Florida–Tennessee football rivalry
The Florida–Tennessee football rivalry, sometimes referred to as the "Third Saturday in September", is an American college football rivalry between the Florida Gators football team of the University of Florida and Tennessee Volunteers football team of the University of Tennessee, who first met on the football field in 1916. The Gators and Vols have competed in the same athletic conference since Florida joined the now-defunct Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1910, and the schools were founding members of the Southeastern Conference in 1932. Despite this long conference association, a true rivalry did not develop until the early 1990s due to the infrequency of earlier meetings; in the first seventy-six years (1916–91) of the series, the two teams met just twenty-one times. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) expanded to twelve universities and split into two divisions in 1992. Florida and Tennessee were placed in the SEC's East Division and have met on a home-and-home basis every season since. Their rivalry quickly blossomed in intensity and importance in the 1990s and early 2000s as both programs regularly fielded national championship contending teams under coaches Phil Fulmer of Tennessee and Steve Spurrier at Florida.
Florida–Tennessee football rivalry
Steve Spurrier returned to his alma mater in 1990 to become the Gators' head ball coach. In yet another link between the programs, Spurrier had been a star quarterback at Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee during the early 1960s. Although Knoxville is nearby, he did not seriously consider attending UT because he was an excellent passer and the Vols ran a single-wing offense at the time which featured a running quarterback. Instead, he choose to return to the state of his birth (Spurrier was born in Miami Beach), eventually becoming the Gators' first Heisman Trophy winner in 1966. Tennessee and Florida did not face off during Spurrier's time as the Gators' quarterback. However, he did return to Knoxville in 1988 when he was the head coach at Duke, and his Blue Devils upset the Vols, 31–26.