In the second game of the 1960 season Ray Graves and the Florida Gators defeated Florida State, 3-0. It was Graves’ first season as the Gator coach and the Gators got off to a 2-0 start with the win.
Adding some luster to the game was the announcement that one of the Gator players had been offered a bribe to do what he could to prevent the Gators from covering the 13-point spread. Jon McBeth did not play in the game and two New York gamblers and a Florida student were jailed before the game.
Coach Graves’ initial season at Florida was a successful one that saw the Gators win nine games and lose just two – to Rice and Auburn.
Here’s the United Press International dispatch on the game 50 years ago today:
Florida 3, Florida State 0
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (UPI) — Sophomore Bill Cash kicked a 35-yard field goal in the second quarter and gave the heavily favored Florida Gators a skin-of-their-teeth 3-0 football victory over rival Florida State Saturday.
An alleged attempt to bribe Florida fullback Jon MacBeth to keep the score closer than the 13-point spread was revealed and two New York City men — one a University of Florida student – accused of making the bribe attempt were jailed before the game.
Florida flashed a potent running attack, spearheaded by Doug Partin and MacBeth’s substitute Don Goodman, but penalties, a fumble and a fired-up FSU defense prevented Florida from cashing four other scoring chances.
The game ended with Florida only four yards from the FSU goal.
FSU also had its chances and got close enough early in the fourth quarter to try a field goal from the Florida 29. Ken Kestner’s kick, however, was far short.
Until almost the last the FSU Seminoles were threatening, moving mainly on a short passing attack by Eddie Feely and Ed Trancygier.
But a brisk, gusty north wind that blew throughout the game prevented FSU from making full use of its aerial game and the Seminoles didn’t quite have a scoring punch against the more experienced and bigger Florida team.
The Gators are 8-2 on games played on Sept. 24. The wins came against Florida Southern 27-7 (1927), The Citadel 13-0 (1949), FSU 3-0 (1960) Mississippi State in 1966, 1977, 1983 and 1988 and a 49-28 win over Kentucky in 2005. The losses were to Stetson 16-14 (1938) and Georgia Tech 14-7 (1955).