TALLAHASSEE - If you're a fourth-year senior and a UF sports fan, you better thank your parents for conceiving you at the right time.
In your three-and-a-half years in Gainesville, you've seen two national championships in men's basketball.
You've seen one national championship and one Southeastern Conference Championship in football. You might have another one of each very soon.
The Gators are 11-1 in rivalry games in your time here, or, as Urban Meyer corrected a reporter Saturday night, 12-1 if you include the Miami win earlier this season.
"But who's counting?" Meyer joked.
For that matter, you've never known anyone but Urban Meyer as your football coach.
You've seen the Gators volleyball team win its 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th straight Southeastern Conference Championships.
You've seen a UF soccer team go three rounds deep into the NCAA Tournament three seasons in a row.
And you've seen a softball team come within one game of a championship series. You might see them get there this year.
Yes, you're a privileged group, you fourth-year seniors.
But have you ever once stopped to think of the other guy? The poor, defenseless, fourth-year Seminole? After reading this laundry list of their failures, maybe you should lighten up on your brethren from the school out west.
Sure, things started out great for those guys. Fall 2005 brought an Atlantic Coast Conference Championship and almost brought a crazy, miracle upset victory in triple overtime against Penn State in the Orange Bowl.
But it was all downhill from there.
The Seminoles football team has lost five straight games to the Gators. FSU has lost three of four to Clemson. The Seminoles haven't made the ACC Championship Game since 2005 and have squeezed two six-loss seasons in between two four-loss years.
They lost a bowl game to Kentucky.
The men's basketball team hasn't made the NCAA Tournament in the current fourth-year seniors' time in Tallahassee. In fact, men's basketball at FSU hasn't known the NCAA postseason since 1998.
The Seminoles have won just two games in the ACC Tournament in three years, and they have only claimed three victories in the National Invitation Tournament.
The brightest spot for Florida State during that span has been the baseball team. The team had the most recent No. 1 overall pick in the MLB Draft - Buster Posey - and is the winningest program in the NCAA since 2000.
But even amid all that, the Seminoles failed to bring home the grand prize. No NCAA titles in baseball can yet call Tallahassee home. FSU never even won the ACC Tournament in the last four years.
So, fourth-year Gators, please realize that the Seminoles are having a bad four-year stretch. Lay off them. Stop insulting this team mercilessly.
If we know anything at all about sports, it's that the good teams that go bad eventually return to prominence. FSU can't possibly be down forever, and the opposite is true for UF.
When the Seminoles are beating up on the Gators in 5, 10, or 15 years, you're not going to want to hear it from crazies in garnet and gold. But they're going to remember this four-year span.
So be kind to them now. You have no reason to hate Florida State, no reason to rub in these victories.
You wouldn't be rubbing in four straight wins against a program of Kentucky's caliber, would you?
