TALLAHASSEE – This is rivalry week, a week when college football teams approach their opponent with equal amounts of disdain and respect.
Except here.
Here there is nothing but pure hatred. It is not like Miami-Florida State, where the teams bleed for 60 minutes and then old high school friends walk off the field, arms draped around each other. It is not like Army-Navy, where after the game both teams stand respectfully while each academy’s anthem is played.
Here, there is Florida State’s garnet and gold against Florida’s blue and orange (8 p.m., Ch. 7). And when the two come together, there is nothing but white hot fire. FSU coach Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles are ranked No. 4 by The Post while Steve Spurrier’s Gators are ranked No. 6.
“This is the game we most want to win,” said Florida QB Jesse Palmer. “The first goal was to win the SEC East. The second was to beat FSU. It’s a grudge match. It’s a big game for both teams.”
This year it is a huge game for both teams. Tonight’s loser at Doak Campbell Stadium is eliminated from the national-championship race. If FSU wins, it must hope to overtake Miami in the BCS ratings. If Florida wins, it must still win the SEC championship game next Saturday night.
But it all begins and ends here. You think this battle between Democrats and Republicans for the presidency has gotten nasty in the state capital? Ha! News media covering the undecided election have been booted out of their hotel rooms by football fans and members of the sports media.
The presidency will be decided in due time. The battle for Florida will be decided tonight, and then perhaps ultimately in the Orange Bowl, should the Gators and Hurricanes meet.
“I think it’s the hottest thing going on now anywhere,” said Bowden.
Why has it gotten to this point of complete disrespect and bile? For so many years Florida was the football program in the Sunshine State. The Gators and their fans had no qualms about making the Seminoles, and for that matter, the Hurricanes, feel like second-class citizens.
Spurrier, the school’s first Heisman Trophy winner in 1966, is the living embodiment of Gator superiority. And the Seminoles know it.
“I’ve never met him, but he seems a little arrogant at times,” said Florida State linebacker Tommy Polley. “He is just very competitive.”
It was Spurrier who in 1996 accused the Seminoles of being cheap-shot artists on defense; who cared more about knocking out the opposing quarterback (Danny Wuerffel) than anything else. FSU beat Florida in the regular season but Spurrier’s constant, siren-like rhetoric got officials’ attention and they reined in the Seminoles in the 1997 Sugar Bowl, which the Gators won 52-20 to claim their only national championship.
After a 32-29 loss in 1997, Florida State regained the upper hand, winning in 1998 and 1999. Last year’s 30-23 triumph sent the Seminoles to the Sugar Bowl, where they beat Virginia Tech to win their second national championship.
There is no playoff in Division I-A college football, so tonight’s game is the closest things to a semifinal until the Big XII and SEC title games in December. For now there is only Florida and Florida State and their legions of fans and families who can’t stand each other.
“Once you put on the orange and blue, you’re not just playing for yourself,” said Florida linebacker Daryl Owens. “You’re playing for everyone.”