On game day, LSU is the enemy.
Glaring down from the seats in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, Tennessee seems like nothing more than a bitter rival who must be defeated.
The rest of the year, LSU engineering students are designing playgrounds.
The University of Tennessee is helping guide the search for water on Mars.
To show that SEC schools are about more than sports, a new Web site showcases the academics and research at UF and the 11 other Southeastern Conference universities.
The SEC Academic Network was launched last week by ESPN, the SEC and SEC universities.
"There's a common perception nationally that big southern schools are big football schools," said Steve Orlando, UF spokesman, "but the reality of it is that there is remarkable research being conducted at these schools."
Each university has its own page on the Web site, containing five short videos outlining exceptional accomplishments at the school.
"You'd be amazed to see how many of our own students don't realize that Gatorade was invented here," said Orlando, adding that students owe it to themselves to find out what's going on at their school.
"The goal is to make people stop and think about what their university is really about," he said.
Tyson Kindig, associate of university relations at the University of Arkansas, said the site probably won't change fan fervor and rivalry much, but he hopes it will spark interest in academic accomplishments of the schools.
"As a conference, I don't think we've done enough to establish an academic brand," he said.
Researchers at Arkansas recently worked to develop software that scans and then virtually recreates 3-D digital representations of obscure museum artifacts.
The artifacts are placed online so anyone in the world can study them.
Mike Hill, associate athletics director at UF, said conferences like the Big Ten and Ivy League are more known for their academics than the SEC.
The site is a step in the right direction toward enhancing the SEC's image as an academic conference, he said.
"I feel like a lot of schools in the South have a stigma," said Samantha Fehr, a public relations junior. "When you think of Ole Miss and Tennessee, you think of Southern belles."
Fehr said she didn't realize how much research schools like UF conduct until she became a student here and saw fliers recruiting research studies all over bathroom stalls.
"But there wouldn't be a football team if there wasn't a school first," she said.
