Florida State 23 – Florida 17 (January 1, 1995)
The Fifth Quarter in the French Quarter
Mercifully this is the only other loss on the list which I attended in person, so you can’t say that I’m bad luck for my Gators. The 1995 Sugar Bowl was the first of two Florida / Florida State “rematches” in New Orleans. The second one was a glorious 52-20 victory for Florida which earned them their first national championship. But the first one — called “Overtime” by the press — was a painful loss in what should have been a redemption game.
Five weeks earlier, on Thanksgiving weekend, Florida State somehow managed to score 28 fourth quarter points to eke out a tie in Tallahassee. The Sugar Bowl rematch was one of the most-anticipated college football games of the decade, and it lived up to the hype. FSU scored the first touchdown on a trick play, a 73-yard Warrick Dunn halfback pass to Omar Ellison, to put them up 10-3. Although the Gators would execute an 82-yard TD pass, the longest in Sugar Bowl history, later in the second quarter, another FSU score and a last-second field goal had the Seminoles ahead 20-10 at halftime.
The second half was a defensive grind and the Gators could never really get going. This game, like the Auburn debacle, ended on a late, back-breaking Danny Wuerffel interception — this one by FSU’s soon-to-be NFL star Derrick Brooks. We were supposed to win this game, to avenge the humiliation of “The Choke at Doak”, so it hurt even more than the shocker to the Tigers.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
RE: “Losing Sucks”………………..yeah, but it builds character
I keep thinking that if I don’t think about it or read about it…then maybe it will feel like it did not happen….it didn’t happen…..only thinking about the 22 in a row…..the feeling all season that we were #1 and could take it all again……but like you said, we were raised Red Sox fans…..and while “losing sucks”….to some degree…….we are used to disappointment……………..man………that sucked.
Good list but I would have included the Sugar Bowl against Notre Dame in 1992. We had no answer for “The Bus” at all.
Yikes!!!!! I am sure the Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee fans would love to read this. I would rather forget these as well as the losses we had to Georgia in the 1980′s. GOOOOOO GATORS!
Yeah I remember watching that game in January 1996 playing our first national championship game against Nebraska. Out of the times that we’ve lost, I’m not sure I felt more pain in defeat than I did that night. Yeah we’ve had our butts kicked before but, not as thouroughly as that evening. It hurts to watch your team just get run over. I was in the 8th grade and I wanted to sit and support my boys till the end but my dad said I had to go to bed for school the next morning lol.