Adam: UF had a lot of good teams this past year, and good teams tend to play good games. But few games meant as much to any program as Florida’s win over LSU last October.
To understand why the win was so important, you only need to look at the last couple seasons.
A 15-11 record over the last two seasons put the football program in a funk, and it needed something to snap out of it.
Yeah, the Gators won their first four games, but that didn’t mean too much. UF beat Bowling Green (I’ll wait for you to remember that game), a pre-Johnny Football Texas A&M, Tennessee and Kentucky. I think those last two speak for themselves.
UF needed a statement win to let everyone know that Florida football was back, and the LSU win did it.
Landon: LSU-Florida was an entertaining, grind-it-out battle with plenty of implications, but it wasn’t even the best college football game that day.
On Oct. 6, some crazy stuff went down on the national landscape. North Carolina State upset then-No. 3 Florida State 17-16 on a touchdown pass with 16 seconds remaining, Stanford defeated Arizona 54-48 in overtime on a 21-yard touchdown run from Cardinal halfback Stepfan Taylor and West Virginia and Texas combined for 93 points in a back-and-forth affair.
But we’re debating the best Florida game of 2012-13, so I have to go with UF softball’s 9-8 victory against Nebraska in the Women’s College World Series that spanned about five and a half hours over 15 innings and helped the Gators stave off elimination. The win was as much of a statement for coach Tim Walton’s group as UF’s win against LSU was for the football program.
The game had the home runs, the big plays – everything a fan could ask for.
What was expected to be a filler game on ESPN’s schedule transformed into an epic contest that pushed back America’s beloved late-night SportsCenter segment and prevented our softball beat writer – yours truly – from checking out Midtown the night of June 1.
Adam: Although Florida’s win over Nebraska was certainly thrilling, it didn’t have the same ramifications as football’s win against LSU.
Yeah, it advanced the Gators one win deeper into the WCWS, but they didn’t win the title. In fact, the team fell flat the next day – Texas shut them out about 12 hours later.
Now I’m sure the team was tired from the game the night before, but it kind of puts a damper on that exhilarating win.
Meanwhile, UF-LSU set the tone for the rest of the year.
That win gave Florida the momentum it needed to travel to Nashville, Tenn., beat an upstart Vanderbilt team, then come back home and obliterate a top-10 Gamecocks squad in The Swamp.
Remember, the Tigers were undefeated before playing the Gators. These were the same Tigers who had played in the national title game nine months prior.
And Florida had everything to prove.
Running back Mike Gillislee needed to prove he could run against a good defense, and he did.
The defense needed to show it could stop a highly ranked team, and it did.
Without beating LSU last year, Florida probably ends up on or two games worse, playing in the Capital One Bowl instead of the Sugar Bowl.
Landon: Both contests were essentially elimination games, so I’ll go ahead and refute that they had equal implications. Of course, UF football’s win against LSU meant more to the Gators’ football-centric fan base, but Florida softball’s overtime win was way more exciting and added an element of surprise the football victory lacked.
Who would have ever thought that Katie Medina and Jessica Damico would make SportsCenter Top-10 worthy diving catches? That Briana Little, Florida’s No. 8 hitter, and Nebraska’s Taylor Edwards would exchange homers in the 10th inning? That freshman catcher Taylore Fuller would provide the game-winning play to score Lauren Haeger and Damico in the top of the 15th? That Haeger would experience the postgame moment she wanted so badly her entire life?
Sure, the Gators experienced a hangover the next day against the Longhorns, but I don’t think it put that much of a damper on the victory. Everybody understood Walton’s squad was exhausted. Besides, there was no way any team was getting past Oklahoma in 2013.
Florida-Nebraska carried that original and unpredictable aura that makes us love sports. I’ve seen the football team win big games before.
Adam: You saw them win big games … later in the 2012 season. Since you’ve been at UF, they’ve lost every “big” game (unless you consider rivalry games against a bad Tennessee team “big”).
Every game is unpredictable. Who would’ve thought Matt Elam would knock a 56-yard pass out of Odell Beckham’s hands?
The win against LSU was a program-defining victory that will carry momentum into this upcoming season.
Contact Adam Lichtenstein at alichtenstein@alligator.org. Contact Landon Watnick at lwatnick@alligator.org.
Junior Briana Little is greeted at home after hitting a home run in the 10th inning during Florida's 9-8 win against Nebraska in the Women's College World Series on Saturday night in Oklahoma City.
Florida vs. LSU, Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012, Gainesville, Fla., at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Florida won 14-6.
