Florida football: A history of College Gameday at UF vs Tennessee
By Will Thomas
As Florida football gets ready for their big matchup against Tennessee, we wanted to take a look at the series history when College Gameday has visited Knoxville for this rivalry.
The Gators are 5-1 when playing in Knoxville with College Gameday present. The most recent matchup was in 2016 when the Vols beat Florida for the first time in over a decade. Since then, the series has been all Gators, a trend which we hope continues this weekend.
Going back and looking at the previous Gameday matchups in Knoxville is very fun as a Gator fan. So today, let’s relive some of these games.
2012: No. 18 Florida football 37, No. 23Tennessee 20
When the 18th ranked Gators made the trip up to Knoxville in 2012, they had to deal with a 2-0 UT team with lots of confidence.
At one point in this one, it was 20-13 Vols, and it looked like Tennessee might finally overcome the Gators.
Trey Burton had other ideas.
He broke out an 80-yard touchdown run which started a 24-0 run for the Gators and propelled them to a win.
2002: No. 10 Florida football 30, No. 4 Tennessee 13
The big takeaway from this game was that Tennessee should never be ranked in the top 5. The Vols fumbled the ball eight (8) times and trailed 24-0 at halftime to the Gators.
Rex Grossman was the MVP of this game, as he threw for 324 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Some Vol fans might blame the monsoon this game was played in for all of their fumbles, but it didn’t seem to stop the Gator offense from slinging the ball all over Knoxville.
After this one, however, the Gators did lose the next two to Tennessee before Ron Zook got fired. But all that mattered was that College Gameday got to watch UF blow the Vols out.
2000: No. 6 Florida football 27, No. 11 Tennessee 23
We all know what happened to end this game.
Jesse Palmer rifled a pass into Jabar Gaffney with 14 seconds left to cap off a 91-yard game-winning TD drive.
And Gaffney caught it. No questions asked.
Perhaps the sweetest part of this win is that it ended UT’s 23-game home winning streak. There’s nothing like leaving all those Tennesse fans disappointed after a game.
Right, Will Muschamp?
1996: No. 4 Florida football 35, No. 2 Tennessee 29
Looking back, before even seeing the final score of this game, noticing that Peyton Manning was under center for the Vols locked in a road win for the Gators.
Again, don’t rank Tennessee in the top 5. Ever.
Danny Wuerffel threw for four touchdowns in the first 20 minutes of the game, and the Gator defense snatched four picks from Manning.
To the Vols’ credit, they bounced back from a 35-0 deficit and made it close. But it was never meant to be with Manning at QB.
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