Will Canes Fans Take Up Stoops Offer?

By Kartik Krishnaiyer
Canes Rising Staff

Gator fans have been anxious to claim the entire state of Florida as their domain. Gators throughout Florida have been quick to claim Miami and Florida State as irrelevant programs and have even implied that despite both programs sustained success for over two decades that they were both upstarts against the established power: Florida.

But Bob Stoops who coached at UF when I was a student there obviously doesn't see it that way. A few days ago Stoops called on Miami fans whom he implied are more numerous locally to buy up tickets for tonight's National Title game to cheer against the Gators. Stoops who plays the press about as well as anyone in the sport is starting a psychological game with the Gators trying to remind Florida's fans and players that they are enemy territory even if they claim south Florida as a home region.

I'm not sure Stoops call to Canes fans was genuine. I honestly think he's messing with the heads of the Gator players and fans who have a real psychological issue with Miami for whatever reason. (Maybe not beating a team for 22 years will do that to you.)

Florida's fans claim FSU and Miami were upstarts who never accomplished anything before the 1980s.

Evidence: A poster from Gator Bait whose username has been deleted to protect his identity.

"In the 1970s Florida was dominating the state while FSU and Miami didn't get going until the 1980s. The Gators have been consistently good since the 1950s. Miami and FSU were simply temporary powers"

He/she went on to say this

"Florida State was only really good when the Gators were on probation. After we came off probation the Noles simply won because of the weak ACC."

Oh really? Where do you people get this stuff from?

How about this piece of evidence. The claim is that Florida was dominanting in the 1970s while FSU and Miami didn't get going until the 1980s. How do you explain Steve Spurrier losing his last regular season game as QB in 1966 to Miami who also won a bowl game that year? Miami actually finished ranked in the Top 10 twice in the 1950s which was two more times than Florida.

Or how about 1979, which if my memory serves correctly was in the 1970s and before 1980. That year Florida was winless and FSU went unbeaten and played for a national title. That very same year Miami beat then undefeated Penn State on the road. Florida did not win an SEC title until 1991 the last school of the original 11 schools (including GA Tech which eventually moved to the ACC) that stayed in the league past 1945 to win a football title.

Florida was also the next to last school in the SEC to make its first NCAA Basketball Tournament appearence, 27 years after Miami's first NCAA bid and 15 years after FSU made the National Championship game against Bill Walton's UCLA team.

Gators fans rewrite history when it serves their purposes and ignore it when it does not.