Good morning, Gators. Sorry it’s been almost a month since my last newsletter to you.
As I mentioned in a recent article for the main GC site, my wife is active duty Navy and recently received orders to Hawaii for this summer. My writing will be uneven in its delivery for a while as a lot of my spare time outside of parenting and my day job will go to things like preparing for such a big move and visiting with family and friends here where I’m currently at in Florida before the move. Once we’re all settled out in the islands, I expect to be on a more regular schedule.
Anyway, it occurred to me that right now has got to be the most heated the Florida-Miami rivalry has been in almost 25 years. The teams keep finding ways to cross paths in several ways.
The recent news story that Jaden Rashada had hit the transfer portal out of Georgia closed its loop yesterday when he chose to go back home to California to attend FCS power Sacramento State. Even if Rashada never makes it back to the FBS level, he will always stand out as the first truly wild recruitment of the NIL era.
And what made his recruitment so wild? It was a battle between the Gators and Hurricanes. Or, perhaps more accurately, it was a battle between Gator megabooster Hugh Hathcock and Hurricane megabooster John Ruiz.
The $13 million number will always keep Rashada towards the top of memory for the cycle, but he wasn’t the only high 4-star that the programs battled intensely for. They also were in heated competition for corner Cormani McClain, who almost committed to UF before choosing UM. Then, he spurned both programs to go to Deion’s Colorado, only to finally end up in Gainesville a year later. That’s one saga where Florida actually did get the player in the end, though he’s yet to perform as the borderline 5-star he was rated as in high school — including during this year’s spring practice.
Last year, secondary coach Will Harris did a tremendous job. Then, after losing co-DC Austin Armstrong, Billy Napier hired Vinnie Sunseri to coach safeties and be a co-DC. Harris did not get the title bump despite Sunseri being younger, less experienced, and someone who didn’t just finish doing a tremendous job for the Florida program the year prior. Harris left to join the staff at Miami.
Last week, safety Gregory Smith hit the portal. UF’s main target to replace him is reportedly Miami’s portal entrant Zaquan Patterson. Earlier this week, Gator reserve defensive tackle D’Antre Robinson hit the portal after not getting the NIL raise he was looking for. There have been reports that he could be headed down to Coral Gables.
And if all that isn’t enough for you, the teams actually played on the field last year! And they play again this year! Amazing!
Yes, the exclamation points are a sign of jest, but it is kind of wild that all the other drama is randomly coinciding with one of the rare times where the teams actually are playing in quick succession. The last time UF played UM in consecutive years was when they accidentally played in four consecutive calendar years: 1/2/2001 in the Sugar Bowl, during the 2002-03 regular seasons, and 12/31/2004 in the Peach Bowl. That is so long ago that the games in ’02 and ’03 where when the NCAA was test-driving a 12th regular season game before restoring the 11-game schedule in for two more years in 2004-05.
In between, the teams played at irregular intervals in 2008, 2013, and 2019. There wasn’t a ton of heat to those contests. UM was down in the Randy Shannon-Al Golden rut during the first two of those and starting over in Manny Diaz’s first year in the third.
Whereas, the 2024 game had both Napier and Mario Cristobal starting their pivotal third seasons after underachieving record-wise in their first two. You know how that ended up. This fall’s version of the game will have plenty riding on it given Napier continuing to have a precarious position as head coach and Miami still sore that they had the No. 1 overall NFL Draft pick at quarterback and took home no hardware for it.
One thing sticks out in its absence: Florida State. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Seminoles had a great fall at the same time UF and UM found themselves on the upswing.
The Big Three have struggled to be good all at the same time, but they sustained it for quite a while from the late ’80s to early 2000s. Once college football started having an official national title game in 1992, a team from the Sunshine State appeared in each of the first 11 of them — including of course the ’96 season’s game with two of them.
Miami was the first to really drop off after Butch Davis left, and then FSU hit a rough patch in the late Bowden years. Florida fell off after Urban Meyer left, and FSU’s brief renaissance under Jimbo eventually ended too. The turmoil allowed the likes of Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney to start pillaging from outside, with Meyer at Ohio State, Kirby Smart once he got to Georgia, and eventually Fisher at Texas A&M picking off recruits as well. Several LSU head coaches made inroads too.
With player payment growing in importance, there never will come another time when the large majority of the best players in Florida stay there. However it’s notable that with all the battles going on between Florida and Miami — plenty of which I didn’t mentioned above, like RB Mark Fletcher — FSU just isn’t as big a player in it all. Mike Norvell really isn’t a high school recruiting ace in the way that Napier and Cristobal are, and portaling has its limits. The FSU collective also just doesn’t seem to be throwing money around like Miami’s (on transfers) and Florida’s (on recruits) are.
It’s been a while since UF and UM were this much up on FSU. Norvell has years of work to get to where the other two are right now, if he can do it at all. It’s unusual times around the state.