For Gators, win over No. 1 Vols was historic
The 73-43 win on Tuesday by the No. 8 Florida Gators over No. 1 Tennessee in Gainesville was decisive. It was significant. It was memorable. And … it also was historic.
Per Greg Harvey, a statistician with more than 14,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter), Florida became “the first athletic program ever to record a 30-plus point win against the AP No. 1 in both college football and men’s basketball.”
The football version took place Jan. 2, 1997, when the Gators beat FSU 52-20 in the Sugar Bowl. That win not only avenged a 24-21 loss to the Seminoles on No. 30 that season, but helped clinch the national title for the Steve Spurrier-coached team.
That Sugar Bowl was not a rout until deep into the second half. In fact, Florida led just 24-17 at the half and 24-20 after a Scott Bentley field goal with 10:24 remaining in the third quarter. A 7-yard touchdown pass from Heisman-winner Danny Wuerffel to Ike Hilliard and a dramatic 16-yard scoring run by Wuerffel gave the Gators an 18-point cushion after three quarters. They broke it open with two touchdown rushes by Terry Jackson in the final frame.
Meanwhile, Tuesday’s basketball win over the previously unbeaten Vols was a mismatch from the start as Florida began the game with a 12-0 run. By the half, it was 34-15 and Tennessee never got to within closer to the lead than 16 points after the break.
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“I thought we were really locked in, and I thought our performance showed that,” Gators coach Todd Golden said.
Guard Alijah Martin scored 18 points to lead the Gators. Another guard, Denzel Aberdeen, added 16 off the bench. The Gators shot only 39.7 percent from the floor, but held the Vols to an abysmal 21.4 percent. Additionally, Florida won the battle on the boards, 55-38.
Florida now has just three all-time basketball wins over No. 1 teams.
How lopsided was this win? Here’s more historical context: This was the first 30-point victory over a top-ranked team since the John Wooden-coached UCLA Bruins with Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) at center beat No. 1 Houston 101-69 in the 1968 Final Four. And per Chris Harry of FloridaGators.com, “it was the third-largest margin of defeat for No. 1 since the AP poll began in 1948.”
