The Athletic ranks Florida football’s SEC rivals with Texas, Oklahoma additions

Florida has won 30 of the past 31 games in the series. During their 55 meetings overall, the Commodores were ranked only once — that was 1950.

After their halftime dust-up in 2020, Mullen engaged in cosplay and Eli Drinkwitz spent a year plotting his lightsaber revenge. Otherwise, there’s barely a pulse to this series, which Mizzou leads 6-5.

The Bulldogs are a top-seven all-time Gators opponent in terms of games played (55), thanks to the schools meeting every season from 1962 through 1993. That ended with expansion to 12 teams and the onset of divisional play, when Florida’s permanent crossovers became Auburn and LSU.

Not sure how much this resonates with Gators fans because the series has been so sporadic. Florida leads 10-2, including SEC championship wins in 1995 and 2006 that are most notable for propelling the Gators into national championship games.

Florida owns a 24-6 head-to-head advantage since Carolina joined the SEC, none of those wins more dramatic than the Jarvis Moss “Cock Block” to preserve the 2006 national title run.

At 72 meetings, this is Florida’s third-most played series, and one that means more to Kentucky fans than it does to the Gators. It’s likely to be pre-empted when the new football scheduling format is finalized, but at least we’ll probably keep the yearly home-and-home in basketball.

A series with only 25 meetings seems paltry for schools that were founding members of the SEC in 1932. But these programs happened to intersect on Sept. 27, 2008 — a game that gave Ole Miss a monumental 31-30 upset at The Swamp and provided [autotag]Tim Tebow[/autotag] with a platform to make his prophetic “Promise” speech.

This is one of those clashes of mega-brands that actually makes realignment enticing. Having covered Big 12 football for eight years, the Longhorns are magnetic — even when they’re faltering. The temptation to flash “Horns Down” is simply too tempting.

The Aggies rank a spot above Texas because Jimbo Fisher shall always be a villain to Gator Nation, whether it’s for the string of wins FSU posted or the loose discipline he exercised in running that program. As I recounted recently, a UF booster took the microphone during a recent Q&A to ask [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag] how he’d handle his star quarterback swiping crab legs from a Publix.

Over 109 football seasons, the Gators have played nearly 1,200 games, and only two of them were against the Sooners. The 2008 BCS Championship went Florida’s way. The 2020 Cotton Bowl did not.

The Tide and Gators facing off 10 times in the SEC championship gives this series a feel of regularity, but they’ve had only eight scheduled regular-season meetings over the past 30 years. Under the new format, they’ll meet each other twice every four seasons, and thank goodness for it.

In our recent Gators fan survey, readers gave Auburn the fourth-most votes when asked who they’d prefer as a permanent rival, and I’m inclined to listen to the people. Especially the more seasoned fans, who recall the Tigers being a mainstay on Florida’s schedule. They played annually from 1945-2002 and have met 85 times overall, the Gators’ second-most common opponent.

If my ’90s self popped out of a time capsule today, he’d be humming “Fake Plastic Trees,” going hysterical over “The Larry Sanders Show” and marveling at the Florida-Tennessee rivalry. While two of those three things forever will be awesome, the Gators reeling off a 16-1 streak against the Vols has dramatically imbalanced that series.

Playing every year since 1971, at least one team was ranked in 47 of those 51 games. Now that LSU has won 13 of the last 20, the Gators’ edge has shrunk to 33-32-3. Let’s run this one back until we settle which school is truly “DBU” and then run it back some more.

Alongside the Iron Bowl, the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is a must-save rivalry — guaranteed to remain a yearly event even if the SEC wrong-headedly chooses the eight-game model with only one permanent opponent. These schools go head-to-head for recruits and division titles, and the fan bases go at one another even harder. It’s a series so combative, the schools can’t even agree on how many times they played.