The Gator Nation's armies have conquered almost 90 percent of the state of Florida.
UF is winning the online GoCrossCampus Florida Championship game, which pits state universities against each other in an Internet strategy game modeled after the Risk board game.
But UF's lead has recently come into jeopardy.
The game divides the state into 70 territories. Any student, faculty or alumnus with an active university e-mail address can register and place armies on the map of Florida. Then each school elects commanders to stage battles during the daylong rounds to gain additional territories.
As of Thursday afternoon, UF owned 58 territories and 517 armies. However, it lost five territories in Wednesday's round, and Florida International University has almost 200 more armies than UF - most of which were gained in the last week.
"Even though we have so many territories, we could still lose in a month if FIU continues to raise recruiting," said Tony Gregory, one of UF's three commanders.
Gregory, a UF electrical engineering senior, said UF's bragging rights are at risk unless more UF students join the site. UF is especially vulnerable because the other universities tend to form alliances against the Gators, he said.
"It's kind of us against the world," he said. Participating in the game can take as little as two minutes a day, and students can be more involved if they want to become commanders, he added.
Patrick Heck, a UF graduate student who encouraged Gregory to join the game, said he spends about five minutes every day on the Web site. As a student from Virginia, he said Florida's school rivalries are new to him, and he enjoys reading the chat-room conversations where players tend to trash talk.
He said he's concerned that UF is struggling now, and he said it might be because students are focusing on final exams.
Gregory said he thinks UF has put more effort into the game than the other schools, so he hopes UF's team can survive FIU's troop surge, he said.
"We try to keep it fun, but we're very serious about winning," he said. "We're Florida - we can't lose."
