Top Ten Florida-Tennessee games over the years

For the t/l; d/r crowd exit the thread.

I'm a good bit older than a lot of y'all so my recollection goes back further. We all know the 1990's consisted of "must see TV" between these two as they were the class of the conference. But there were some interesting ones before 1990 in the 'rotating' conference game schedules.

1969: Gator Bowl. The background and subsequent sidebars to this game would be front page sports news and probably produce a 30 for 30."War and Peace" size story short, Tennessee coach and Florida graduate Doug Dickey was approached in the summer to take over for Florida coach and Tennessee graduate Ray Graves. Word leaked out the week of the ironic bowl pairing. Florida won, 14-13 and the players carried off DC Gene Ellison to show the UF brass that's who they wanted for coach. Dickey did become coach a few days later.

1976: Bill Battle's clock was ticking.After a 31-5 start in his first three years his next three years were 22-12-2.The man he replaced,Doug Dickey, came to town poised to win Florida's first SEC Title. Florida won, 20-18 all but sealing Battle's fate. (Dickey's clock started ticking three weeks later after his "fourth and dumb" cost the Gators the Georgia game and shot at the titel.)

1985: Fireworks were expected as the Vols came to town four months after UT was allegedly behind the SEC's decision to revoke Florida's 1984 title. Eventual SEC Champion Tennessee's only loss game to Florida, 17-10. Both teams finished SEC play 5-1-0,but the Gators were ineligible for the title.

1990: Spurrier's first Gator team has been penalized by the SEC and NCAA. But the Gators go 10-1-0, there only loss to Tennessee. The Vols broke open a 7-3 halftime lead as they ran the second half kickoff back for a TD to win, 45-3. (on the last play of the FIRST half,the normally conservative Vols allowed Andy Kelly to throw one deep. As time expired UF's Will White picked off his pass appeared to have a pick 6 . However his teammate trying to block for him tripped him and White fell to the ground at the UT 20.) Tennessee won the SEC with at 5-1-1 mark and 9-2-2 overall.

1995: One of the oddest turn arounds I've ever seen. Tenneesse goes up 30-14 near halftime. [img]Florida[/img] turns around and goes on to win 62-37. This would be UT's only loss and Florida would go on to play for the Bowl Alliance Title.

1996: For game in September, this was as close to a "Game of the Century." Inexplicably, #3 Florida led #2 Tennessee, 35-0 with 10:00 left in the first half. Spurrier almost played it too conservatively as the Vols cut it to 35-29 with :11 left and tried an on side kick.

1998: Fulmer finally beats Florida as "Head Coach" as Vols win in OT and go on to win the first BCS title.

2000: Florida wins,27-23 on a controversial call at the end."Bachelor" star Jesse Palmer hits Jabari Gaffney for a TD with :14 left. Gaffney seemed to drop it as soon as he first 'caught it'.As an "oh,by the way" the referee who signaled it a touchdown was Al Matthews, who was an All-SEC TE for Vandy in 1982. In this same endzone in 1981 Matthews and his Vandy teammates felt he was interfered with on the last play of the game as UT held on for 38-34 win.

2001: #2 Florida had a great team but should have never been an 18 point favorite over the Vols. This game was moved to December 1 after the 9/11 tragedy. Tennessee fought off a Gator two point try and won in Gainesville, 34-32. It was the Vols first win in Gainesville---vs Florida-- since 1971. Unbeknownst to only Steve and Jeri,this would be Spurrier's last game in the Swamp as Florida's head ball coach.

2017: Vols seemed to have sent the game into overtime. But on the last play Florida completely a seemingly easy hail mary to win, 26-20.