The very first SEC football championship game took place in 1992, and featured Alabama and Florida. In fact, the first three SEC title games featured Alabama and Florida, and this will be the ninth time that these two schools have met for the title. Here are the previous results (AP rankings at time of game in parentheses; national champions in bold):
1992: (2) Alabama 28, (12) Florida 21
1993: (9) Florida 28, (16) Alabama 13
1994: (6) Florida 24, (3) Alabama 23
1996: (4) Florida 45, (11) Alabama 30
1999: (7) Alabama 34, (5) Florida 7
2008: (2) Florida 31, (1) Alabama 20
2009: (2) Alabama 32, (1) Florida 13
2015: (2) Alabama 29, (18) Florida 15
As you can see, these have been some big-time games featuring big-time teams and big-time coaches. Five times the winner of this fixture has won the national title, and the games in 2008 and 2009 show where Nick Saban took control of the SEC from Urban Meyer and the Gators -- they are two of the most important games in SEC history. Florida has won the SEC East 12 times since the SEC title game began; they've played Alabama in 9 of those games. Alabama has won the SEC West 11 times, and faced Florida almost every time.
If you think about it, it's not surprising that Florida and Alabama meet so often in the title game. It's not only that Florida has the best program in the East and Alabama has the best program in the West. It's also how the schedules work. Alabama plays Tennessee every year -- if the Tide wins the West, then they probably beat Tennessee, which makes things easier for Florida. Florida plays LSU every year -- if the Gators win the East, then they probably beat LSU, which makes things easier for Alabama. Also, Florida and Alabama rarely play each other in the regular season, which is fortunate for them both.
Alabama and Florida are both original members of the SEC, but for most of their history they didn't play each other very often. In the old SEC -- that is, the league as it was before expansion in the early 1990's -- each team played six conference games per year, five against traditional rivals and one against another team. Alabama's traditional rivals were Auburn, Tennessee, LSU, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt. Florida's traditional rivals were Georgia, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, and Kentucky. So they didn't play very much. They didn't meet at all from 1932 to 1947, or from 1952 to 1962. Even now, they don't play often outside the SEC title game. Alabama leads the all-time series 24-14, and is currently on a five-game winning streak against the Gators.
This year's Florida team is solid but not spectacular. They have a very solid defense that delivered seven mostly easy wins over UMass, Kentucky, North Texas, Vandy, Missouri, Georgia, and South Carolina. They had a really bad loss on the road at Arkansas, where the Razorbacks hammered them 31-10. They had two other disappointing losses in big road games -- 28-38 at Tennessee, and 13-31 at Florida State. One of their games was cancelled due to the fact that bad weather forced them to reschedule their game with LSU. It was originally scheduled for October 8 in Gainesville but was moved to November 19 in Baton Rouge. In their best game of the year, the Gators beat LSU 16-10, winning the East and setting up today's game.
The oddsmakers do not believe that solid but spectacular will be enough against the Tide. They have Alabama favored by 24 points in a game where they expect 41 points to be scored. That would be a score of something like 33-9. I think Florida will keep it closer than that, but then again I thought the same thing about Auburn last week.
I have a lot of errands to run today, so I will not live blog this game. But I will give an update sometime tomorrow.
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