With the decade coming to a close, five of our writers picked out their favorite UF sports moments of the decade across a handful of sports. Here are our selections:
Brad Stewart’s Pick Six against LSU (2018)
A change in possession signaled a change in fortune for the Florida Gators football team.
The 2018 Gators were fresh off a 4-7 season in 2017-- their worst since 2013 -- and were led by first-year head coach Dan Mullen as UF entered its annual SEC bout with LSU on Oct. 6 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
The Tigers were headed by coach Ed Orgeron and a transfer quarterback in Joe Burrow.
While Burrow did not register numbers anywhere close to his 2019 Heisman-winning campaign, he had played solid football for the Tigers and had yet to throw an interception on the season.
UF (4-1) was No. 22 entering the matchup in the midst of its bounce-back season under Mullen, while No. 5 LSU (5-0) came in to establish itself as a College Football Playoff contender.
The dramatic match between the two rivals created a concoction of high-stakes, back-and-forth football that had the Gators leading 20-19 with 1:54 left in the game.
Burrow and the Tigers were at their own 18-yard line, only needing a field goal to defeat the Gators for the second-straight year.
LSU’s chances of a comeback victory were taken away as soon as they came.
Safety Brad Stewart Jr. cut ahead of a Burrow throw outside of the right hash-marks and dashed down the far sideline for a pick six, increasing Florida’s lead to 27-19.
It was Burrow’s first interception of the season, along with arguably Florida’s largest momentum swing of the 2010s.
UF earned Mullen’s first signature win as head coach and propelled itself to a 10-3 season capped off with a Peach Bowl victory, Florida’s first New Year’s Six bowl win of the decade.
UF’s return to relevance fed a famished fanbase that was desperate for a contender after a decade that didn’t adhere to what is popularly known as the “Gator Standard.”
And it all started with Stewart Jr.’s decade-defining play in the fall of 2018.
@dylanoshea24
doshea@alligator.org
Chris Chiozza Buzzer Beater against Wisconsin in the Elite Eight (2017)
“Chiozza, oh my goodness!” Those were the words of legendary broadcaster Verne Lundquist after Chris Chiozza’s buzzer beater against Wisconsin in the Sweet 16 of the 2017 NCAA Tournament that send Florida to their fifth Elite Eight in seven years.
I was a junior in high school when that shot from Chiozza went in. I had been a lifelong Gator fan and for many Gator fans like myself, the 2016-17 season felt like a renaissance, a return to the glory days. After three straight appearances in the Elite Eight from 2011-13 and a Final Four appearance in 2014, the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons were disappointments for Florida. In 2015, it finished 16-17 and didn’t play in a postseason tournament for the first time in 17 years. After the season, longtime coach Billy Donovan left to coach the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder. The 2015-2016 season was Mike White’s first at UF, and the Gators finished 21-15 and lost in the quarterfinals of the NIT.
Florida had a breakout season in 2016-17, though. Led by upperclassmen Kasey Hill and Chiozza, along with sophomores Kevarrius Hayes and KeVaughn Allen, Florida finished the regular season 24-7, with a 14-4 record in SEC play. The highlight of the season was a primetime, nationally televised 88-66 win against No. 8 Kentucky at the O’Connell Center.
The NCAA Tournament began with Florida as a No. 4 seed in the East Region. After beating East Tennessee State and Virginia, it entered Madison Square Garden for its Sweet 16 matchup with eighth-seeded Wisconsin. After a hotly contested two halves, the game headed into overtime after Zak Showalter’s three tied the game with three seconds left. Two free throws from Badgers forward Nigel Hayes put them ahead 83-81 with four seconds remaining in overtime. With no timeouts left, Chiozza ran the ball up and, just short of the three-point line, put it up and etched his name in Florida basketball history as the ball fell through the net.
@noah_ram1
nram@alligator.org
Gators baseball wins first national title against LSU (2017)
Florida’s baseball team was one of the school’s most consistent teams throughout the decade. The team made the NCAA Tournament every year and advanced to the College World Series seven times.
However, heading into the 2017 season, manager Kevin O’Sullivan’s team had never won a national championship. The closest the Gators ever came to winning it all was in 2011, when Florida lost to South Carolina in the national championship series.
But 2017 was different.
With a loaded rotation of three future first-round picks in Alex Faedo, Brady Singer and Jackson Kowar, the Gators won over 50 games and were ranked third in the country heading into the tournament.
After progressing through regionals and defeating Wake Forest in super regionals, Florida was back in the College World Series for the 11th time in school history. In Omaha, the Gators returned to the championship series to face LSU after three wins in four games against Louisville and TCU.
The Gators won Game 1 by a score of 4-3 after Singer struck out 12 batters in seven innings and Florida scored three runs in the fourth inning.
But for Game 2, the Gators had to turn to freshman Tyler Dyson, whose only other start that season was against Louisville. However, the freshman only allowed a run in six innings, and UF scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth to win 6-1 and finally capture the school’s first national championship.
Seeing one of the school’s best programs finally win its first national championship makes it not just a notable moment, but one of UF athletics’ most defining moments of the decade.
@Bfarrell727
bfarrell@alligator.org
Gymnastics completes three-peat (2015)
If three is a crowd, the Florida gymnastics team are the school’s biggest extroverts.
In 2015, the Gators went to Fort Worth, Texas, to compete in the Super Six. When it ended, UF emerged as champions, but the win held a bit more weight than that of the trophy.
Because it was Florida that won it the year before, and the year before that, too.
To win any college title carries a great deal of prestige, but with the win in 2015, then-coach Rhonda Faehn established the Gators as a gymnastics dynasty.
The meet itself saw UF locked in a close duel with Utah, which hoped to nab its 10th gymnastics title. By the time the Utes and Gators headed into the final rotation, Florida only led Utah by 0.15.
Gymnasts Bridget Sloan and Alex McMurtry would make sure the lead stuck.
Both gymnasts got 9.95s on their floor routines. It was enough, and the Gators would beat out Utah 197.85-197.90 to bring the title to Gainesville once again.
With the victory, the gymnastics team would be the second UF team to three-peat, following the men’s indoor track and field team which accomplished the feat from 2010-12.
After the win, Faehn would step down as head coach to become the senior vice president of USA Gymnastics. The Gators would then hire current coach Jenny Rowland, who would lead Florida to three Super Six bids in a row from 2016-18 and keep the program in the national conversation.
@riverhwells
rwells@alligator.org
Chandler Parsons’ Buzzer-Beater against NC State (2010)
My Gators sports moment of the decade cemented my Florida fandom: Chandler Parsons’ OT 75-foot buzzer beater against NC State in 2010.
It’s moments like this that make sports worth watching -- and worth writing about. We’re drawn to sports because they mirror life. There’s no reflection more accurate than the euphoria of a buzzer beater. The last ditch effort of tossing the ball up, knowing it couldn’t possibly fall through the net; The “reach school” application you submitted, knowing you couldn’t possibly get in. But then, it does. But then, you do.
As the daughter of a life-long Gator fan, I craved a UF sports memory of my own. While I vaguely remember Florida’s dominance during the late 2000s, back then I typically paid more attention to my dad’s reaction to the TV than the events transpiring on screen.
But then I was two months shy of turning nine. Parsons was my favorite basketball player. He repped the number 25, which my dad wore in high school, and I wore when I played any sport that required a jersey.
Yes, the nostalgia is real.
Down by two with 2.6 seconds remaining, Parsons rebounded a missed free throw, dribbled twice and threw it up. 0.9 seconds on the clock. Buzzer. Splash. Gators win, 62-61.
I probably jumped up as high as the Florida bench after that shot went in. I ran around the house like mad woman (or more accurately: child).
Absolutely clutch and absolutely unforgettable.
@petitus25
ptitus@alligator.org
