By SCOTT CARTER
GatorZone.com Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The intensity of that game-winning drive still rings fresh with former Gators quarterback Danny Wuerffel when he is asked to recall his most memorable moment in the Florida-Alabama rivalry.
Wuerffel steps back into the huddle as a sophomore in the 1994 Southeastern Conference championship game. The drive started under a dark cloud after Alabama’s Dwayne Rudd returned an interception 23 yards for a touchdown to give Alabama a 23-17 lead with 8:56 remaining.
With a trip to the Sugar Bowl and a second consecutive SEC title at stake, the Gators quickly regained their focus and moved down the field, mixing in one of the most famous plays in school history along the way. Early in the final drive, Wuerffel hobbled to the sideline with an apparent ankle injury and was replaced by Eric Kresser. In his only play, Kresser threw a 25-yard pass to Aubry Hill that moved the ball inside Alabama territory.
In a matter of seconds, the renewed Florida-Alabama rivalry added a moment for the ages.
Wuerffel re-entered the game on the next play and drove the Gators down the field for the winning score, hitting Chris Doering on a 2-yard pass that sealed the Gators’ 24-23 victory. On the winning play, one he remembers as intense as any play he ever directed, Wuerffel was supposed to run a quarterback sneak.
“I got up to the line of scrimmage and was staring at their D-linemen and their linebackers and saw smoke coming out of their helmets,’’ Wuerffel said earlier this week. “I looked out and saw we had a receiver one-on-one and decided that was a better idea. I changed the play and threw Chris Doering a slant to win that game. I’m glad I did or I still might have a concussion.’’
A RIVALRY’S GROWTH SPURT
Since the SEC split into two divisions in 1992, no two programs have played more meaningful games against one another than Florida and Alabama. The two schools have played each other 11 times over that span, including seven times in the SEC title game.
On Saturday night at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala., the seventh-ranked Gators and No. 1 Alabama will square off once again in a rivalry that has produced the past two national champions and reminded some of the way they went head-to-head in four of the first five SEC title games from 1992-96.
“It basically was the national championship game the last couple of years,’’ said Wuerffel, the 1996 Heisman winner and now director of Desire Street Ministries. “All three years we played them while I was there we won. I feel very fortunate to get through three Alabama games with three victories. That’s no normal thing.’’
Those four SEC title games against Alabama in the early 1990s added a new layer to UF’s football history. Before then, Alabama had been the king of the SEC when it mattered most, but the Gators proved a formidable challenger after losing the inaugural SEC title game to the 1992 Alabama team that went on to win the national title.
Kresser, who now lives in Palm Beach County and owns a graphic design company, remains a traditionalist when it comes to Florida’s rivals. Kresser looked at Tennessee, Florida State and Georgia as the Gators’ main rivals when he played, and still does to a large degree. Still, that one pass to Hill against Alabama is what has defined his time with the Gators.
“I’ve had some bigger games at Florida, but still to this day when I talk to people and they kind of reminisce about the [Steve] Spurrier days and the early ‘90s, that’s the play they always bring up,’’ Kresser said. “I think the whole fake injury thing makes people remember it as well.’’
It was a moment that helped solidify Florida’s place on the field with Alabama, much the same way the Gators’ upset win in Tuscaloosa in 1963 – Bear Bryant’s first loss at home – did for a time. However, for many years the schools met only periodically until they became regular foes in the SEC title game.
The recent success of the two schools has launched the rivalry back onto the national stage thanks in large part to the head coaches: Florida’s Urban Meyer and Alabama’s Nick Saban.
Alabama is 30-2 under Saban the past three seasons and Meyer has the same record with the Gators the past three seasons. Both teams enter Saturday’s game 4-0.
“I have always had a tremendous amount of respect for Urban Meyer, what he’s been able to accomplish as a coach, probably more than anybody in the country in his head-coaching career the last seven or eight years,’’ Saban said this week.
Early in his career, Meyer once called about a job on Saban’s staff when Saban was head coach at Toledo. Saban never made contact with Meyer, calling it one of the biggest mistakes of his career.
In his fourth season at Alabama, Saban has quickly returned the Crimson Tide to the top of the college football landscape, knocking off the Gators in the 2009 SEC Championship Game. Florida, on the way to its second national title in three years, beat Alabama in the 2008 SEC title game.
The ebb and flow has created an interesting backdrop to this week’s game, one that could be a preview of the SEC title game in December.
“It’s why you come to Florida, for games like this,’’ Gators defensive end Duke Lemmens said.
Meyer understands the task at hand as the Gators attempt to reclaim the upper hand in what many commentators this week have labeled not only the best rivalry in college football currently, but in all of sports.
“I think the thing they have over every other team in the country at this point is talent and experience,’’ Meyer said. “They would plus us a little bit in experience right now, but as far as talent, I kind of like where our team is headed.’’
A NEW CHAPTER
The recent success of the two programs and Florida’s dominance of its three traditional rivals – Tennessee, Georgia and Florida State – has altered the view of the Florida-Alabama rivalry in some circles. Since Meyer took over the program in 2005, Florida is a combined 15-1 against Tennessee, Georgia and FSU.
In four meetings with the Crimson Tide, Meyer is 2-2, including his worst loss with the Gators, a 31-3 defeat in Florida’s last visit to Tuscaloosa in 2005.
“These guys know that this week is kind of like -- if you have your goal to be national champion -- this is a big piece of that pie that you have got to have,’’ Kresser said. “They probably think completely different than I do about Alabama.’’
A stroll around the locker room during media availability this week pretty much confirmed Kresser’s assessment of the culture change with the current players.
“Right now I feel that Alabama and Florida are the top two football programs as a whole in the nation,’’ Gators cornerback Jeremy Brown said. “You always hear about the Gators and Alabama, so this is definitely becoming a big rivalry. We both want to be considered that top program. It’s almost like looking in the mirror. They have everything we have.’’
Defensive end Justin Trattou grew up in New Jersey, about as far from houndstooth hats and Florida live oaks as one can imagine. But Trattou leaves no doubt about where a game against Alabama ranks on his list.
“It’s definitely one of the most-anticipated games of my career and one of the most-anticipated games in the country,’’ he said. “The past couple of years it has definitely turned into a huge rivalry. Two great programs, two great teams – it’s always bound to be a great game.’’
The man who helped renew the rivalry in the early 1990s, former Gators coach Steve Spurrier, has the weekend off thanks to South Carolina’s bye week. He plans to watch the Florida-Alabama game on Saturday night from his condo on Florida’s east coast.
Spurrier knows as well as anyone that no program stays on top forever – he led the Gators to four consecutive SEC titles from 1993-96 – but admits that Florida and Alabama appear ahead of the rest of the league at this point.
“There’s a lot of big-time state universities that obviously love their football programs,’’ Spurrier said. “Florida and Alabama have been the best the last couple of years. There are a lot of good teams in the SEC -- I think a little bit more now than in the early ‘90s -- so it’s difficult to stay up there.
“Right now, they are.’’
REDEFINED BY CHAMPIONSHIPS
The rivalry’s resurgence has been built on good old-fashioned recruiting and coaching. The schools have won three of the last four national titles and two of the past three Heisman Trophies, with Florida’s Tim Tebow winning in 2007 and Alabama running back Mark Ingram taking last year’s Heisman.
Saban provided his definition of success on the SEC media teleconference on Wednesday.
“Consistency and performance are what really defines success,’’ he said. “You can have one good team one year and all that, but to do it year in and year out and be dominant as they have been, I think that’s the ultimate respect than anybody deserves in terms of having a successful program.’’
Does Meyer view Alabama as the Gators’ biggest rival like some of his players?
“I don’t know. Alabama is a great football team that we’ve had some epic battles with,’’ he said. “We’ve got our hands full this week with the most talented team in the country.’’
Meyer did provide some insight into his vision of Florida’s program battling with Alabama and the rest of the SEC when he opted to leave Utah for Florida in 2005.
“I thought you could win, or I would have never moved my family across the country,’’ Meyer said of winning SEC titles. “I never put a number on it. What you look at is the ability to recruit, the history, tradition, are the resources there to compete at an extremely high level? It was there.
“I thought we could compete at the SEC upper-echelon and that’s the reason we’re here.’’
While his former ball coach plans to watch the game at his condo, Wuerffel said he’ll be watching from Tampa, where he is spending the weekend as part of a fundraising event.
Regardless of what your view is on the Florida-Alabama rivalry, whether it has surpassed some of UF’s traditional rivalries or whether it ranks as the best in the country, Wuerffel knows why so many people are talking about the Alabama-Florida game this week.
“Whenever there is more at stake, it adds to a rivalry,’’ Wuerffel said. “You can have history and a rivalry, but when you start adding on rings and trophies, it really pumps it up.’’
