One game signaled the end of an era.
The next signals how much has changed.
On Saturday, No. 11 Florida (8-1, 6-1 Southeastern Conference) will face South Carolina (3-6, 1-6 SEC) a year removed from the last meeting between the two programs, a game that proved to be the last straw in former coach Will Muschamp’s UF tenure.
"It wasn’t a good memory," defensive lineman Bryan Cox Jr. said.
In that game, the Gators fell behind 10-0 early, scored 17 unanswered points, and then, as the student section prematurely jingled its keys, gave up the tying touchdown with 12 seconds remaining to send the game to overtime.
After a Gators field goal, Gamecocks quarterback Dylan Thompson ran in the game-winning 4-yard touchdown, giving South Carolina coach and UF legend Steve Spurrier what would ultimately be his final win at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, while also sending the Florida crowd home seeing its third-consecutive home loss.
The next day, the school announced that Muschamp would be fired at the end of the season.
Twenty-one days later, Jim McElwain was introduced as the program’s new head coach.
Eighty-one days later, McElwain did his best to hold together a top-25 recruiting class, one that included current contributors like wide receiver Antonio Callaway, offensive lineman Martez Ivey and defensive lineman CeCe Jefferson.
Back in September, 294 days later, McElwain took the field for his first game in The Swamp with a team filled with unknowns, predicted to finish fifth in its division.
And on Saturday, 364 days later and with an SEC East title assured, McElwain’s group has only one thing at stake — keeping its hopes of a College Football Playoff selection alive.
The journey has been nothing short of remarkable, and McElwain wants people to acknowledge what this team has done.
"We should be excited about where these guys have come," McElwain said, "and how far they’ve come to help this university be to where it should be and help this football program get back to where it belongs."
Part of it has come from schematics.
Part of it has come from an influx of talented freshmen.
But more than anything, it’s a cultural change within the locker room that has sparked the turnaround.
"Guys getting along more," linebacker Antonio Morrison said.
"Guys loving each other now. We don’t have many individuals like we had last year. We had a lot of individuals. (We’re) playing as a group now, playing as one."
If nothing else, the school’s student body illustrates the difference a year makes.
In that South Carolina game last season, the student section was filled with blotches of empty bleachers.
In fact, after the lows of the Muschamp era, Florida had to do away with its student ticket lottery this offseason due to a lack of demand, opting instead to go with a first come, first served system.
On Thursday night, the school’s allotment of 1,500 student tickets to the SEC Championship Game sold out in five minutes.
Times have changed.
Follow Graham Hack on Twitter @graham_hack24
UF coach Jim McElwain walks on the sideline during Florida's 9-7 win against Vanderbilt on Nov. 7, 2015, at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
