GAINESVILLE — It has been nearly six decades since both Florida and Florida State entered their rivalry game with losing records (1959), but it will happen again Saturday when the Gators and Seminoles tee it up for the 62nd time at The Swamp (Noon, ESPN).

Neither team will alter the optics of a failed season with a victory Saturday. But a victory over an archrival will at least help the players and fans of one school assuage the anguish of a season gone awry, and perpetuate the misery of the losing team’s fans as a tough year ends. No matter how cynical, there’s always a palpable sense of joy in schadenfreude.

Whatever the records, both teams have plenty of motivation to win Saturday afternoon.

Why FSU needs this win

For Florida State, the game represents a chance to send a second consecutive class of seniors out the door without ever having suffered the indignity of a loss to the hated Gators. Only three FSU senior classes can say they never lost to Florida; this Seminoles class led by Jacob Pugh, Trey Marshall and Derrick Nnadi, among others, would be the fourth.

Florida State-Florida is consistently the biggest game of the year to FSU fans and alumni as well. Of course there are in-state bragging rights at stake, and those last an entire year, but Florida State’s emphasis on beating Florida runs deeper than that. There’s a genuine edge to it.

Seminoles fans and alums have long had a bit of a complex regarding their rivals from the University of Florida. The Seminoles don’t like the moniker, created largely by UF alums, of FSU being the “backup” school to Florida academically, and FSU graduates don’t like the way Gators often dismiss FSU in and out of the workplace. And FSU fans especially don’t like how often Florida fans point out that the Gators lead the all-time series.

But after winning six of the past seven meetings — FSU has lost only once to the Gators this decade — the Seminoles have trimmed Florida’s series lead to nine, at 34-25-2. A win Saturday would improve FSU coach Jimbo Fisher to 7-1 against Florida in his tenure, and would give FSU a fourth consecutive win in The Swamp, a school record.

The stakes then, are obviously high on the FSU sideline, and that’s before you get to FSU’s 35-year bowl game and winning season streak, both of which would evaporate with a defeat Saturday in Gainesville.

But in truth, the game is even bigger this year for the Gators.

Why Florida needs this win more

Nobody in a Gators uniform has beaten FSU. That has to change Saturday.

In fact, few in Florida’s football facilities have celebrated a win over Florida State. Interim head coach Randy Shannon beat the Seminoles as a player and assistant at the University of Miami before going 2-2 against FSU as the head coach of the Hurricanes from 2007-10. Interim defensive coordinator Chris Rumph beat the Noles a handful of times as an assistant coach at Clemson under Tommy Bowden. Other than that, no one in Florida’s locker room Saturday has tasted victory over FSU.

Shannon understands the rivalry, and how it encompasses and swallows the whole state, seeping into classrooms and playing fields.

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“It’s a game that you have bragging rights,” Shannon said Monday. “A lot of players on this football team have high school teammates at Florida State. So, when you go home, it’s about bragging rights for an entire year. You go out to dinner, go to church, get to say you won. Not just one day, but a whole year.”

Florida has not had that chance to brag for a while. The Gators last beat FSU in 2012, and the Gators have been close only once since, suffering a narrow 24-19 loss in Tallahassee in 2014. The other games have been Seminole routs, won by the staggering combined margin of 95-22. In the past two seasons, Florida has failed to even register an offensive touchdown against FSU, relying on defense for nine of their measly 15 points.

The Gators will honor a small class of 15 seniors before the game, and for fifth-year seniors like Brandon Powell, who grew up in south Florida cheering for Bobby Bowden and the Seminoles, this is the last chance to change a winless and largely futile history against FSU.

“It’s the biggest rivalry,” Powell said Monday. “I grew up a Florida State fan. I have friends that play for Florida State. I don’t want to leave without winning it once.”

Beyond bragging rights and sending the seniors out with a win over FSU, there’s also the motivation to protect The Swamp.

In the history of Florida football, no opponent has ever won four consecutive games on Florida’s home field. That would change with a loss to FSU on Saturday.

That’s not lost on Florida safety Chauncey Gardner.

“The first step on the road to bringing the Gators back is always winning at home,” Gardner said Monday. “Doing it against FSU would be a big way to start.”

Then there are the ever-present recruiting implications.

Florida once led the series 22-6-1 but in the past 30 years FSU has won 19 of 32 meetings and tied one.

Certainly, recruiting is a national enterprise now, which means in-state rivalries are increasingly not referendums on “which program is better.” And history suggests that teams can recruit and build a program around losses in this rivalry. Bobby Bowden built FSU into a behemoth in the 1980s despite losing six straight to the Gators. Steve Spurrier never won in Tallahassee, but that didn’t prevent him from building Florida into a national power and winning a national championship in 1996.

But in a year where both programs have been dumpster fires, there’s a bill of goods to be sold and the winner gets the spoils of the narrative.

Future implications

Jimbo Fisher and FSU will already explain to recruits that this season was merely an aberration, a blip for the state’s best program this decade. A win over Florida helps sell that argument, and lets Fisher suggest that, even at FSU’s worst time in his tenure, his program is better than Florida’s.

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With a new coaching staff on the way, Florida can sell change. It would love to also argue that its future is brighter than FSU’s, as evidenced by its ability to beat the Seminoles with an interim staff and a half-full roster.

The national implications that made this rivalry famous in the ’90s are etched into memory, even if they seem distant Saturday.

But don’t tell the Gators and Noles it doesn’t matter.