For sake of argument, the 90’s was about as good as you’ve ever had it and we were beating you then too.
Its interesting to talk about rivals (or lack thereof), series, history and such things and see all the different opinions.
No one can argue UF has held a substantial advantage in the series from 90' to the present. It has been magnified even more from 05' until the present. And while some will downplay the series as a rivalry from a historic standpoint. It changed in 90'. And now with hindsight it has changed again over the last 15 or so years. Similar to when the series started.
From 90' - 04' UF won 9 games, UT won 6. While Florida still had the upper hand by 3 games, UT did win games and when they did they beat a very good Florida team and it meant something in Dec. No different than it did for UF. Remarkably over that stretch, both teams were ranked every year with 10 of the meetings being a top 10 matchup and 4 of those were top 5 matchups.
During a similar length stretch from 05' -18' UT has been ranked 6 times with only 2 of those being in the top 15.
UF was ranked 11 times, with 6 of those being in the top 10. UF won 13 out of those 14 games.
From 90' until today. UF has seen its best run of football historically and had its best 2 coaches. I don't think anyone will argue that. Having Spurrier and Meyer for the majority of that run.
Gator fans 50+ years from now (regardless of what they do over that span on the field) will know the names and they will be important in the same way that Neyland is to UT fans. And you could even add Fulmer to that to a lesser degree.
That may be where I have a disconnect with some over "well that happened 70 years ago" so the relevance is somewhat diminished by comparison to 30 years back.
Now for my orange tinted view. While Fulmer/Majors had a good run even tho UF won more often than not during that span. If we are gonna talk about as good as they have ever been, you can't discuss that in regards to UT and not mention Neyland.
I found it interesting that UF played Neyland 6 times and was 0-6 against him during his 21 year career at UT.
In the 15 years in which UT and UF did not play during his career (26,27,29,31,34,36-39,46-51) UT was 121 -22 with 3 NCs.
A lot of people (even some Vol fans) don't realize that Neyland was 31-2 with 2 NCs the 3 years prior to being gone during WW2 from 41'-45'.
As fans its easy to over look the bad years/runs and focus on the highlights especially when thumping their chests to opposing or "rival" fans. UT fans have had little they want to remember for several years, but history is still history. Old and New.
