One of the nicer things about the offseason is the abundance of time to catch up, investigate, ponder, relax the intense focus of the moment for a more long-term perspective, to figure out what that rotting smell behind the drywall might be, and if it's what we think it is, to process it in a vat of quicklime for several weeks until it miraculously goes away in a river. Yes? What?
Oh, yes. History. One of our favorite moments in pre-1990 Florida football centers on "The Gator Flop," or as it is also known, "the Florida Flop," or as Miami fans old and devoted enough to remember it (all eight of them) may call it, "The Shitbag Play." With 1:10 left in the fourth quarter and Florida ahead by a score of 45-8, Miami was looking for a late dignity score, or failing that, a chance at running the clock out and going home with what remained of their dignity intact.
Instead, Florida's defenders flopped to allow a Miami score. This gave the Gators the ball back in time to allow quarterback John Reaves to break the NCAA passing record. It looked like this (Click for big):
What is rivalry, you ask? The answer, in one of its variations, is going fetal to allow an easy TD to break a statistical record. We knew this was funny, but the posture of the players makes it far, far more humorous than we could have imagined. Gatorsports has a whole thread on the thing where there's another photo and a guest appearance from the real Carlos Alvarez, the greatest Florida receiver of all time and a participant in the game who feels zero shame about the Flop, proving that Florida football, even when it was not a national power, was shameless from the start. (And gloriously so.)