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The Florida Gators football team, of the Southeastern Conference, was the 2008 national champion. The Florida Gators are well-known to all sports fanatics and the stadium they play in, the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is known as one of the hardest places for the competition to play. With Urban Meyer as the head coach and with Tim Tebow, a Heisman Winner, the team can definitely fight its way to the top next year and another championship win wouldn’t be far out of reach. In 2008, the University of Florida Gators beat the Oklahoma Sooners at the Orange Bowl to capture their second championship in three years.

With the great leadership shown by Urban Meyer I believe that a win is in the cards for the school, especially if they start the season strong. They have an excellent coach and they have a lot of returning players as well as some guys who have signed up with the team that were specifically recruited. This coming fall, the Gators have the potential to win it all again with Tim Tebow throwing for them again.

Along with its returning stars, Florida has the nationally 10th ranked recruiting class to help secure its chances at another championship run. With star underclassman Percy Harvin going to the NFL draft, Coach Meyer landed five-star receiver Andre Debose from Sanford, Fl. Debose will have an immediate impact and the loss of Harvin won’t be as painful. “He’s as good as there is,” Meyer said. “I think he’s the best player in America. You watch him on film, for what we do, for our style of offense, for what we need right now with the departure of Percy Harvin … that’s a crucial element. We’re not going to change our offense.”

Andre Debose isn’t the only attention grabber the Gators roped in this year. They brought in the highest rated outside linebacker and 10th overall prospect with Jelani Jenkins of Olney, Md, who runs a 4.4 40 yard dash and also has a 4.0 grade point average which will help ensure he won’t be academically ineligible. Jenkins will more than likely be a captain before long. They also brought in the nationally ranked 2nd best defensive tackle with Gary Brown from Greensboro, Fl, who accrued more than 40 sacks over his final two seasons at West Gadsden High. As if Florida hadn’t beefed up their defense enough with these two, they got Jon Bostic from Wellington, Fl, the nationally ranked 5th best inside linebacker and the son of former Detroit Lions defensive back Jon Bostic Sr. However, with the return of star senior middle linebacker Brandon Spikes, Bostic likely won’t get much playing time right away.

Despite losing a pair of commitments, receiver Nu’Keese Richardson and cornerback Marsalis Teague, to SEC East rival Tennessee, Florida is looking good. With a retention that shows all 11 starters on defense and seven starters on offense, including quarterback Tim Tebow and linebacker Brandon Spikes returning for their senior seasons, the Gators have the best chance at being National Champions in 2009.

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The Swamp is known as one of the loudest stadiums in college football, and all sports for the matter. The Swamp, legally known as Ben Hill Griffin stadium is home to the Florida Gators, who in recent years have become a national powerhouse in the college football world. They have become arguably the most dominant college football team over the last 15 years and are perennial national champion favorites.

Florida was a respectable team from its early beginnings in 1906; however they never gained the national respect that the school from Gainesville had craved since their entrance into the Southeastern conference in 1932. However, that all changed in 1990 when the team hired former Heisman Trophy quarterback and alumnus Steve Spurrier to lead the team to the dominance they have craved.

Little did Florida know the monster they created when they hired the visor-launching Spurrier to take over their program. Spurrier turned the program into one of the most successful and feared program in the nation. In fact, since 1990 the team is the most winningest program in all of college football, an outstanding feat considering the amount of talent and parity in college football during this time frame.

It did not take long for Florida to improve their status as a great football team winning a conference championship in 1991, a trend that would continue for the foreseeable future. Florida played in the inaugural SEC Championship game in 1992; however they would lose to eventual national champion Alabama in that game. However, the conference and nation had been put on notice that the Gators were here to stay in the country’s elite teams.

From 1993 to 1996 the team played in all the SEC Championship games and they won all of them claiming four straight conference titles, which is a feat that has not been repeated to this day by any team in the SEC. These four years are considered by some experts as the most successful of any college football program in the past 25 years. The team not only won conference titles but also did so in a dominating fashion.

These dominant years culminated with the school’s first National Championship in 1996, being led by the nation’s number one offense anchored by Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel. The team won the National Championship by easily defeating Florida State, who had beaten them previously in the season, however they were able to avenge that loss by beating their in-state rivals 52-20 in the Sugar Bowl. The team would play well and would win two more conference championships before Spurrier resigned in 2001 to follow his dream to coach in the NFL.

Following the unexpected exit of Spurrier the team replaced him with NFL assistant coach Ron Zook, who would bring the program back to the mediocrity that they experienced before Spurrier took the helm. Zook would only last three years and was fired during the 2004 season and the school looked to be heading for a freefall that no one could help them recover from.

However, Athletic Director Jeremy Foley would hire Urban Meyer to take over the program and the team has returned and even surpassed the success they had in the 90′s. Urban Meyer who has coached the team since 2005 has led the team to two national championships in just four years and the team has returned to the top of the football landscape and look poised to continue their dominance for years to come.

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Despite four of the Florida Gators, Walter Hodges (16), Alex Tyus (15), Nick Calathes (12), and Chandler Parsons (12) scoring in the double digits, The Gators fell in a February 24th contest at Pete Maravich Assembly Center 81-75 to guarantee Louisiana State University at least a share in the Southeastern Conference championships.

It’s been a great year for Trent Johnson who took over a team that had recorded consecutive losing seasons.

“I’m so happy for these guys, you have no idea,” Johnson said. “I don’t believe in all that destiny stuff. This is a good basketball team. The thing I really appreciate about these guys is they speak from the heart and they have a sense of security.”

Florida hasn’t had a bad year. Overall they show a 21-7 standing and 8-5 in the conference, and stood in a three way tie with South Carolina and Kentucky for first place in the SEC East.

The Gators played well in this game, too, shooting for 50 percent in the first half and keeping the score close for most of the game.

At the end of the first half, Nick Calathes went on a 12-2 run with 4 minutes left. The Gators went into halftime with a 41-37 lead.

“Florida’s a team that’s really good in transition,” LSU’s coach Trent Johnson said. “We’ll put a premium on taking care of the ball. They are playing very well, coming off two very good victories.”

Midway through the second half, with LSU trailing 56-53, the Tigers began a 14-2 run of their own that put them back on top.

“We could never really get over the hump,” Coach Billy Donovan said.

Florida tied the game at 58-58 on a lay up by Tybus, but with 10:18 on the clock Tasmin Mitchell took back the lead from the charity line.

Ray Shipman and Erving Walker both made valiant attempts from beyond the arc, closing the gap within three points (67-64), with 4:45 left in the game.

LSU countered with four straight points.

Calathes grabbed seven rebounds and led the team with six assists. Don Werner and Alex Tyus both snagged 6 rebounds.

But it wasn’t enough.

“We didn’t execute our offense well toward the end,” freshman point guard Erving Walker said. “I don’t think we were tired. They just outplayed us toward the end.”

Marcus Thornton led LSU with 32 points,-15 within the first half. He scored 10 of 11 from the foul line, including 10 in a row at the end of the game, and hit six of 11 in three pointers.

“Winning is always fun,” Thornton said. “Last year, we didn’t have the season like we wanted to have. Nobody but the guys in this locker room thought we could have a season like this.”

“I think we were playing against the best team in the league right now with a whole bunch of seniors,” Donovan said. “Our guys did pretty well to be honest with you. We had some plays that we could have made, but we just didn’t.”

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