings with Florida over a span of 37 years (1916–53). The highlight of this period was a 1928 season-ending match-up between undefeated squads in Knoxville that the Volunteers won 13–12. Florida finally broke Tennessee's win streak with a 14–0 victory in Knoxville in 1954, and Tennessee won the return visit to Gainesville the following year. The teams would not meet again until the 1969 Gator Bowl, the longest gap in the series. In that highly unusual post-season match-up between conference foes, Florida won the game and then hired away the Tennessee's head coach, former Gator quarterback Doug Dickey.

File:Doug Dickey (1971).png

Doug Dickey, Tennessee coach, then Florida coach

At the conclusion of the 1960s, Tennessee owned an 11–2 record against Florida.

1970s and 1980s

Tennessee won their first two clashes against Dickey's Gators and Florida won the next two, including a 1976 victory in Gainesville that was their first home win in the 60-year history of the series. Dickey resigned as Florida's coach after the 1978 season, ending a largely disappointing tenure at Florida and eventually returning to Knoxville in 1985 to become Tennessee's athletic director.

Florida ran their win streak over Tennessee to four games (over nine seasons) with wins in Knoxville and Gainesville in 1984 and 1985. Florida held a 4–2 advantage over this time period.

1990s

One result of the SEC's 1992 expansion and split into divisions was the beginning of an annual match-up between Florida and Tennessee at a time when both programs rose to national prominence. Under head coaches Steve Spurrier and Phillip Fulmer, the Gators and Volunteers were annual contenders for conference and national championships, with both teams usually fielding wide-open offenses led by top quarterbacks such as Danny Wuerffel and Peyton Manning, among many other future pro players on both sides of the ball.

Their first match-up as permanent opponents in 1992 helped to sow the seeds of rivalry, as the underdog Vols beat the defending SEC champion Gators in Neyland Stadium. Fulmer had been serving as UT's interim head coach while Johnny Majors recovered from heart problems, but his team's upset of the Gators helped to secure him the permanent position and brought about a decade of games in which the rivalry was one of the key match-ups of every college football season. The Gators turned the tables and upset the Volunteers in 1993, with true freshman Wuerffel outplaying Heisman trophy candidate Heath Shuler in a 41–34 win that was Fulmer's first loss as Tennessee's head coach.

The rivalry held national championship implications over each of the following seasons, with both teams entering the contests ranked in the top 10 every year. Though they were not always the favorite, Florida won five straight against Tennessee from 1993 to 1997, winning four SEC titles and a consensus national championship during that span. The 1994, 1995, and 1996 contests featured match-ups between starting quarterbacks Danny Wuerffel and Peyton Manning, who never beat Florida during his celebrated college career. But though Florida beat Tennessee in 1997, upset losses to LSU and Georgia propelled Tennessee to their own SEC championship in Manning's senior year. Tennessee broke Florida's winning streak in 1998 with a 20–17 overtime win and went on to win their second straight SEC championship and a national championship. In 1999, Florida upset the Vols in Gainesville to close out the decade.

During the 1990s, Florida and Tennessee combined to win eight conference and two national championships. Both teams were ranked in the top 10 for eight out of their ten contests during the decade, and neither team ever entered their rivalry game ranked lower than No. 15. Florida held a 7–3 record against Tennessee from 1990 to 1999.

2000s

Florida began the next decade with a 27–23 victory in Knoxville in front of a national record crowd of 108,768 fans. During the following season, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks postponed all NCAA Division-I football games that were scheduled to be played on Saturday, September 15 were postponed to a later date. The Florida and Tennessee match-up was rescheduled for December, when the Vols upset the Gators in Gainesville, winning in Florida Field for the first time since 1971. Steve Spurrier left Florida for the NFL after the 2001 season, but two trends in the rivalry continued in 2002: both teams were ranked in the top 10, and new Florida coach Ron Zook led the Gators to another win in Knoxville. However, both teams stumbled later in the season, and for the first time ever, neither would represent the SEC's Eastern Conference in the SEC Championship Game. The 2002 contest would be the last time to date in which both schools would enter their annual clash ranked in the top 10.

For the first time since the division rivalry began 11 years earlier, the 2003 match-up featured UF and UT teams that were each ranked out of the top 10 (UT No. 12, UF No. 17), and the game was relegated to a noon kickoff on CBS. Tennessee pulled away in the second half to win 24–10 for their second victory in Gainesville. The Vols were victorious against Florida again in 2004 for their 2nd straight win against Florida and their third victory in four meetings.

Ron Zook was fired during the 2004 season, and new Gator coach Urban Meyer put an emphasis on defending their home turf. Florida's 16–7 home win over Tennessee in 2005 helped to revive the program and started a Gator win streak in the rivalry that has continued for a decade. Meyer's Gators beat Fulmer's Volunteers again in 2006 and 2007, and while Florida was SEC and national champions in 2006, Tennessee reached the SEC championship game in 2007. Florida won 30–6 in Knoxville in 2008 on their way to another SEC and national championship season. After Tennessee recorded its second losing season within a four-year span, Fulmer resigned as the Vols' head coach.

Gator fans have occasionally worn all blue in a "blue out" to stand out from orange-clad Volunteer fans, such as in the 2007 game.

Lane Kiffin was hired as Tennessee's new head coach for 2009 and commented in his introductory press conference that he would "sing Rocky Top all night" after his team beat Florida in Gainesville the following September. Soon after, he (incorrectly) accused Florida's Urban Meyer of breaking recruiting rules over a player that ended up going to Tennessee, sparking a series of public jibes between the coaches that continued through the off-season and helped to make the 2009 match-up between the No. 1 Gators and the unranked Volunteers the rivalry's most hyped meeting in several years. The game was a relatively uneventful 23–13 Florida win, but the coaches' verbal sparring continued, with Meyer suggesting after the game that Kiffin had not played to win but had simply tried to "keep it close", eventually leading SEC commissioner Mike Slive to warn the coaches to end their war of words. In January 2010, Kiffin resigned to become the head coach at Southern California, abruptly ending his feud with Meyer after one season.

From 2000 to 2009, Florida again held a 7–3 advantage over Tennessee.

2010s

Florida continued their winning streak in the series as Urban Meyer was replaced by Will Muschamp (in 2011) and then Jim McElwain (in 2015), and Lane Kiffin was succeeded by Derek Dooley (in 2010) and then Butch Jones (in 2013). The Gators' streak stands at 11, after the Gators overcame a 13-point fourth-quarter deficit to win 28–27.

While the rivalry was still important to both schools and (occasionally) the conference standings, it often failed to have the national impact that it once had. In 2013, both Tennessee and Florida failed to qualify for a bowl game for the first time since 1978. The 2014 meeting was the first time since 1955 that both teams entered their match-up unranked.

Notable games

1928: Unbeatens in the mud

Coming into their 1928 regular season finale, the Gators under head coach Charlie Bachman held an 8–0 record and had outscored their opponents by a nation-leading margin of 324–31. Coach Robert Neyland's Vols had been dominant as well; they were quarterbacked by Bobby Dodd and had outscored their opponents 236–39 and held an 8–0–1 record—the only blemish being a scoreless tie with Kentucky. Still, the Gators were favorites when the teams met in early December, and rumor had it that they would be in line for a Rose Bowl invitation had they prevailed in Knoxville.

They did not. Stymied by a stingy Vol defense and two failed point after touchdown attempts, the Gators fell, 13–12.

In what would become a trend in the series, controversy swirled around the contest. By all accounts, the playing surface had been a muddy mess. Some Gators claimed that the home team had watered down the field in an effort to slow down the speedy Gator stars, including halfbacks Red Bethea, Carl Brumbaugh and Royce Goodbread; fullback Rainey Cawthon, quarterback Clyde Crabtree, end Dutch Stanley, and Florida's first-ever first-team All-American, end Dale Van Sickel The Vols protested that the sloppy conditions were simply the result of heavy rain the night before the game.

The teams would not become regular opponents for decades, and the Gators would not earn its first victory over the Vols for nearly a quarter century.

1930: Dodd's final game

In the final game of Bobby Dodd's playing career, Tennessee defeated Florida in Jacksonville 13–6. Buddy Hackman scored both of Tennessee's touchdowns. An account of Dodd's trickery: "Against Florida in 1930 he got his teammates in a huddle and told them about a play he had used in high school. When the ball was snapped, it was placed on the ground unattended. The players ran in one direction. Then the center returned, picked up the ball, and waltzed to the winning touchdown." This play would later come to be popularly known as the "fumblerooski", after Nebraska famously used it in the 1984 Orange Bowl versus Miami.

1969–70: Coaching carousel

The 9–1 SEC champion Vols and the 8–1–1 Gators were not on each other's schedule in 1969. However, they were invited to play in the 1969 Gator Bowl, setting up a rare all-SEC bowl matchup and the only time the squads have faced off outside of the regular season.

The expected high-scoring battle featuring UF's "Super Sophs" passing attack against UT's powerful ground game led by quarterback Bobby Scott never materialized, as both defenses were superb in the Gators' 14–13 win. Quarterback John Reaves connected with wide receiver Carlos Alvarez for the Gators' only offensive touchdown, and the Gator defense stopped the Vols at Florida's one-yard line late in the game to preserve the victory. Fittingly, the game's MVP was Florida linebacker Mike Kelley, who had an interception, a fumble recovery, a blocked punt recovered for a TD, a sack, and 17 tackles.

However, the 1969 Gator Bowl is much more memorable for the coaching changes and rumors of coaching changes that surrounded the contest. Throughout December 1969, rumors had been circulating that Florida's head coach and athletic director Ray Graves, who had been the captain of Tennessee's 1941 football team, would retire from coaching at the conclusion of the season to become UF's full-time AD. Though both Graves and university officials denied the rumor, speculation among fans, players, and media was that Graves would leave the sideline and popular defensive coordinator Gene Ellenson would be promoted to head coach.

The situation intensified in the days preceding the game when word leaked out that Vol head coach Doug Dickey, who had been Florida's starting quarterback in the early 1950s and had grown up in Gainesville, planned to leave UT and replace Graves at UF after their respective teams met in the Gator Bowl. Dickey admitted to reporters that he had been offered the position at Florida, but Graves and UF president Stephen C. O'Connell continued to deny that personnel changes were imminent, with Graves stating that "there is utterly no truth to the rumor."

Despite these denials, Dickey was introduced as the Gators' new head football coach five days after the Gator Bowl contest by Florida's new full-time AD, Ray Graves. Players on both the Florida and Tennessee squads were upset by the move and the NCAA conducted an investigation to determine whether ethics policies were violated. However, no wrongdoing was discovered and Dickey was the Gator head coach for 1970.

The teams did not meet very often in the SEC schedule, but following Georgia Tech's departure, the regular season rotation coincidentally had them facing off in Knoxville the following October. UT fans, who denounced Dickey as a "traitor", eagerly anticipated the match-up and were not disappointed, as the Vols beat his new Florida squad 38–7 behind quarterback Bobby Scott's then-school record 385 passing yards. The Gators assisted the rout by committing four turnovers, including two John Reaves Interceptions returned for touchdowns.

Both Dickey and Graves remained in their respective positions at UF until the late 1970s, with Dickey fired after the 1978 season and Graves retiring in 1979. Later, in yet another twist, Dickey returned to Knoxville in 1985 to serve as UT's athletic director, replacing Bob Woodruff. Woodruff had played football at Tennessee, but he had been Dickey's head football coach at Florida and had also served as UF's athletic director immediately preceding Ray Graves.

Dickey was the head of UT's athletic department during the intense UF/UT Spurrier/Fulmer rivalry of the 1990s and retired in 2002, after which he moved to Jacksonville, Florida.

1990: Homecoming

Steve Spurrier returned to his alma mater in 1990 to become the Gators' new football coach. In yet another link between the programs, Spurrier had been a star quarterback at Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee during the early 1960s. Although Knoxville is nearby, he did not seriously consider attending UT because he was an excellent passer and the Vols ran a single-wing offense at the time which featured a running quarterback. Instead, he choose to return to the state of his birth (Spurrier was born in Miami Beach), eventually becoming the Gators' first Heisman Trophy winner in 1966.

Spurrier's first Gator squad was 5–0 and ranked No. 9 coming into the matchup with Johnny Majors' 3–0–2 and No. 5 Vols, marking the first time in series history that both rivals were ranked in the AP top-10 when they faced off. (It was not Spurrier’s first visit to Knoxville as an opposing coach; his 1988 Duke Blue Devils had upset the Vols 31–26.)

The 1990 game began as a defensive struggle, with UT holding a slim 7–3 lead at the half. However, the Vols' Dale Carter returned the second half kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown, igniting the home crowd at Neyland Stadium.

On their ensuing possession, the Gators fumbled for what would be the first of six UF turnovers in the second half. The opportunistic Vols took full advantage, turning Spurrier’s homecoming (and, coincidentally, UT's homecoming game) into a dominating 45–3 rout, the largest margin of victory for either team in the series.

1991: "Faxgate"

In the week before the 1991 game, media reports began circulating that former UT assistant coach Jack Sells, who had been fired before that season for his role in recruiting violations, had allegedly faxed UF defensive coordinator Ron Zook, himself a former Tennessee assistant, the Vols' offensive gameplan. At first, both Zook and head coach Steve Spurrier denied receiving any information, though Zook soon clarified his statement and said that Sells had sent him a fax of newspaper clippings about the upcoming game, which he had immediately destroyed.

Florida won the contest 35–18 behind 245 yards and three touchdowns from Gator quarterback Shane Matthews and five Vol turnovers, but the "faxgate" controversy continued after the final whistle. A follow-up newspaper investigation in Knoxville located an employee of a local Kinko's copy center who said that he had noticed Sells faxing copies of a UT "playbook" and insisted that Sells stop the transmission after 10–15 pages had been sent. The employee had saved the fax cover sheet, which detailed a transmission sent three days before the UF–UT game by a "Jack Sells" to a "Ron Zook" at a Gainesville telephone number.

While Vol athletic director (and former Gator quarterback and head football coach) Doug Dickey was not happy about the incident, both Phil Fulmer and Steve Spurrier downplayed its importance, Spurrier pointing out that UT gained over 400 yards of offense (including 392 passing yards) in the game and joked that it certainly didn't seem like his defensive staff had any inside information. For his part, Fulmer later admitted that the UT staff had copies of the Gators' offensive playbooks at the time. An SEC investigation concluded without punishment.

Jack Sells, the person at the center of the incident, left the coaching profession and successfully sued Kinko's for privacy violations, though he moved out of the state of Tennessee after being assaulted by an angry Vols fan in Chattanooga. After a stint as an assistant coach in the NFL, Zook succeeded Spurrier as the Gators' head coach in 2002. He was reluctant to talk about "Faxgate" during his tenure at UF (2002–04), though he did disclose that Sells' infamous transmission had actually been a set of hand-drawn Volunteer offensive plays, but insisted that they "were so immaterial, and it made no difference and had no relevance, it was nothing."

1993: Shuler and Wuerffel shootout

In a "shootout" the Gators defeated the Vols by a single touchdown, 41 to 34. Heath Shuler completed 25 of 41 passes for 355 yards and five touchdowns; and Danny Wuerffel completed 19 of 38 for 231 yards and three touchdowns. Errict Rhett rushed for 147 yards and two touchdowns. A group of Tennessee fans, including coach Phillip Fulmer's wife, complain to the SEC about the behavior of Gators fans. They claim cups of urine were thrown on them during the game.

1995: Tale of two halves, Part I: Gainesville

For the third time in five seasons, the No. 8 Vols and No. 4 Gators were both undefeated and ranked in the top ten coming into their annual contest. The squads featured talented young quarterbacks in UT sophomore Peyton Manning and UF junior Danny Wuerffel, and many pregame prognosticators accurately predicted an offense shootout, with Sports Illustrated planning on putting Manning on the cover of their magazine the week after the game.

The Vols struck quickly. On the first play from scrimmage, Manning connected with receiver Joey Kent for a 72-yard gain. On the next play, Manning threw a touchdown pass to Marcus Nash, giving UT a 7–0 lead only 15 seconds into the game. After another Manning touchdown pass and two Gator turnovers, the Vols held a 30–14 advantage late in the second quarter in front of a stunned Florida Field crowd. Wuerffel led the Gators to an answering score, cutting the lead to 30–21 with a touchdown pass in the last minute of the first half. That would be the beginning of a historic run, as Florida scored 48 straight points despite a torrential second half downpour and won in a 62–37 rout. Many records were broken in the game: Wuerffel threw an SEC record six touchdown passes; Tennessee set school records for most points scored in a loss and most points given up in the modern era. After the game, Sports Illustrated choose to put Wuerffel on its cover instead of Manning.

Florida would go 12–0 through the regular season and the SEC Championship Game and played for the national championship, pounded by the rushing of Tommie Frazier and Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, 62–24. Tennessee would not lose another game all season, finishing 11–1 after a Citrus Bowl victory over Ohio State. The schools finished No. 2 and No. 3 in the final polls, with the AP Poll placing the Gators ahead and the Coaches' Poll reversing the order.

The Coaches' Poll was another cause of controversy. Two coaches had voted the Gators out of their top ten, allowing the Vols to slip above them in the final rankings. Since the ballots were submitted secretly, the coaches in question were never identified, but some in the UF program suggested that UT's coach Fulmer had purposely skewed his ballot to improve his team's ranking at the expense of their rival. Fulmer insisted that he had not voted Florida out of his top ten, but did admit that he had ranked them behind his own team.

1996: Tale of two halves, Part II: Knoxville

Once again, UT and UF met while undefeated and highly ranked, with the Vols ranked No. 2 and Gators ranked No. 4.

The tone for the game was set on Florida's first drive, as Spurrier spurned the punt team on a fourth-and-10 play from the UT 35, and Wuerffel connected with Reidel Anthony for a touchdown to put the Gators up 7–0. Teako Brown intercepted Manning on the Vols' first drive, and it took Wuerffel only one play to find the end zone again, hitting Terry Jackson from 10 yards out to extend the lead to 14–0. UF doubled its lead in a 52-second stretch early in the 2nd quarter, as Ike Hilliard and Jacquez Green became the third and fourth different receivers with touchdown receptions on the afternoon, sandwiched around a James Bates interception of Manning. Antone Lott's 27-yard fumble return stretched the lead to 35–0, before Manning finally got UT on the scoreboard before halftime on a 72-yard strike to Peerless Price.

With the Gators switching to a more conservative offensive game plan in the second half, Manning cut the lead to 35–22 with 8 minutes left with 2 more touchdown tosses, including a second to Price. Andy McCellough's 14-yard reception brought the Vols within 35–29 with 10 seconds left, but UF recovered the ensuing onsides kick to hang on for a six-point win.

Florida went on to win its 4th straight SEC championship and first ever national championship.

1997: Spelling "Citrus"

During the mid-1990s, the second highest ranked SEC squad was usually invited to play in the Citrus Bowl after the season. Florida won four consecutive SEC titles from 1993 to 1996, beating Tennessee each time and twice sending them to the Citrus Bowl. Spurrier, who was often known to poke fun at rivals, made jokes at Tennessee's expense during off-season Gator Booster dinners in the spring of 1997, pointing out that "you can't spell Citrus without UT" and suggesting Peyton Manning had returned for his senior season at UT because "he wants to be a three-time Citrus Bowl MVP".

Ironically, even after UF beat a Manning-led Vols squad in September 1997 for their fifth straight victory in the series, upset losses to LSU and Georgia put the Gators in the Citrus Bowl while UT won its first SEC Championship Game.

1998: Fulmer breaks through

After Peyton Manning and several other star players moved on to the NFL after the 1997 season, most preseason prognosticators saw Tennessee's 1998 squad as taking a step backward from championship contention. However, they were still ranked No. 6 when the No. 2 Gators rolled into Knoxville looking to beat their rivals for the sixth consecutive year.

It was not to be. Led by junior quarterback Tee Martin and a stout defense, the Vols recovered four Gators fumbles, held their opponent to -30 yards rushing, and slowed UF's two-quarterback passing attack, which featured Doug Johnson and Jesse Palmer alternating plays. The game was close throughout, with the score knotted at 10 at halftime and 17 at the end of regulation. Tennessee was held to a Jeff Hall field goal during their first possession of overtime. When it was UF's turn, placekicker Collins Cooper missed an answering field goal, giving UT a 20–17 win and inspiring the jubilant home fans to rush the turf of Neyland Stadium and tear down the goalposts.

It was not the first last-minute win for the Vols that season, and it would not be the last, either. UT survived several close calls to complete their first perfect season (12–0) since 1938 and claimed their first national championship since 1952 with a 23–16 victory over Florida State in the Fiesta Bowl

2000: The "Catch?"

In front of a record crowd in Neyland Stadium, the Vols had dominated the 2000 UF/UT contest on the strength of stifling defense and 175 rushing yards from running back Travis Henry. However, an inability to finish drives led to a school record five field goals from kicker Alex Walls and a slim 23–20 lead.

Down by that score late in the fourth quarter, UF took possession of the ball at their own 9-yard line. Gator quarterback Jesse Palmer steadily led his team down the field, and with 14 seconds left in the game, they found themselves with a first and goal at the Vols' 3.

After a touchdown pass was called back on an illegal man downfield penalty, Palmer's next pass was to wide receiver Jabar Gaffney in the endzone. The ball made it to Gaffney's hands and was almost instantly slapped away by Vol cornerback Willie Miles. The official in the area signaled a touchdown, ruling that Gaffney had had possession of the ball long enough to be considered a catch. After a brief conference with the referee, the call was confirmed despite strident protests from the UT coaching staff and loud boos from the crowd. The extra point gave Florida a controversial 27–23 victory.

The Volunteer squad and fans were incensed by the call, as they believed Gaffney never gained possession of the ball and that the pass should have been ruled incomplete. Vanderbilt alumnus Al Matthews, the referee who made the initial call, received death threats after the game and was not assigned to officiate any games in Knoxville until after Fulmer left.

2001: Season finale

As usual, the Gators and Vols were slated to meet on the 3rd Saturday of September during the 2001 season. However, the SEC canceled all games on the weekend following the September 11 attacks, and all contests were rescheduled for December 1, 2001, requiring the SEC Championship Game to be pushed back a week as well.

As the season progressed, the postponed game took on greater and greater importance. Each squad suffered only one close loss and entered the contest with Tennessee ranked No. 6 and Florida ranked No. 2. The winner would represent the SEC East and face LSU in the SEC Championship. With a win in that game, the Gators or Vols were likely to receive an invitation to the Rose Bowl to face the undefeated Miami Hurricanes with a national title on the line.

But in 2001, despite the teams' identical records and much to the chagrin of the Vols, the Gators were 17-and-a-half point favorites at kickoff.

Gators starting running back Earnest Graham had been controversially injured in UF's win over rival Florida State the previous week and was unable to play. The star of the game would turn out to be the running back for the other squad, as UT's Travis Stephens rushed for 226 yards and two touchdowns on 19 carries to lead the Vols' attack. Without Graham, Florida managed only 36 total yards on the ground. Gator quarterback Rex Grossman threw 51 times for 362 yards and two touchdowns, but his pass on a potentially game-tying two-point conversion attempt with just over a minute left in the 4th quarter fell incomplete. The Vols held on for a 34–32 upset victory, ending a 30-year winless drought against Florida in Gainesville, although the two squads had only met eight times in Gainesville from 1971 to 2001.

Ultimately, neither team would win any championships that season. UT was upset by LSU in the SEC Championship Game the following Saturday and missed their opportunity to play for a second national title in four years. The Vols ended up beating Michigan 45–17 in the Citrus Bowl. Florida was invited to the Orange Bowl, where they beat Maryland 56–23.

The teams' December meeting would become even more historical in early January, when Steve Spurrier announced that he was resigning as Florida's head coach after 12 seasons. The 2001 game was thus the last matchup in the Spurrier-Fulmer chapter of the rivalry (they would meet several additional occasions after Spurrier became South Carolina's head coach in 2005) and Spurrier's last home game at Florida Field.

2004: Unsportsmanlike conduct

Like the game in Knoxville four years previously, the 2004 UF/UT contest on Tennessee's home field also ended in controversy involving an official's call.

Holding on to a slim 28–27 lead, Florida was attempting to run the clock out late in the fourth quarter. Florida gained one first down, then were stopped on the subsequent third down play and began to send in the punt team with under a minute left in the game and the clock running.

After the play, however, Gator receiver Dallas Baker and Vols defensive back Jonathan Wade got into an altercation, with Wade head-slapping Baker and Baker responding with a head slap of his own. Referee Bobby Moreau appeared to have a clear view of the incident, but only Baker was called with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The officials had stopped the clock with 55 seconds left in the game to call the penalty and move the Gators back 15 yards, but then incorrectly neglected to restart the clock before the ball was snapped for the punt.

UT received the punt and quickly drove to the Florida 33-yard-line. With six seconds left, placekicker James Wilhoit, who had missed a game-tying extra point earlier in the quarter, earned redemption by hitting a 50-yard field goal, giving his team a 30–28 victory.

The Gator squad and fans were incensed by both the penalty and the subsequent failure to restart the game clock, feeling that the combination of calls had given the Vols an undeserved chance to win the game. Bobby Moreau, the official who called the penalty on Baker, received death threats after the game. SEC director of officials Bobby Gaston subsequently removed Moreau from working games in Gainesville.

Game results

Florida victories

Tennessee victories

Tie games

#	Date	Location	Winner	Score
1	October 28, 1916	Tampa, FL	Tennessee	24–0
2	October 22, 1921	Knoxville, TN	Tennessee	9–0
3	December 8, 1928	Knoxville, TN	Tennessee	13–12
4	December 6, 1930	Jacksonville, FL	Tennessee	13–6
5	December 3, 1932	Jacksonville, FL	Tennessee	32–13
6	October 28, 1933	Knoxville, TN	Tennessee	13–6
7	October 26, 1940	Knoxville, TN	#5 Tennessee	14–0
8	October 14, 1944	Knoxville, TN	#15 Tennessee	40–0
9	November 15, 1952	Knoxville, TN	#7 Tennessee	26–12
10	November 14, 1953	Gainesville, FL	#18 Tennessee	9–7
11	November 13, 1954	Knoxville, TN	Florida	14–0
12	November 12, 1955	Gainesville, FL	Tennessee	20–0
13	December 27, 1969	Jacksonville, FL	#14 Florida	14–13
14	October 24, 1970	Knoxville, TN	#11 Tennessee	38–7
15	October 2, 1971	Gainesville, FL	#12 Tennessee	20–13
16	October 23, 1976	Knoxville, TN	#11 Florida	20–18
17	October 22, 1977	Gainesville, FL	#19 Florida	27–17
18	October 13, 1984	Knoxville, TN	#18 Florida	43–30
19	October 12, 1985	Gainesville, FL	#7 Florida	17–10
20	October 13, 1990	Knoxville, TN	#5 Tennessee	45–3
21	October 12, 1991	Gainesville, FL	#10 Florida	35–18
22	September 19, 1992	Knoxville, TN	#14 Tennessee	31–14
23	September 18, 1993	Gainesville, FL	#9 Florida	41–34

#	Date	Location	Winner	Score
24	September 17, 1994	Knoxville, TN	#1 Florida	31–0
25	September 16, 1995	Gainesville, FL	#4 Florida	62–37
26	September 21, 1996	Knoxville, TN	#4 Florida	35–29
27	September 20, 1997	Gainesville, FL	#1 Florida	33–20
28	September 19, 1998	Knoxville, TN	#6 Tennessee	20–17OT
29	September 18, 1999	Gainesville, FL	#4 Florida	23–21
30	September 16, 2000	Knoxville, TN	#6 Florida	27–23
31	December 1, 2001	Gainesville, FL	#5 Tennessee	34–32
32	September 21, 2002	Knoxville, TN	#10 Florida	30–13
33	September 20, 2003	Gainesville, FL	#12 Tennessee	24–10
34	September 18, 2004	Knoxville, TN	#13 Tennessee	30–28
35	September 17, 2005	Gainesville, FL	#6 Florida	16–7
36	September 16, 2006	Knoxville, TN	#6 Florida	21–20
37	September 15, 2007	Gainesville, FL	#3 Florida	59–20
38	September 20, 2008	Knoxville, TN	#4 Florida	30–6
39	September 19, 2009	Gainesville, FL	#1 Florida	23–13
40	September 18, 2010	Knoxville, TN	#10 Florida	31–17
41	September 17, 2011	Gainesville, FL	#17 Florida	33–23
42	September 15, 2012	Knoxville, TN	#18 Florida	37–20
43	September 21, 2013	Gainesville, FL	#19 Florida	31–17
44	October 4, 2014	Knoxville, TN	Florida	10–9
45	September 26, 2015	Gainesville, FL	Florida	28–27
Series: Florida leads 26–19

Series record sources: 2011 Florida Gators Football Media Guide, 2011 Tennessee Football Media Guide, and College Football Data Warehouse.

See also

• Auburn–Florida football rivalry
• Auburn–Tennessee football rivalry
• Battle for the Barrel
• Florida–Florida State football rivalry
• Florida Gators
• Florida–Georgia football rivalry
• Georgia–Tennessee football rivalry
• Tennessee Volunteers
• Third Saturday in October

Bibliography

• 2009 Southern Conference Football Media Guide, Year-by-Year Standings, Southern Conference, Spartanburg, South Carolina, pp. 74–77 (2009).
• 2010 Southeastern Conference Football Media Guide, Florida Year-by-Year Records, Southeastern Conference, Birmingham, Alabama, p. 60 (2010).
• 2011 Florida Gators Football Media Guide, University Athletic Association, Gainesville, Florida, pp. 116–125 (2011).
• Carlson, Norm, University of Florida Football Vault: The History of the Florida Gators, Whitman Publishing, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia (2007). ISBN 0-7948-2298-3.
• Golenbock, Peter, Go Gators! An Oral History of Florida's Pursuit of Gridiron Glory, Legends Publishing, LLC, St. Petersburg, Florida (2002). ISBN 0-9650782-1-3.
• Hairston, Jack, Tales from the Gator Swamp: A Collection of the Greatest Gator Stories Ever Told, Sports Publishing, LLC, Champaign, Illinois (2002). ISBN 1-58261-514-4.
• McCarthy, Kevin M., Fightin' Gators: A History of University of Florida Football, Arcadia Publishing, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (2000). ISBN 978-0-7385-0559-6.
• McEwen, Tom, The Gators: A Story of Florida Football, The Strode Publishers, Huntsville, Alabama (1974). ISBN 0-87397-025-X.
• Nash, Noel, ed., The Gainesville Sun Presents The Greatest Moments in Florida Gators Football, Sports Publishing, Inc., Champaign, Illinois (1998). ISBN 1-57167-196-X.
• Saylor, Roger, "Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association," College Football Historical Society, The LA84 Foundation (1993).