How is it possible that the overpowering animosity between Canes and Gators is ignored in a situation like this? I have to laugh every time the talking heads on ESPN, or somebody like Michael Lombardi, link Jacksonville and Miami as potential destinations for Tebow, simply because they both are in the state of Florida, with zero comprehension that any Gator product would be held in extreme scrutiny in Miami, with very little patience or benefit of a doubt. The look on Warren Sapp's face was priceless a few months ago when Lombardi had no comprehension that the Gators weren't exactly beloved in Miami.
That rivalry inspires more natural hatred than any in the country. That's not an exaggeration. It's far beyond Alabama/Auburn or Texas/Oklahoma or USC/UCLA or anything you want to name. Go to the major college football message boards and ask the regulars which two fanbases demonstrate the greatest distaste for each other. The answer is Miami and Florida and it's not remotely competitive. The fact that the two teams don't play each other annually just adds fuel. Miami fans have no respect at all for the Gators and Florida fans are defensive about that, and demean Miami due to lack of attendance or recent success, plus the typical SEC snobbery.
The games between the two teams in the early '80s were so out of hand that it was literally dangerous to attend. My family had all four tires slashed in Gainesville. My little sister had a Miami pennant taken out of her hand and snapped in half on the way into the stadium. She was 6 years old. I saw Gator fans with hard little Frisbees in grocery bags walk in front of the Canes section and fling them toward the faces of Miami fans from mere yards away. They literally hit old ladies in the face with those Frisbees until being tackled.
Google the incident when Howard Schnellenberger had Danny Miller kick the rub it in field goal at Florida. That was in that era and anyone who attended the games never had to ask why it happened. It was game long subhuman behavior, not merely oranges thrown at the bench late in the game. My parents refused to attend games at Gainesville from that point forward. As a USC student I took one more trip only to have my pizza intentionally overturned and dumped on the floor at a nightspot, the night before Florida hosted USC in 1982. Gator fans thought that was so clever they cheered and started the Gator chomp.
Fans remember that era, including ones who are in position to buy tickets. I realize the younger crowd doesn't grasp the extent of the animosity, and somehow the knowledge escaped Mike Dee last year. His comment about being surprised at the Gator Day backlash since the teams don't play annually was the capper toward verifying how far the franchise has slipped in terms of basic common sense and intelligence.
The fact that many Gator alumni live in the area is ridiculously overstated in comparison to how many Canes fans align with the Dolphins and would be turned off by any Gator quarterback, let alone a pathetic one, a desperate obvious attempt to play a shell game and fool unsophisticated fans into showing up. Local talk radio would be flooded with anti-Gator fervor every time Tebow flubbed.
As always, it's Orange, Blue and Mostly Yellow.
