The Florida Gators rivalry with the LSU Tigers reached new heights in 2016 but Jim McElwain decided to turn it up to eleven in 2017.
On Thursday the Gators announced that LSU would be its homecoming opponent, something Tigers’ fans and players surely won’t like.
There has been bad blood between the interdivisional rivals for some time but the back-and-forth over a postponed game last year due to the threat of Hurricane Matthews cranked up the tension.
Florida was reluctant to move the game away from Gainesville early on in the week as projections for the Hurricane were far from certain. As the week progressed Matthew took a turn and Gainesville was directly in its crosshairs. By Thursday, former AD Jeremy Foley knew that moving the game to Baton Rouge would be a logistical nightmare that week but left the decision to the league office. The SEC announced that the game would be officially postponed.
This is when an ugly public back-and-forth began.
LSU Athletic Director Joe Alleva drew a hard line in the sand. The Baton Rouge economy had been dealing with hard times for more than a year and he was not going to cancel a home game (South Alabama) to travel to Gainesville the second to last week of the season. No way, not going to happen.
The league stepped in and reminded both teams that unless they played a full eight-game conference schedule they would be ineligible to represent their division in the SEC Championship game. That didn’t mean much to LSU, who wasn’t overtaking Alabama in the West, but would have kept Florida, the SEC East Champion, out of the game.
Meanwhile, some in the national media called Florida “scared” to play LSU, something the LSU fan base picked up and ran with.
In Florida, millions of people were displaced as Matthew ran along the coast of the state for three days. Gainesville, luckily, missed most of the damage, but nearby Jacksonville and Daytona were ravaged. More than 1.5 million people were mandatorily evacuated from their homes.
Florida took exception to that line of thinking, and with a SEC Championship game on the line, went to the table to negotiate terms with LSU.
In the end the Gators did move a home game to Baton Rouge. Florida paid the contract for Presbyterian and LSU did the same with South Alabama, so that the two could meet in Tiger Stadium on Nov. 19. In return, Florida would host LSU in 2017 (a regularly scheduled road game) and again in 2018 (a regularly scheduled home game for Florida) before the series would go back to Baton Rouge in 2019.
Florida went on to win the game thanks to a goal line stand. Florida celebrated on the field.
Teez #Gators pic.twitter.com/CnqkvtWt4u
— Nick de la Torre (@NickdelaTorreGC) November 19, 2016
Jim McElwain showed how angry the pregame rhetoric made him.
100 percent agree @CoachMcElwain pic.twitter.com/GtyllZq6FW
— Barrett Sallee (@BarrettSallee) November 19, 2016
Jim McElwain: “It just shocks me that someone would question the Gators. The way I look at it (LSU) got what they deserve.”
— Nick de la Torre (@NickdelaTorreGC) November 19, 2016
Even the Florida Gators Twitter got in on the action when the LSU spring game was cancelled due to inclimate weather.
#SafetyFirst 🐊🐯
— Gators Football (@GatorsFB) April 23, 2017
On the baseball diamond, LSU and Florida shared a regular SEC Champions title but the Gators beat LSU twice in the College World Series Final to capture its first National Championship.
The bad blood between the two teams will reach new heights this year and it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Florida Gators baseball team honored at halftime of the Homecoming game for the National Championship and a ring ceremony.