OPINION: Who can the Florida Gators consider a rival? (2024)

If you were to poll ten Florida fans and ask them “who is the Gators’ biggest rival”, I’m not sure you would get a unified answer from the group.

Most programs have a unified answer. Ohio State and Michigan fans will give you the same answer. Alabama and Auburn fans will give you the same answer. South Carolina and Clemson fans will give you the same answer. Florida is in a unique position where they have multiple rivals, without the entire fanbase rallying behind one considered to be their “biggest” rival.

I’ve split up Florida’s rivals into three categories.

1. “I hate this team. If we lose, it will alter my mood significantly.”
   1. Georgia
   2. Florida State
2. “Can you imagine their fanbase if they beat us?”
   1. Tennessee
   2. Kentucky
3. “I’ll be disappointed if we lose this game, but ultimately the loss won’t affect our season goals.”
   1. Miami

For a team to have five rivals seems pretty excessive, but Florida fans know that there has been bad blood with each of those teams at some point in the program’s history.

Let’s get Miami out of the way now. The rivalry with the Hurricanes has been mostly a geographical one in recent years rooted in recruiting. However, these two schools were once fierce rivals, with moments like the Gator flop that fueled the ire of the fans. However, after Florida bowed out of the annual series following the 1987 season, the boiling hatred was reduced to a simmer.

While they haven’t played consistently since then, the 2019 neutral site game showed the tension. This game might, and I’m putting a heavy emphasis on the word *might*, be replaced with UCF in the coming years.

I was at the Gasparilla Bowl last year. And as much as Florida fans want to say the game doesn’t matter, UCF’s victory laid the foundation for a future rivalry, especially with the Knights in the Big 12 and becoming a bigger threat in recruiting than most of us care to admit.

The Kentucky rivalry is the blueprint that UCF should follow. Kentucky was an afterthought to Florida for decades, literally. The Wildcats went on a 31-game losing streak against the Gators from 1987 to 2018. Saying the matchup was one-sided was an understatement. Since then, Kentucky has won three of the last five games. This matchup also has the advantage of being Florida basketball’s biggest games of the season, so the tension with Kentucky can be felt more frequently than other programs.

We’re going to skip Tennessee for the time being.

Florida State and Georgia are Florida’s top-tier rivalries. That is not up for debate. What is up for debate is which team is considered to be the Gators’ “No. 1 Rival”. Two things go into deciding what side of the debate you fall on: where you grew up and what program was better when you became a fan.

If you grew up in North Florida, you probably consider Georgia to be Florida’s biggest rival. The fact that the Georgia game is played in Jacksonville every year naturally lends to feeling a sense of identity with the annual matchup. Pair that with some Florida residents being closer to Georgia than they are to Orlando and that’s as baked-in a rivalry as you can have.

If you grew up in South Florida, as I did, you probably see Florida State as Florida’s biggest rival. That logic might seem a bit off to those who know geography. There are a lot of FSU alums who either grew up or now reside in South Florida, and the idea of having to face your FSU friend the week after Thanksgiving after losing the annual matchup is enough motivation to want to win that game more than any other on the schedule.

I went to Florida from 2014-18, and during that time I did not see the Gators beat Florida State. The 2015 game was especially painful for me, as I took my younger brother to the game and Florida got demolished. I sat in the stands with my friends in 2018 as the stadium emptied and Florida State celebrated on the field, saddened that we never beat them in my time at UF.

Others will have stories like that about Georgia. That’s part of what makes college football what it is. Those emotional connections to an opponent that sit with you for life. Those stretches where one team dominates the other lead to moments of euphoria when your team finally gets one up on your rival.

This brings us back to Tennessee. The Gators have won 16 of the last 17 matchups against the Volunteers, with the only victory in that span coming in 2016. The Vols erased a 21-3 halftime deficit at home to win their first game against the Gators in over a decade. Since then, Florida has gone on a five-game win streak in the series. That 2016 game could have been the start of something new. The Vols were never able to capitalize on that one game. As a result, Tennessee just isn’t seen as a major rival like it was in the 90s.

But that one game can still change the entire narrative.

The Vols are in a perfect spot to turn this one-sided affair back into a serious rivalry. Both programs have coaches early in their tenures, and the different offensive styles lend themselves to establishing competing identities. If Tennessee can beat Florida, I can see a new generation of Florida fans eying the annual matchup the same way they do the Georgia and Florida State games.

Yes, we’ve had exciting moments in recent history, with the 4th & 14 and Hail Mary games in my personal “top five moments I’ve witnessed in person” list. But a win against the Gators to go 4-0 on the season? And against their first-year head coach? Now that has “rivalry game” written all over it.

The Florida Gators take on the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. EDT on CBS Sports. College GameDay, ESPN’s college football pregame show, will be live from Knoxville for the first time since 2016.

Tennessee’s opponent that day? The Florida Gators.

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