Has the Toddfather made us Blue Blood status?

Some Ar-Kansas fans think they have a legit claim for bb blue blood status and are above UF. But if you look further, they haven’t done much since winning it in 92 or 93 (can't remember) season.

 

No disrespect France. I really like your posts but did you see the videos? The O”Dome was sold out to watch on a video screen and the streets of Gville were chaos in the best way afterwards.

Then the celebration…I’d say the fans are invested. Plus Condon just dropped a million bucks on the program today. Since 1980, we have won some kind of title in every single decade. That’s 45 years of winning and just as importantly with four different coaches in that time.

I think to say we are not a blue blood is recency bias in reverse.
I was born in 1965, add 45 years and yet get to 2010. A team in football or bball who had done what the Gator bball program has done would absolutely be called a blue blood in that time frame. Again, I think this is such a new concept to Gator fans that we are having a hard time collectively comprehending just what we are. If basketball isn’t a blue blood then football certainly isn’t but I believe they both are.

Oh and BTW, baseball IS TOO! Name another university in the country that can call themselves blue bloods in the big 3. There is not ONE. How sweet it is! Go Gata!

“Wes Chandler was Percy Harvin before Percy Harvin was born.”

 

I think Arkie has a case for blue blood status. UF, UK and maybe Arkie but no one else in the league can make the claim.

“Wes Chandler was Percy Harvin before Percy Harvin was born.”

 

I don’t necessarily think the term blue blood applies yet. I do however like the term Nouveau riche…after all it is the riche that counts.

 

People are taking the etymological roots of the term too seriously. Look at its usage for basketball as a guide. The first time it was ever used for college basketball was to refer to elite players. It later was used to refer to ranked teams (not historically good programs). The current usage of blue bloods didn’t really take hold until the 2000s.

By any measure blue bloods is a nebulous but dynamic list. It’s not static and there will always be some people that see UF as “new money” and won’t give us our proper due no matter what we do. I don’t really care if they call us blue bloods or something else. What we are is one of the five or six most dominant programs of the last forty years.

 

Between me and Walter Clayton There isn't a lot of credit left to go around.

 

You make good points. My measure though was "in good times and bad." In the last few years, we here have cooked up all kinds of schemes for how the UAA could juice attendance for ordinary games.

I hope you're right -- I hope that big crowds are the norm.

 

That was the Mike White effect, IMO. It made me not want to watch them on TV so I can understand not wanting to shell out a hundred bucks and three hours of your life.

 

Spurrier did more than just "win". He also made it FUN. For a very long time, we were content with Florida Field and Alligator Alley, modest venues that were built with modest expectations, filled with students and faculty, mainly. Some of y'all have no clue how "Small Town" Gainesville was. I lived there starting in 1966. NW 34th Terrace was living in the boondocks then. The world dropped off east past the University/Hawthorne Rd split and there was nothing until Palatka. Sports generated no massive budgets, no TV money. You don't build the cathedrals of modern sports worship and rely on the UF students and faculty to fill the seats. It's chicken/egg time, but Spurs created our winning-fun modern expectations and then the expansions of the venues began. People need to travel from many places to get to sleepy little Gainesville if those venues will get filled beyond students/faculty. Those that come far hope to win but also hope to be entertained in the process.

 

I'd like to think we just created our own elite moniker the Orange Blood by being the only school in the history of college football and basketball to win 3 national titles in each sport.

 

UF fans will never treat the football season as off-season. If it takes that to be a blue-blood in college basketball, then it will never happen.

 

Glad you brought this up.
CBD made basketball fun--REALLY FUN--in Gainesville and that was key to building the excitement and fan base. CMW bled fun gradually out of the program with his patented stalls to end the game. CTG reversed that quickly, putting up-tempo back on the game plan, generating points and putting asses in the seats. Now he's building on it and we're close to becoming a self-perpetuating juggernaut. Players want to be here and fans want to watch it. We might slip a little next season, but it's still gonna be a ton of fun.

 

UConn was the last. Duke has been relevant since Mike Gminski led them the national title game in 1978 and Coach K arrived in 1980. UConn had a much longer NCAA tournament history than UF, but didn't start becoming a basketball power until about the same time as the Gators did in the 1990's.

 

It was '94, the same year we went to the Final Four for the first time. Grant Hill's "Hand of God" flop kept us from playing Arkansas for that title.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/s/guZpbbWsBj