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31 years: How the world was and how it has changed during Florida’s winning streak over Kentucky
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Florida’s 31-game winning streak over Kentucky isn’t just the longest winning streak in SEC history for one school over another, it’s also the longest active NCAA football winning streak for one school over another opponent.
At present, Florida’s run is tied for the fourth-longest streak in NCAA history, and with a win Saturday night in The Swamp, the Gators would move into a tie for third on the all-time list. Notre Dame’s 43 game win streak over Navy, snapped by the Midshipman in 2007, remains a long way off, but Florida has to believe it has a chance at getting close to that record given the reality that the Gators have managed to extend the streak to 31 despite fielding some teams that performed well-below the program standard in recent years.
Last year’s 28-27 escape at an electric Kroger Field was perhaps the most miraculous for Florida, as the Gators overcame a 13-point fourth quarter deficit and scored the winning touchdown when, mystifyingly, Kentucky forgot to cover a Florida wide receiver on the goal line.
The streak floats like a specter over every meeting between the two schools, and affects each side differently.
Before last year’s game, Mark Stoops told the media that he “took (the streak) personally” and “believed (his) players did too.”
“I care about the history even if I wasn’t here for it,” Stoops said last year. “The past is important. It’s part of what motivates you every day to get up and do the best job you can.”
This year, Stoops is singing a different tune.
Asked about the inevitable question about the streak at his Monday press conference this week, Stoops offered a defiant statement about how he and his team can only focus on the present.
“(Florida) is next on the schedule, and that’s truthfully all it is about. These guys cannot worry about 30-some years and all that. They really can’t. Winning is important to our team each and every week, and that’s the approach we’ll have.”
Color me skeptical.
It’s simply too difficult to ignore a streak of that length.
Florida, for its part, acknowledges the streak is motivating. No one wants to be a part of the team that snaps the streak, Dan Mullen said Monday.
“I imagine someday the streak will be broken,” Mullen told the media. “That’s the nature of sports. I don’t want to be the one who does it.”
Whatever approach the two sides take to the streak, 31 years is a staggering number.
Here are some fun facts about the world from November 1986, the last time Kentucky defeated Florida in football, and what has happened since.
Halley’s Comet had just passed the Earth
According to NASA, this is the only “known short-period comet in the solar system visible from Earth with the naked eye.”
It passed nearest Earth in February of 1986, and will return in 2061, at which point, Florida’s win streak could be at 75.
This play by Bill Buckner occurred less than a month earlier
… allowing the New York Metropolitans to win the World Series.
The Mets haven’t won the Series since. The Boston Red Sox, who hadn’t won a World Series since 1918 when that played occurred, have won three World Championships during the streak.
Florida had never won the SEC or been to the NCAA Tournament in basketball
The Gators would make their first NCAA tournament appearance five months after Kentucky’s 10-3 victory in Lexington in 1986.
Florida has built a national power in basketball during the streak, giving blue blood Kentucky a new rival in SEC basketball in the process. During the streak, the Gators have won 7 SEC Basketball Championships, advanced to nine Elite Eights, five Final Fours and captured two national championships.
The architect of much of Florida’s rise to basketball prominence?
That would be Billy Donovan, who in 1986 was a point guard at little Providence College, playing for an up and coming coach named Rick Pitino. Donovan and Pitino would lead the Friars to the Final Four that March.
Kentucky has, as always, been brilliant on the hardwood too, winning three of its eight national championships during the streak.
Florida had not won a SEC football championship either
At least one that counted. The Gators finished first in the SEC in 1984, 1985 and 1990, and by UCF metrics, were the 1984 National Champions.
But probation and a league-wide vote stripped the Gators of all three league championships, and the Gators wouldn’t win an officially recognized SEC title until 1991, which they clinched by defeating (who else …) Kentucky.
President Reagan had not yet told Mr. Gorbachev to “Tear Down this Wall!”
The famous speech delivered by Ronald Reagan in West Berlin didn’t occur until June of the following summer. Controversial at the time, the speech is widely credited by historians as setting the terms for which Gorbachev, Reagan and later George H.W. Bush would negotiate the end of the Cold War.
Penn State won its last national championship under Joe Paterno
Heavily-favored Miami famously wore Army fatigues both on the plane ride to Phoenix and at its Fiesta Bowl dinner with Penn State ahead of the game, a stark contrast to the coats, ties and crewcuts wore by Paterno’s Nittany Lions.
The Canes lost, when Vinny Testaverde was intercepted at the goal line late in the game, and Penn State captured its final national championship under Paterno.
Miami’s legacy is in many ways larger than life anyway. The 1986 Hurricanes invented swag, pioneers of an in-your-face, brash, players-first brand of football that went out of its way to register style points and humiliate the opponent. The team was a critical piece of inspiration for Billy Corben’s wonderful documentary “The U” and was voted by Sports Illustrated in 2010 to be the most-hated sports team of all time.
The top movies were …
Top Gun, Platoon and Crocodile Dundee, and the average gallon of gas was 90 cents.
Other fun figures?
Average income was $22,400, average rent was $385.00 and the hot tech items were the Nintendo ($100 with Super Mario Bros. and the Casio Portable Color Television ($250).
Nintendo also released “The Legend of Zelda,” which has seen 19 editions released in the United States during the streak.
FROM KENTUCKY: Why this is the year (finally) that the streak ends
Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
