The following is an updated version of a story we’ve published before—an account or an explanation for why the Gators disregard the initial time Georgia and Florida met on a gridiron.
For quite some time, there has been a discrepancy between the Georgia and Florida football programs regarding their series record. Whereas the Bulldogs declare they have a 53-43-2 all-time advantage, the Gators claim to only trail 43-52-2. The one meeting between the two schools in dispute was played in 1904 in Macon by a University of Florida squad, which evidently is not acknowledged by the school as a "true" Gators team.
Leading up to the 1906-07 academic year, the assets and academic programs of four separate institutions in the state of Florida, including the University of Florida in Lake City (formerly FAC), were consolidated to form what we know of today as the University of Florida in Gainesville. Still, the university claims it was established in 1853 when the first of the predecessor institutions was opened. However, the school does not recognize any football results prior to the school's move to Gainesville from Lake City in 1906.
This means the five Florida football teams from 1901 to 1905, all located in Lake City, are disregarded in the team's history.
Just prior to the 1903 football season, the school at Lake City began referring to itself as the "University of Florida," as did the media from that point going forward. That year, the Florida football team won one of three games. The next season, in 1904, the school recorded likely one of the worst campaigns in the history of Southern football, losing all five of its contests by a combined 225-to-0 score (that's no typo—and that's an average loss by a 45-to-0 score).
To illustrate how bad the 1904 University of Florida football team must have been, it was defeated by Georgia, 52-0, in the series' first game and the Red and Black's season opener. That Georgia squad, which absolutely routed Florida, would play five more games the rest of the year, losing all of them by a combined 68-to-16 score.
In 1905, featuring its “Fightin’ Florida” marching band, the Florida football team played just one game—a 6-0 victory over "Julian Landon" (whomever they, he, or she may have been). Upon the relocation to Gainesville the following year, the Gators finally began acknowledging their football history. Thus, what Georgia claims is the rivalry's second game—a 37-0 win over Florida in 1915—is what the Gators actually believe to be the first.
In 1941, Jacksonville’s Florida Times-Union identified the 1904 Georgia-Florida game, and not the 1915 contest, as “the No. 1 game in the famous series.”
In 1974, Tom McEwen, a Florida graduate and then-sports editor of the Tampa Tribune, wrote the book, The Gators: A Story of Florida Football. For years, McEwen's book was considered the "bible" of the school's football history. In the back pages, under "Florida's Past Scores," listed are the team's historical results and included are the games from, you guessed it, 1901 to 1905:
Also in the 1970s, Dr. William Rowlett, a respected physician and governmental leader in Tampa, was interviewed at the age of 91 prior to his death. Dr. Rowlett, who was captain of the 1904 University of Florida (Lake City) team, recalled, “We played in Alabama . . . Georgia, and we played Georgia Tech. I remember we were the first University of Florida team to play those schools, to travel so far.”
Indeed in 1904, Florida lost to Alabama, 29-0, and Georgia Tech, 77-0, and like Georgia, both the Crimson Tide and Yellow Jackets recognize the games in their records—but the University of Florida (at Gainesville) does not.
There's the suspicion that if the University of Florida football team, whether located in Lake City, Gainesville, or any other place for that matter, had achieved a better mark than its actual 3-9-1 record from 1901 to 1905, perhaps the results would be counted by the school, including the 1904 Georgia game. However, since it’s somewhat of a gray area and those early Florida teams were rather awful, the Gators have picked and chosen what to recognize, beginning in 1906 when Florida began a streak of 10 consecutive winning campaigns.
Furthermore, although the Florida players and coaches from the pre-Gainesville teams have long passed away, like Dr. Rowlett, I’m rather certain they would want their efforts (or lack thereof in their case) recognized. These men sweated and bled while playing under the “University of Florida” name, so their games should be counted by the school instead of merely dismissed.
“Oh, I remember some of the players [from the 1904 team],” Rowlett said, “like Ruey Cason, John Lykes, and the Bridges boys. It all meant a great deal to me.”
Unfortunately, it appears that the first Florida football teams don’t mean a great deal to the university.
Finally, it wasn't too terribly long ago when the Gators were enjoying a one-sided 18-3 run against Georgia from 1990 through 2010. It was during this time, Florida followers could often be quick to instruct Bulldog enthusiasts to “stop living in the past.”
Notwithstanding, apparently for University of Florida football, part of its own past actually never occurred.
