Thursday marked a special day in Florida Gators football history – the 10-year anniversary of “The Promise.”
After Florida fell 30-31 at home to Ole Miss, Tebow made an iconic pledge at the postgame press conference.
I just want to say one thing.
To the fans and everybody in Gator Nation, I’m sorry, extremely sorry.
I promise you one thing, a lot of good will come out of this.
You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season, and you will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season, and you will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season.
God bless.
Players of all sports regularly pledge to work harder after a loss. Tebow’s “Promise,” however, is remember for the fact he made it at the time Florida was 3-1 with a long season ahead. The Gators finished 13-1. A switch was seemingly flipped. UF not only won, but Urban Meyer’s squad started dominating SEC foes winning 38-7 over Arkansas, 51-21 over then-No. 4 LSU, 63-5 over Kentucky, 49-10 over then-No. 8 Georgia, 42-14 over Vanderbilt and 56-6 over South Carolina.
After “The Promise,” the Gators were simply unbeatable. Nick Saban’s Alabama dynasty had to wait a year as Tebow willed Florida to a 31-20 win in the SEC Championship Game over the Crimson Tide, who came into the game undefeated. Tebow’s “Promise” culminated in a 24-14 win over Oklahoma for the BCS title.
Both Tebow and the Gators marked the 10-year anniversary on Twitter.
Crazy it’s already been 10 years! That’ll make you feel old! #gogators #gatornation pic.twitter.com/IZb9WXah8E
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) September 27, 2018
10 years ago today, a promise was made. Later that season, the promise was kept.#GoGators pic.twitter.com/NtPn0xvjlv
— Florida Gators (@FloridaGators) September 28, 2018
10 years ago today… #ThePromise was made and the rest is history.
Story via @AschoffESPN: https://t.co/pmzQc4uM7R #GoGators pic.twitter.com/o3cHd6Pqee
— Gators Football (@GatorsFB) September 28, 2018
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
