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–Florida State football rivalry
The University of Florida administration, however, was reluctant to treat Florida State University as an equal, less for reasons of intercollegiate sports rivalry than for reasons of limited state funding for higher education and the perception that Florida State's demands for a greater share of those funds might undercut the University of Florida's role as the state's historic flagship university. As the impasse dragged on, a bill was proposed in the Florida Legislature in 1955 which would have mandated that the two schools compete against each other in football and other sports. While the bill was voted down, Florida Governor LeRoy Collins personally requested to University of Florida president J. Wayne Reitz that he take the lead in starting a yearly football series between the two state universities. Reitz agreed, and the schools negotiated a contract that began their football series in 1958, the first available opening on the Gators' non-conference schedule.