You’ve probably heard the saying “it just means more in the SEC” at least once or twice in the past several years of watching football.
This means, among other things, that the fanbases for each school are hellbent on talking as much trash as humanly possible.
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It doesn’t matter if it’s at the stadium, in the parking lot, or online, all of these schools hate each other and if they don’t have a natural animus towards one another, they’ll manufacture one.
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That doesn’t seem to be the case for one of the more marquee matchups coming down the pike this weekend, though.
The top-five Ole Miss Rebels will travel to Gainesville, Florida, to take on the 21st-ranked Gators, and with so much at stake at such an early point in the season, you would expect both teams and fanbases to be at each other’s throats, but it’s been anything but toxic.
That’s right, folks, we have ourselves a good old-fashioned “respect off” brewing between the Gators and Rebels.
It all started on Monday, when Florida head coach Jon Sumrall was informed at his press conference that the Gators were favored by 3.5 points on Saturday.
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His response: “There’s a lot of good drugs out there.”
A coach being respectful toward his opponent is nothing out of the ordinary, but Sumrall’s goodwill must have trickled down to the fans of both school, because social media turned into a Kumbaya session this whole week.
Look at all that love being spread! They even have a hashtag for it all, #RespectOff!
This is in stark contrast to the vibes from the previous week for both teams.
Ole Miss clearly had an axe to grind against LSU, what with them stealing their old coach and all, and Florida and Auburn, as I documented last week, had a century-old rivalry they needed to revive on social media.
I guess the Gators and Rebels really don’t have a lot to be mad at each other about.
Sure, Florida also took a run at Lane Kiffin last fall, and Ole Miss is the team who sparked the now-famous Tim Tebow “promise” after winning in The Swamp back in 2008, but that’s in the past.
Clearly we are letting bygones be bygones, and I’m here for it.
It could always be worse. You could be Missouri getting accused by Kansas for being a bunch of evil slave owners.
Then again, whoever loses this game is probably going to be pretty pissed when their SEC Championship and College Football Playoff hopes take a hit, so we will wait and see if the #RespectOff carries over on Sunday.
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For now, let’s just enjoy this armistice while we can.
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