Florida and LSU renew their annual rivalry Saturday night in The Swamp (7 pm, ESPN). While the series has only recently become a “rivalry,” it has long delivered memorable games and high-profile matchups. With both programs sitting at 4-2 in their first season under new coaching staffs, Saturday night’s game in Gainesville has all the makings of another classic.

Before they face off, here are 10 things every fan must know about the LSU vs. Florida rivalry.

10. It’s extremely even

LSU has played Florida 68 times, and the Gators have the all-time series edge, but only by 1 game, 33-32-3. Florida has the longest win streak the series, a 9-game stretch from 1988-1996, but LSU has won the past 3 meetings and 7 of the past 10.

The programs are also historically comparable.

LSU claims 4 national championships to Florida’s 3 titles.

LSU has won 12 SEC titles to Florida’s 8 claimed SEC titles (Florida does not claim the 1984 SEC title, which they won but later had stripped by the SEC).

Since the league split to divisions in 1992, Florida has won 15 East division titles to LSU’s 9 West titles. Florida has 3 Heisman winners to LSU’s 2 trophies. Bottom line? There are very few marquee series in the sport as balanced as the Florida and LSU game.

9. The rivalry happened more or less by accident, with a push from the SEC office

The Gators and Tigers are charter members of the SEC, joining the league at its inception in 1932. They didn’t meet on the football field until 1937, though, and the programs did not begin to play annually until 1971. In fact, by the time the SEC fully integrated, in the 1972 season, LSU and Florida had played just 18 times.

The rivalry aspect of the game is a recent development, but it isn’t exactly an “organic” one. The SEC office and legendary league commissioner Roy Kramer deserve an assist in creating the rivalry. In 1992, when the SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina and went to divisional play, Kramer and many university presidents and athletic directors wanted to preserve as many traditional SEC rivalry games as possible.

The largest impediment to that plan was Auburn, which the SEC sent to the West Division when the league broke into 2 divisions. The issue: Auburn had one of college football’s oldest rivalries with Georgia but also a rivalry with Florida.

Given the league planned only 1 permanent crossover opponent, however, the SEC faced a tough choice: Which Auburn crossover rivalry would it preserve? After heated and lengthy deliberations, Kramer and the SEC chose to preserve the Auburn-Georgia rivalry. The Gators and LSU, left without historical cross-divisional rivals in the new SEC, were assigned each other, and became annual crossover opponents in 1992. The rest, as they say, has been history.

8. A close game is a frequent occurrence

Since 2010, 9 of their meetings have been decided by one possession.

That included Florida’s goal-line stand on the final play in 2016,  which helped the Gators win the SEC East.

Only 1 of the past 5 games was decided by more than a possession, and that game was a thrilling 42-28 LSU win at night in Baton Rouge that ended up being the 2nd-closest game LSU played on their way to the program’s 4th national championship in 2019.

7. Upsets are so common they are almost expected

One reason the LSU-Florida rivalry has become so compelling is that you can and should expect the unexpected. In just the past 5 seasons, the lower-ranked team or underdog has won 4 of 5 games.

Over the past 10 years, the underdog has won 7 of 10 games!

Go back further, and upsets were common. LSU upset No. 1 Florida in Baton Rouge in 1997, for example, and the Gators beat eventual Nick Saban’s national champion LSU 19-7 in Baton Rouge in 2003. This isn’t a game where the favorite excels, and for that reason, it’s become one of college football’s more unpredictable annual meetings.

6. The game tends to impact the national picture

In 18 of the past 25 meetings, both schools have entered the game ranked in the Top 25. (Oddly, neither will be ranked Saturday, just the 3rd time in the past 38 meetings that has happened. And the previous 2 times in happened? They each won a game by 3.)

Among current annual SEC matchups, only LSU-Alabama and Florida-Georgia have met as ranked foes more often. The game has also involved the eventual national champion on 4 occasions in that span, and 5 times dating to 1996.

5. The co-hosts of NFL Live are a part of the Florida-LSU rivalry

NFL Live co-hosts (and SEC Network alums) Marcus Spears and Laura Rutledge are graduates of LSU and Florida, respectively. The two are great friends, but while they share a stage on NFL Live, one of ESPN’s most popular shows, they don’t share an affinity for Florida or LSU. Will a friendly wager be a possibility this weekend? Stay tuned to SEC Nation and ESPN Live this week to find out.

4. The rivalry also extends to space — or at least to NASA

Both LSU and Florida have terrific colleges of engineering, and the proximity of LSU to Houston and UF to Cape Canaveral have made them feeding schools to the US space program. Currently, NASA’s chief engineer is Michael Ryschkewitsch, a graduate of the University of Florida. One of his chief lieutenants? Renee Horton, an LSU alumna who is designing the rocket that NASA hopes will eventually take a human being to Mars.

3. Somehow, they have never met in the SEC Championship

A future SEC Championship meeting seems inevitable between two schools that have appeared in 19 SEC Championship games combined. The Gators have won 7 and LSU 5, but they’ve never met each other in any SEC Championship game. The league has seen rematches over the years, including Florida-Auburn, Auburn-Gerogia and Florida-Alabama, but never the Gators and Tigers.

2. Nick Saban’s worst SEC loss came in a Florida-LSU game

In 2001, No. 2 Florida walloped No. 18 LSU 44-15 in Baton Rouge. Rex Grossman, who would finish 2nd in the Heisman voting at the end of the season, torched the Tigers for over 350 yards and 5 touchdowns. The 29-point loss remains Saban’s worst-ever defeat in SEC play, though it is not Florida’s largest’s win in Baton Rouge. That came in 1993, when Spurrier routed LSU 58-3.

The 2001 game meant more to Spurrier, though. A younger, brasher Saban told the press that Spurrier’s “offense wasn’t especially complicated or difficult to stop if you play assignment football.” Spurrier, who has the memory of an elephant, didn’t forget, and the Gators produced nearly 600 yards of offense and 44 points, in the win in front of a nationally televised audience in Death Valley.

1. All 5 of LSU and Florida’s Heisman winners have played well in the game

The LSU-Florida rivalry has been a proving ground for Heisman winners, from Billy Cannon, who starred in LSU’s 9-0 win over the Gators in 1959, to Joe Burrow, who outdueled Kyle Trask in the 2019 game. No Heisman winner from Florida or LSU had a bad day in this game during their Heisman-winning season.

Cannon led the 1959 game in total yardage.

Steve Spurrier threw for 2 touchdowns and guided the Gators to a comfortable 28-7 win over LSU in 1966.

Danny Wuerffel, the 1996 Heisman winner, threw for 5 touchdowns in helping the Gators rout LSU 56-13 in The Swamp that season.

Tim Tebow produced all of Florida’s touchdowns and clapped back at LSU fans that had dialed his cell phone number at all hours of the night in 2007, helping the Gators lead No. 1 LSU 24-21 late. The Tigers would famously convert 5 4th downs to hang on and win 28-24, but Tebow’s performance in defeat stuck with Heisman voters — and earned the respect of LSU fans — in the process.

Finally, Joe Burrow produced 336 total yards of offense and 3 touchdowns, with only 3 incompletions, in LSU’s 42-28 victory over the Gators in 2019.

In other words, the best players shine brightest in the LSU-Florida rivalry.