Today’s Gator Country report features football games from August 31, a look at yesterday’s sport action and some info note for the Gators season opener.
Florida Gators In the Past
The Florida Gators football team have only played three games on August 31st.
The first game was in 1996 and was against Southwestern Louisiana in The Swamp.
The Gators entered the game ranked #4 to open the season following the loss to the Nebraska Cornhuskers to conclude the 1995 season.
The next game of August 31 was in 2002 against the University of Alabama (Birmingham) which the Gators won 51-3.
The final August 31 game was against Toledo in 2013. The Gators won that game 24-6. (note I left this game out of yesterday’s story because I was using the wrong spread sheet)
Some notes from that game
- This was the debut game of Coach Ron Zook
- Florida has never lost in August outscoring their opponents 165-44
- Florida is 79-2 against games who were unranked at game time, since 1990.
Truthfully, there were lots of other positive notes, but considering the last four seasons, reading the notes made me ill. It was about touchdowns, 26 straight scoring trips while in the red zone, 96-2 record when out rushing our opponents…well you get the drift.
Here is to hoping that Coach McElwain puts the joy back into reading and remembering statistics.
Yesterday in Gator Sports
It was a successful Sunday in Gator Land with the Gators knocking of the #1 soccer team in the land, Florida State Seminoles. To sweeten the win this was the first loss for the Seminoles since the Gators defeated them last season.
Florida score three times with three different players in the opening half and then held on in the second half when FSU scored its two goals for a 3-2 final.
Andrew Spivey’s game thread or should I say match thread has 43 posts and nearly 850 views as I write this, so good day for Florida Gators soccer.
Meanwhile, up in our nation’s capital the Florida Gators volleyball team won their second match in as many days by defeating American University by a 3-1 score.
The #4 Gators dropped the opening set 24-26, but then won the following three with scores of 25-20, 25-15 and 25-23.
The Gators are now 2-0 while American falls to 3-1.
The Gators will now travel to Austin, Texas to continue their season opening in road trip. Their next match is Friday.
In fact, the Friday volleyball match is the next event on the University of Florida sport’s calendar.
This Season in Florida Gators Football
This week there will be a thousand notes and information about the Gators and their opening of their 110 season of college football. I honestly believe that later in the week I will have some stuff here that you will not read elsewhere unless it is copied from gatorcountry.com.
The Gators last loss on opening day was in 1989 against the Ole Miss Rebels. Now it should be noted that we have not faced a lot of power houses to begin the season in those years since 1989, but we did play the Kentucky Wildcats to open up the 1992 season. That season was a tough schedule all season.
This is who we played in the first five games of the season which started on September 12, 1992. Kentucky Wildcats (W), at Tennessee Volunteers (L), at Mississippi State Bulldogs (L), Louisiana State Tigers (W), Auburn Tigers (W).
The two out of conference opponents besides Florida State were Louisville and Southern Mississippi.
That was the year the SEC went to divisional play. The Gators did win the division, but fell to Alabama in that epic conference championship game that really changed college football.
Before the 2001 season opener with the Marshall Thundering Herd Gator Country drew a lot of smack talk from Marshall fans because they thought there great quarterback Byron Leftwich.
The Gators won that game 49-14, but the legend of Byron reached legendary status following this 2002 event while playing Akron.
The closest opening game since the 1989 loss was in 2012 (imagine that) when the Gators won a game against Bowling Green 27-14.
Happened in Sports August 31
- 1959 – Sandy Koufax breaks Dizzy Dean’s NL mark of 18 strikeouts in a game
- 1969 – Rocky Marciano, former Heavyweight champ, dies in a plane crash at 45
- 1991-Houston QB David Klingler sets NCAA record with 6 touchdown passes in the 2nd quarter as the Cougars clobbered Louisiana Tech 73-3
- 1993 – Minnesota Twins beat Cleveland Indians 5-4 in 22 innings
A #1 Tune this date
Whether you’ve got your own teeth or not keep smiling everybody.
This song was #1 for 14 weeks in the summer/fall of 1996
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiBYM6g8Tck