Stephen Orr Spurrier is an American former football player and coach. He played ten seasons in the National Football League (NFL) before coaching for 38 years, primarily in college. He is often referred to by his nickname, "the Head Ball Coach". He played college football as a quarterback for the Florida Gators, where he won the 1966 Heisman Trophy. The San Francisco 49ers selected him in the first round of the 1967 NFL draft, and he spent a decade playing in the National Football League (NFL), mainly as a backup quarterback and punter. Spurrier was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1986.
Michael Shane Matthews is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for all or part of fourteen seasons during the 1990s and 2000s. He played college football for the Florida Gators, where he was named the SEC player of the year in 1991 and 1992. Thereafter, he played professionally for the Chicago Bears, Washington Redskins, and four other NFL teams. Since retiring as a player, Matthews has lived near his college alma mater in North Central Florida, where he has hosted a sports talk radio program and coached high school football. In 2017, Matthews pled guilty to having unwittingly played a small part in a large health care fraud organized by former Florida teammate Monty Grow.
The Florida Gators football program represents the University of Florida (UF) in American college football. Florida competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) They play their home games in Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on the university's Gainesville campus.
The Florida–Florida State football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the teams of the two oldest public universities of the U.S. state of Florida: the University of Florida (UF) Gators and Florida State University (FSU) Seminoles. Both universities participate in a range of intercollegiate sports, and for the last several years, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has sponsored a "Sunshine Showdown" promotion that tallies the total number of wins for each school in head-to-head sports competition. However, the annual football game between the Gators and Seminoles has consistently been the most intense and notable competition between the in-state rivals.
The 2001 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida in the sport of American football during the 2001 college football season. The Gators competed in Division I-A of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), playing their home games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on the university's Gainesville, Florida campus.
The Florida–Tennessee football rivalry, also called the Third Saturday in September, is an American college football rivalry between the Florida Gators football team of the University of Florida and Tennessee Volunteers football team of the University of Tennessee, who first met on the football field in 1916. The Gators and Vols have competed in the same athletic conference since Florida joined the now-defunct Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1910, and the schools were founding members of the Southeastern Conference in 1932. Despite this long conference association, a true rivalry did not develop until the early 1990s due to the infrequency of earlier meetings; in the first seventy-six years (1916–91) of the series, the two teams met just twenty-one times. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) expanded to twelve universities and split into two divisions in 1992. Florida and Tennessee were placed in the SEC's East Division and have met on a home-and-home basis every season since. Their rivalry quickly blossomed in intensity and importance in the 1990s and early 2000s as both programs regularly fielded national championship contending teams under coaches Phil Fulmer of Tennessee and Steve Spurrier at Florida.
The 1996 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida in the sport of American football during the 1996 NCAA Division I-A football season. The 1996 season was the team's seventh under head coach Steve Spurrier. The Gators competed in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and played their home games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on the university's Gainesville, Florida campus.
The 1960 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1960 NCAA University Division football season. The season was Ray Graves' first of ten and one of his three most successful as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. Graves' 1960 Florida Gators finished with a 9–2 overall record a 5–1 record in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), placing second among the twelve SEC teams—their best-ever SEC finish to date.
The 1964 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1964 NCAA University Division football season. The season was the fifth for Ray Graves as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. Graves' 1964 Florida Gators posted an overall record of 7–3 and a 4–2 Southeastern Conference (SEC) record, tying for second among the eleven SEC teams.
The 1965 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1965 NCAA University Division football season. The season was Ray Graves's sixth year as the Florida Gators football team's head coach. The highlights of the season included an intersectional road victory over the Northwestern Wildcats of the Big Ten Conference, Southeastern Conference (SEC) wins over the LSU (14–7), Ole Miss Rebels (17–0), Georgia Bulldogs (14–10) and Tulane Green Wave (51–13), and a sound thumping of the in-state rival Florida State Seminoles (30–17). The Gators also lost close matches against the Mississippi State Bulldogs (13–18) and the Miami Hurricanes (13–16). Graves' 1965 Florida Gators finished 7–4 overall and 4–2 in the SEC, placing third in the eleven-team conference.
The 1966 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida in the sport of American football during the 1966 NCAA University Division football season. The Gators competed in the University Division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). In their seventh season under head coach Ray Graves, the Gators compiled a 9–2 overall win–loss record, finished 5–1 and placed third among the SEC's ten teams. Led by quarterback Steve Spurrier, the Gators outscored their opponents by a combined total of 265 to 147 and concluded their 1966 season with a 27–12 victory over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the 1967 Orange Bowl. The Gators were not ranked in the final AP Poll, but finished No. 11 in the final UPI Coaches Poll.
The 1968 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1968 NCAA University Division football season. The season was Ray Graves' ninth of ten years as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. The Gators offense was led by senior tailback Larry Smith, a first-team All-American. Among the season's highlights were the Gators' conference wins over the Mississippi State Bulldogs (31–14), Tulane Green Wave (24–7) and Kentucky Wildcats (16–14), and victories over the in-state rival Florida State Seminoles (9–3) and Miami Hurricanes (14–10). The Gators also suffered their worst loss since 1942—a 51–0 blowout by the Georgia Bulldogs. Graves' 1968 Florida Gators finished 6–3–1 overall and 3–2–1 in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), tying for sixth among the ten teams of the SEC.
The 1979 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1979 NCAA Division I-A football season. The season was Charley Pell's first of six as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. Pell arrived in Gainesville with a new plan for building the Gators football program—new offensive and defensive schemes, new assistant coaches, a new attitude and new boosters fund-raising model to support the program and improve the stadium and training facilities. Pell's plan would produce many on-the-field victories over the next five years, but his first campaign as the Gators coach produced the most losses in any single season in Gators football history, ending with a winless 0–10–1 overall record and a 0–6 record in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The team, which was plagued by injuries, placed dead last among ten SEC teams. This was the last time until 2013 that Florida fielded a team with a losing record.
The 1990 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1990 NCAA Division I-A football season. The season marked the return of the Gators' Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Steve Spurrier to his alma mater as the new head coach of the Florida Gators football team.
The 1992 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1992 NCAA Division I-A football season. The season was Steve Spurrier's third as the Florida Gators football team's head coach, and the wins were harder to come by as the star-studded senior classes from 1990 and 1991 had graduated. The Gators racked up six tough Southeastern Conference (SEC) wins over the Kentucky Wildcats (35–19), LSU Tigers (28–21), Auburn Tigers (24–9), seventh-ranked Georgia Bulldogs (26–24), South Carolina Gamecocks (14–9), and Vanderbilt Commodores (41–21). They also suffered two crushing SEC losses to the fourteenth-ranked Tennessee Volunteers (14–31) in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the twenty-fourth-ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs (6–30) on a Thursday night in Starkville, Mississippi.
The 1993 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1993 NCAA Division I-A football season. The season was the fourth for Steve Spurrier as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. The Gators compiled a 10–2 overall record.
The 1995 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida in the sport of American football during the 1995 NCAA Division I-A football season. The 1995 season was the Florida Gators' sixth year under head coach Steve Spurrier and was one of the most successful in school history, as the Gators finished the regular season unbeaten and untied for the first time.
The Auburn–Florida football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Auburn Tigers football team of Auburn University and Florida Gators football team of the University of Florida which was first played in 1912. The schools have been members of the same athletic conference for over a century and were founding members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) when it was established in 1933. The contest was an annual tradition from 1945 until 2002, when the SEC expanded and the rivalry became part of a rotation of other conference games. Since then, the teams have met only four times.
The history of Florida Gators football began in 1906, when the newly established "University of the State of Florida" fielded a football team during its first full academic year of existence. The school's name was shortened to the University of Florida in 1908, and the football team gained the nickname "Gators" in 1911. The program started small, usually playing six to eight games per season against small colleges and local athletic club teams in north Florida and south Georgia. The Orange and Blue developed early rivalries with the Stetson Hatters from nearby Deland and Mercer Bears from Macon. During the 1910s, Florida began playing a wider range of opponents from more established football programs across the southeastern United States and faced off against several future rivals - such as Georgia, Georgia Tech, South Carolina, and Auburn - for the first time.
