Florida Football: Top 5 greatest all-time rivalry games vs. Florida State
By James Bowers
3. Florida State 38, Florida 34 (2003)
Florida State football won a second straight ACC title in 2003. Chris Rix, PK Sam and Greg Jones keyed an offense that commanded the nation’s attention, and the only defeats the ‘Noles had endured came at the hands of Miami, and curiously, a struggling Clemson team.
Florida was having what many other programs would call a decent season with three wins over top 10 foes (including a massive upset of No. 4 eventual SEC East champion Georgia). The Gators had a fluke loss to Ole Miss and had barely escaped an under achieving South Carolina team the week before. For Florida, it was the type of year typical of the Ron Zook era.
Though 2003’s version of the Florida-Florida State game did not carry the weight that the matchup did in the 1990s, both teams were in a position for a nice bowl bid.
The Gators would have home-field advantage for the 2003 game, and Zook was more than eager to take advantage of it. The game would prove to be a fight, and in the end, the two teams took that word a little too much to heart.
Florida got on the board first when Matt Leach hit a field goal in the first quarter. Toward the end of that period, Chris Rix found Dominic Robinson for a 35-yard touchdown, putting the Seminoles on top 7-3. Then Xavier Bettia padded the ‘Nole lead with another field goal to make it 10-3. Leach answered with a 46-yarder of his own to make it a 10-6 affair. Rix closed the half with a long strike to Matt Henshaw to make it 17-6 at the break.
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium was hushed.
Florida’s Chris Leak managed to get the Gators up the field quickly and hit Ben Troupe for a 25-yard touchdown, then ran it in himself for the two-point conversion to cut the Florida State lead to three. Florida was then able to turn two Seminole fumbles into scores, first another Leach field goal to tie things at 17, then a Keiwan Ratliff fumble return gave the Gators the lead, 24-17. Underscoring the prevalence of turnovers, Florida State answered with a fumble recovery touchdown of its own.
The two teams took their tied tally to the final period, and both came out swinging.
A methodical Florida drive ended in a go-ahead Leach field goal. Florida State then went 80 yards in eight plays, capping it off with a Rix touchdown that handed the lead back to the Seminoles, 31-27.
Florida had five minutes to answer, and they may have done so a little too quickly. Leak’s 25-yard strike to Troupe gave UF the lead with a whopping 2:50 to play. Rix’s poise made this time a marathon for the Gator defense, and when he found PK Sam for a 55-yard touchdown bomb with 55 seconds left; Florida was heartbroken.
Trailing 38-34 the Gators went on the offensive once more,
When time expired before the Gators could return to the end zone, emotions ran high, then things got violent. Florida State players gathered at the midpoint of the enemy turn to celebrate their victory but the Gators did not take too kindly to the festivities, and soon elbows were thrown and the likes of UF athletic director Jeremy Foley stepped into restore order on the gridiron.
Both fanbases agreed on the poor quality of officiating, often maligned in college football during that period. Whoever you pull for, you could not deny the thrill of the contest.
Florida State would head to the Orange Bowl, where they lost to their other in-state adversary Miami in what would be the two schools’ final game as non-conference foes before the Hurricanes joined the ACC ranks in 2004. Florida dropped the Outback Bowl by 10 points to Iowa.
It was the penultimate season for Zook.