Florida wide receiver Josh Hammond says Florida-Miami isn’t a rivalry game.

He’s not being disrespectful to Miami, though I’m sure that narrative makes good copy, especially down in Coral Gables, where they built a program and culture of excellence on being disrespected and rising up against that disrespect. It gave them swagger, an edge, bravado. It made people hate them. Even the program’s sideline mascot — they call themselves the Hurricanes, but an Ibis roams the sidelines — fits the neverending narrative. An ibis is a brave and disrespected bird, an outcast in nature that is the last to leave and the first to return when a hurricane strikes. The Canes have always used hate as fuel. If Ohio State can trademark “The,” Miami can trademark the “disrespect” card. They could sue Dabo for royalties.

But in this case, Hammond wasn’t being disrespectful. He’s from South Florida. He starred at Hallandale High, in Broward County. He just doesn’t think you can be a rival when you don’t play every year.

“When I think of a rivalry, I think of a team we play every year. LSU, Florida State, Georgia” Hammond told the media this week. That’s the soundbite people heard and spun, but it’s the rest of what Hammond said that’s so interesting and captures what this Florida-Miami game is all about.

“Being that Miami is the only other Power 5 team in the state of Florida, we’ll treat it like a rivalry game because now we finally get a chance to play all the teams in Florida that technically compete for the state. It’s big to play to be champion of the state of Florida and go out and try to win for that reason.”

That’s what Florida-Miami is to the players. A game for state-bragging rights. Even if UCF fans might argue that the Gators and Canes won’t even be the best teams in the city of Orlando on Saturday night, the players who win the Florida-Miami game will (rightly, for now) claim state supremacy.

And that makes the game personal to these kids, especially the ones from South Florida, like Hammond.

Marco Wilson grew up in South Florida and attended high school at American Heritage in Broward County. His father Chad played at Miami in the 1990s and his brother Quincy was an All-SEC player at Florida.

If any Florida player would have a historical perspective about this rivalry, you’d think it would be the cerebral Wilson, who thinks before answering any questions and has family roots at both schools.

But ask him about some of the more iconic moments in the history of the rivalry, and he draws a blank.

How about the Brawl on Bourbon Street, which is what it sounds like and happened before the 2001 Sugar Bowl (won by Miami), the one game played between the two programs in the Spurrier era?

“Never heard about it.”

In 2003, the Gators led the No. 3 Hurricanes 33-10 late in the 3rd quarter and the only sound you could hear in the old Orange Bowl was the revelry of Gators fans, which figured to last long into the Miami night. On the other side, Miami’s quarterback Brock Berlin, writhing in pain from being hit most the first 40 minutes, had other ideas.

Berlin had been the No. 1 recruit in the nation when he signed with Florida and Steve Spurrier in 2000; he transferred to Miami after losing his job to Rex Grossman, who, along with Jesse Palmer, led Florida to the SEC Championship (Spurrier’s last) as a freshman. Berlin’s revenge came in the form of 28 consecutive points in just over a quarter, the comeback sealed when Miami legend Frank Gore cruised around right end nearly untouched for the go-ahead touchdown with less than 2 minutes to play.

Surely Wilson had heard of that game.

“All I know is the last time we played Miami, we lost,” Wilson told the media this week.

It isn’t just Gators players who don’t recall the details of a storied rivalry that might have gone away on the field but has simmered at a slow burn among two passionate fan bases.

Miami’s All-American middle linebacker, Shaq Quartermann, hails from Orange Park, about an hour northeast of Gainesville.

He hadn’t heard about the Florida Flop, which came in 1971, when Florida, winning 45-8, had its defense let Miami score a late touchdown by laying down on the field. The idea was to get the ball back so their senior quarterback John Reaves could break Jim Plunkett’s NCAA career passing record. Reaves broke the record the following drive.

Miami head coach Fran Curci was not amused, suggesting Florida head coach Doug Dickey “would live to regret the day he pulled such a bush-league stunt on the Canes.” Dickey won his first 7 against Miami, making Curci’s prediction incorrect, but Miami fans have never forgotten.

Except Quarterman.

“I didn’t know about (the flop),” the linebacker said late last month. “I do know that if I go to Winn-Dixie to get taco seasoning for Taco Tuesday, I’ll run into a season ticket holder who knows the illustrious history of the series and of Miami and why this game is so important. I love hearing the stories. And his message is you have to beat Florida. It’s personal.”

Personal. A battle between families, work colleagues, old coaching buddies, old teammates.

Look at the rosters of the respective programs and you get an idea of the familiarity.

The Gators have 21 players from the prep football hotbed that is South Florida (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties). The Canes feature 37 players from that area.

Maybe blood is thicker than water, but many of the Gators and Hurricanes players bled together and sweat together as high school teammates. From the South Florida collection of players alone, you have 15 sets of former high school teammates competing against each other Saturday night.

Among the former high school teammates include Florida’s All-American corner CJ Henderson and Miami’s All-ACC corner Trajan Bandy, who both played at Miami’s Christopher Columbus. While being recruited, many analysts thought they were a package deal. Bandy committed to Oklahoma early but in the end, the hometown allure was too strong despite a late push from Florida, among other schools. Many believed Henderson would stay home too, but in the end, his heart was in Gainesville. This summer, fans of both schools have taken to Twitter, disingenuously saying they didn’t want both and earnestly debating who is better.

Several other players fit that mold as well, including a host of players who battled it out in practice, such as Florida’s Trevon Grimes and Miami’s Al Blades (St. Thomas Aquinas) or Miami running back Cam’Ron Harris and Florida running back Nay’Quan Wright (Miami Carol City).

Those players don’t need to know the story of the rivalry to understand Saturday night is personal.

Several others among that group have competed forever, from Pop Warner to playing in some of South Florida’s most storied prep rivalries, such as Miami Southridge vs. South Dade, Coral Gables vs. Southwest, Carol City vs. Norland and the often nationally relevant William T. Dwyer vs. St. Thomas Aquinas game.

Those players know each other, and while they may respect one another after what in some instances is a decade of competition, that familiarity breeds contempt. They might go to church together on Sunday morning or break bread together Sunday evening, but they’ve been competing forever and are going to want to beat the hell out of each other Saturday night. That’s what you do when a game is personal.

Even for the coaches, this one’s personal.

New Miami head coach Manny Diaz attended FSU, but like a lot of Miami kids, he grew up a Canes fan. Diaz’s father, Manny Sr., attended the University of Miami’s law school and was the city’s popular mayor for 8 years. He gets the rivalry part of it better than most.

But it’s personal for him too because he’s facing off against a mentor in Dan Mullen, a head coach who hired him twice — or let him leave twice, depending on who’s spinning it.

“When I met him, I found out quickly how intelligent he was,” Mullen said of Diaz this week. “He had the energy, he had an interesting scheme, he wasn’t afraid to think outside the box with his scheme and then had the intelligence to back it up. We got along pretty well. I thought at Mississippi State it was a great fit.”

Diaz reciprocates that respect, telling reporters Monday in Coral Gables that he and Mullen have always viewed the game similarly. “(Mullen) is kind of a very creative guy, a little bit of an outside the box thinker — and we tried to always be the same way defensively.”

They know each other, have worked together, thought together, competed together. That’s personal.

College football lives and breathes off tradition and games like Florida-Miami, which undoubtedly has a storied history. The 50/50 neutral site crowd and Week 0 national spotlight in Orlando will give Saturday night a rivalry game feel even if the players don’t fully grasp the strange rivalry gone silent specter that swirls it.

But more than anything, it’s the personal element that separates this game and gives it an edge that makes it very worthy of ushering in the 150th season of college football.