Gator Country

Don't let the dateline fool you. Once upon a time, Starkville, Miss., was once State College, Miss., when it came to writers filing on Mississippi State football game.

On This Day in Gator History back in 1956, the Gators opened their season on the road with an impressive 26-0 victory over the Bulldogs. The Gators were coming off a 5-5 campaign in 1955 and had high hopes for the 1956 season.

I chose this game because of the play of Joe Brodsky. Reading about a “211-pound speedy fullback” caught my attention and the writeup from the United Press International, though it seems to have a Bulldog slant, depicted the play of the Gators well.

Bob Woodruff was entering his seventh season as the Gators head coach and he was the athletic director as well. The president at the time was J. Wayne Reitz and Florida Field had a capacity of 39,800.

So enjoy this little dispatch from Starkville, er State College:

STATE COLLEGE, Miss. — Joe Brodsky, a speedy 211-pound fullback, intercepted three Mississippi Slate passes and Florida turned them into quick touchdowns as the Gators defeated luckless Mississippi State 26-0 in a Southeastern Conference football opener today.

Mississippi State outgained Florida 193 to 93 rushing and made 16 first downs to only four for the Gators.

The 1956 Gators finished with a 6-3-1 record, losing only two SEC games to Blanton Collier’s Kentucky Wildcats and Georgia Tech, which was coached by Bobby Dodd.

The Gators are 8-0-1 in games played on This Date in Gator History. They also have wins over Camp Blanding (1945), The Citadel (1951), Mississippi State (1962), Southern Mississippi (1973), Furman (1990), Kentucky (2001) and Mississippi (2007). The tie was against Georgia Tech in 1979.

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