2006 Championship QB Chris Leak
Florida first fielded an official football team in 1906. Since then, the Gators have played in 34 bowl games, won eight Southeastern Conference titles, produced 135 All-Americans coming into the 2006 season, 35 NFL first round draft choices and three Heisman Trophy winners.
The football team competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which is frequently referred to by its former designation of Division I-A.
Florida plays an eight-game conference schedule, headlined by annual SEC Eastern division showdowns against Tennessee and Georgia, the latter being held in Jacksonville, Florida every year and formerly dubbed “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” The SEC West team the Gators face every season is LSU. In addition, the team has a yearly out-of-conference meeting with in-state rival Florida State at the end of the season.
The football team has been one of the winningest in Division I-A/FBS since 1990, the year Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Steve Spurrier returned to his alma mater as head coach. The 1996 team, led by another Heisman winner, Danny Wuerffel, went 12-1 and won the national championship game in the Sugar Bowl, avenging an earlier loss to rival Florida State.
Following the 2001 season, Spurrier left the program to try his hand at coaching in the National Football League. Ron Zook, at one time the defensive coordinator under Spurrier, was hired as his replacement. Zook’s squads were known for inconsistency, and he was fired midway through the 2004 season, following a loss to heavy underdog Mississippi State in Starkville, MS.
Urban Meyer was announced as Florida Football’s new head coach in December 2004. His first season in 2005 brought an immediate improvement of Florida’s record at 9-3. The team narrowly missed out on playing for the SEC title due to a shocking loss to Spurrier’s new team, the South Carolina Gamecocks.
The 2006 team played for the school’s second National Championship in January 2007, defeating the Ohio State Buckeyes 41-14.
Within the past few years they have won against their arch rivals University of Georgia in 2006 and 2008. In 2007 they lost 42-30 and in 2008 they won by 39 points, in a dominating 49-10 defeat.
The Gators have won the SEC Championship Game a record seven times in nine tries since the game began in 1992. They won their first official conference title in 1991, the year before the first championship game was played. The Gators won the 2008 SEC Championship Game by defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide 31-20.
Florida will be playing in the 2009 BCS National Championship Game, playing against the top-ranked Oklahoma Sooners.
