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What makes Game Day at The Swamp a destination for every college football fan
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GAINESVILLE — During his storied tenure at the University of Florida in the 1990s, Steve Spurrier nicknamed Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field “The Swamp.”
“A Swamp is where Gators live. It’s hot. It’s sticky. Our players feel comfortable in The Swamp. Our opponents hopefully feel tentative. It’s a place where only Gators get out alive,” Spurrier said of Florida’s home field.
The name stuck, and under Spurrier, one of the greatest homefield advantages in all of college football was born.
Florida went 68-5 at home under Spurrier, helping the Gators capture 7 SEC championships (including 1990) and the 1996 national title under his stewardship. In fact, from 1990-2020, Florida posted the second-best home winning percentage in college football, trailing only Alabama.
While Florida’s home-field advantage has dropped from the Spurrier Golden Years, the venue remains one of the most intimidating and special environments not only in college football, but in all of sport.
What makes a game day in The Swamp so special? Why is a college football Saturday in Gainesville a bucket list item for any SEC football fan?
Gainesville, nestled in a forested area of a rolling plain in Florida’s horse country, is home to the University of Florida, the preeminent academic institution in the Sunshine State and one of the “New Ivys,” according to Forbes Magazine. The campus, dotted by royal palm and palmetto trees, towering pine trees and ancient live oaks wrapped in hanging Spanish moss, is picturesque, with gothic architecture and uniform brick buildings home to national merit scholars, cancer research centers, and a law school and medical school ranked among the finest in the country.
The University of Florida’s academic excellence spills over into athletics, where Florida has captured 48 national championships in all sports. That’s more than everybody else in the SEC.
Gainesville is passionate about Florida athletics in any sport, but there’s no better example of the city’s love affair with all things Gators than a Saturday Down South during college football season.
The party starts well before kickoff in the coveted RV lots on campus, where fans arrive and park as early as Thursday evening.
On game day, coveted tailgating spots along Lake Alice, a beautiful on-campus lake filled with local bird life and of course, alligators, are taken by mid-morning. If you are visiting, be sure to take a walk along the lake and soak in the campus scene. Florida’s fans offer old fashioned SEC hospitality and are quick to serve a warm plate to a visitor and offer a cold beverage.
Away from campus, the Swamp Restaurant is within walking distance of the tailgating scene and a Gainesville institution. Try the pulled pork sandwich and enjoy the views at a university where they redshirt Miss Americas. Closer to campus lies Salty Dog Saloon on University Avenue, known as “Salty” or “The Dog” to generations of UF students. The Dog has been the go-to spot since the Charley Pell era. It’s worth a stop as you make your way toward The Swamp for kickoff.
Gainesville is also one of the SEC’s best food cities, thanks in part to the diversity and size of the University of Florida student body. On game day, University Avenue is home to a host of food trucks serving anything from fresh Cuban food and locally sourced fish to artisanal, homemade ice cream.
If your belly is full and the bar scene isn’t your thing, University Avenue is closed to vehicle traffic on game day, and fans crowd the streets to watch the Gator Walk, a tradition started in the Urban Meyer era where the Gators players walk through a sea of fans and cheerleaders on their way into the stadium. If you make the trips with kids, make sure they snap a picture with Albert and Alberta, Florida’s beloved mascots who haven’t missed a Gator Walk since the tradition started in 2005.
After the Gator Walk ends, it’s time for the main event.
As 90,000 plus pack The Swamp, the buzz and bustle of game day blooms into a roaring cauldron of sound that make life difficult on any opponent.
“The sound in The Swamp, from the moment Florida runs out of the tunnel to the final whistle, is a spiritual experience,” according to Mike Foley, the Hugh Cunningham Professor in Journalism Excellence at the University of Florida’s award-winning College of Journalism.
Adding to the mystique, The Swamp was actually built on a Swamp, which the university drained in 1930 to make room for Florida Field. The field is now named for Steve Spurrier, the man who gave the stadium its nickname and the program its first national championship.
Aside from the crowd noise, there’s the matter of the heat.
Temperatures soar into the low 90s well into October, a true test of any conditioning program. The air is humid and thick. When Florida is right and a big play comes to life, the stadium can feel like a living and breathing thing, shaking with anticipation and bracing as the noise escalates. The Swamp’s noise has registered as an earthquake on multiple occasions, including this game-sealing pick-six of Joe Burrow by Brad Stewart, back in a 2018 win over LSU.
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Florida fans haven’t had a championship to celebrate since 2008, when Tim Tebow helped the Gators fulfill the promise, but they continue to fill The Swamp.
At the end of the third quarter, as they have done for over 50 years, Florida fans lock arms and sing “We are the Boys of Old Florida,” a university standard that features the phrase, “In All Kinds of Weather, We All Stick Together, for F-L-O-R-I-D-A.”
“We are the Boys is the true testament to how the University of Florida is a family,” Urban Meyer said of the song in 2009. “If you want goosebumps at a college football game, go watch 90,000 fans swing and sway to ‘We are the Boys.'”
After Gainesville’s native son and lifelong Gator fan Tom Petty passed away in October 2017, Florida began a new tradition, singing Petty’s rock anthem “I Won’t Back Down” following the singing of “We are the Boys.”
It’s a sight to see on any Saturday, but if you are fortunate enough to see The Swamp come together to sing “I Won’t Back Down” at a night game, you’ll get a stadium lit only by cell phones and LED lights rocking out to a made for the fourth quarter anthem by a local legend.
It adds local flavor to the the family affair that is Florida football, and it’s a reminder that no matter how long it takes the Gators to rebuild, the fans in The Swamp will never back down.
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.
