Florida Gators Championships

The Florida Gators play in the SEC and have won championships in recent years in both football and men’s basketball. For the Gators, winning the SEC championship is never enough, they want to win national titles and the program is held to high standards. Let’s take a look at the Florida Gators Championships and see how and when they happened.The Florida Gators won their first men’s basketball championship in the 2005-2006 season. That is the season that saw the basketball team get off to an impressive 17-0 record, which was the best start in the history of Gators’ basketball. The team entered the 2006 NCAA tournament a favorite to win it all, which they did with a 73 to 57 victory over the UCLA Bruins in the final game of the tournament.

It was no surprise that the Gators were ranked number 1 in all the preseason poll entering the 2006-2007 season. The number 1 preseason ranking was the first time the basketball team had been ranked that high before a start of a season. The Gators didn’t fail to live up to the hype, as they delivered a second straight national championship to the school. They won the NCAA tournament in 2007 by beating the Buckeyes of Ohio State 84 to 75. It was the first time a school had repeated as NCAA tournament champions since the Duke Blue Devils did it back in 1991-92. The Florida Gators were the first team to win back-to-back championships with the exact same starting five.

The Florida Gators have been playing college football in the NCAA since 1906. Since they first started playing football, the Gators have won a total of three national championships in football. They won in 1996, 2006 and also brought one home in 2008. Their 2007 championship came by defeating the same school that their basketball team would beat for the championship that year, the Ohio State Buckeyes, who they would demolish in the title game by a score of 41-14.

Just two years later they would return to the title game and beat the Oklahoma Sooners by a score of 24-14, much closer than their victory over Ohio State, but still a championship nonetheless. The team was led by Heisman winning quarterback Tim Tebow, who would go on to be a first round draft pick of the Denver Broncos.

Back in 1996 the Steve Spurrier coached Florida Gators would win their first ever football championship by winning the Sugar Bowl and going 12 and 1. That championship team was led by star quarterback Danny Wuerffel, who also won the Heisman trophy that year.

Florida Gators championships were celebrated not only by the school, but also were enjoyed by fans of the SEC conference. When the Gators won the NCAA basketball championship, it showed that the conference wasn’t just about football. The football championships just furthered the recent dominance of the SEC in college football.