It seemed harmless at the time, but UF's field goal with a victory already in hand against Miami on Saturday night has started a small war of words.
First, Miami coach Randy Shannon suggested the field goal with 25 seconds left and the Gators already up 20 points will aid the Hurricanes in recruiting in the future.
"Sometimes when you do things, and people see the type of person that you really are, you turn a lot of people off," Shannon told The Palm Beach Post. "I won't say more than that, but it helped us. It helped us more than you will ever know."
Shannon didn't say UF coach Urban Meyer's name, but Shannon said recruits called him after the game Saturday telling him they were coming to play for Miami after the way the Hurricanes played.
After practice on Monday, UF quarterback Tim Tebow fired a volley back at Shannon by vehemently defending his coach.
"The only part that really offended me is when he questioned coach Meyer," Tebow said. "I'll have coach Meyer's back on anything. To say something like that about coach Meyer isn't true at all. He's one of the best coaches in the game. That's why I came to the University of Florida."
Tebow was passionate and excited in his defense of Meyer, clearly upset at Shannon's implication.
"You can talk about running the score up, I don't care," Tebow said. "They're paid to stop us, and coach Meyer is paid to score. If they don't do that, oh well. But you don't have to talk about coach Meyer as a person and getting recruits and doing that stuff. That's not necessary."
Shannon also complained about calls that went against his team, but Meyer brushed off all of Shannon's comments.
"I've heard about field goal this, officials this," Meyer said. "Why don't we talk about the players who played a great, hard-nosed football game and start worrying about Florida?
"I learned a long time ago just coach your team, take care of yourself, and special teams, offense and defense occupy all our time. So, I'm good. You've got to move on."
Tebow continued to defend Meyer's character for nearly two minutes, making references to players' behavior off the field.
"What did coach Meyer do besides recruit good guys, try to keep guys out of jail, doing the right thing, trying to work guys into being better people on the field and off the field?" Tebow said. "We play with character strength on the field and off, and I don't think you usually see many cheap shots or anything wrong that we do."
The drive in question began on the Hurricanes' 16-yard line with 1:56 to play.
Instead of taking a few kneel-downs to end the game, UF came out firing, with Tebow still in. Tebow threw an incomplete pass into the end zone on the drive, and the Gators settled for a 29-yard field goal from kicker Jonathan Phillips.
The field goal was the first in Phillips' career. He missed his only attempt in 2007.
Phillips also dismissed the running-up-the-score theory.
"If you just think about it, I've never kicked a field goal in a game, we're going to Tennessee," Phillips said. "It definitely was something important that needed to be done before we got there, so I'm really glad I got that rep."
Even senior offensive lineman Jason Watkins thought Shannon overreacted.
"The way we're coached down here, you play 60 minutes," Watkins said. "You don't stop until it says 0:00 on the scoreboard. … We had time on the clock left, it's fourth down, you're in field goal situation, you kick it."
The 29-yard kick has certainly become an issue for UF, but Tebow does not expect his offense to hold back in the future because of this talk.
"We're going to be nice, we're going to shake your hands, we're going to do our act, be men, but we're not going to not try to score," Tebow said. "And I don't think that has anything to do with the type of person you are."
