It’s become an annual summer tradition here at In All Kinds Of Weather, a collection of statistics and numbers that the internet has come to known simply as “The Chart.”
It all started in 2014…
This all time comparison of Florida #Gators & FSU #Noles football ends all arguments. It'll also piss off #FSUTwitter pic.twitter.com/peWYl34NFD
— InAllKindsOfWeather.com (@AllKindsWeather) July 3, 2014
…then, in 2015, fans overwhelmingly agreed that I should do one including stats from all sports…
…and in 2016, I coded it into a table. But changing the site’s layout messed it up aesthetically, so it’s back to picture form this year.
Most of it follows the same basic format as previous editions of the chart: there’s an emphasis on football, and a slightly lesser emphasis on men’s basketball, baseball and softball, but all sports are included. Yes, FSU, all sports. Just because you suck at most of them doesn’t mean they don’t count. That’s not our fault.
But you’ll also notice a couple of new features to this year’s chart.
Anyway, here’s what you all came here to see. Click on the photo to enlarge it. You’re welcome. (Explanation of a few select things below.)
1) Vacated wins are stripped from the totals.
2) Perfect senior class refers to a senior class that went undefeated against the other team in its four year span.
3) FSU claims a win in the 1952 Cigar Bowl, which was the successor the Bacardi Bowl- which Florida does not count a victory in 1912 in. It’s the same game, a la the Capital One Bowl and the Citrus Bowl. I added it to Florida’s bowl appearance and win totals for that reason.
4) The most lopsided head to head win in the football rivalry’s history was a 49-0 Florida victory in 1973. FSU’s largest victory was a 52-17 win in 1988.
5) Weighted medal count refers to the “three for gold and two for silver” formula. So multiply the gold medal totals by three and the silvers by two, then add them to the bronze medal total. The idea is to put more emphasis on higher finishes. If FSU even had a tenth of the medals Florida did, it would make more sense.
6) The overall categories include results and titles from sports that either or both schools no longer play.
7) My favorite explanation has been saved for last.
There are some problems regarding the Noles’ national championship count. Depending on the degree of ignorance in the FSU fan you ask, they may have up to 19 national championships. Part of the problem is that some FSU fans are either stupid enough to wholly trust Wikipedia, or just don’t care enough to do independent research. Every time Florida wins a national championship, and I point out that Florida has (however many that particular title made it) titles to FSU’s 11, every FSU fan who debates the point directs me to one place: the “Florida State Seminoles athletics” wikipedia page, where sure enough, FSU is given credit for 19 of them.
Unlike these FSU fans, I actually did some research and looked into them (because they sure as hell aren’t going to). The following national championships that FSU claims are legitimate: football in 1993, 1999 and 2013, women’s golf in 1981, men’s track and field in 2006 and 2008, women’s track and field in 1984 (outdoor) and 1985 (indoor), women’s soccer in 2014, and men’s gymnastics in 1951 and 1952. That makes 11. The other eight that Wikipedia page claims are softball in 1981 and 1982, and women’s indoor track and field in 1981, 1982 and 1985, women’s outdoor track and field in 1981 and 1984 and cheerleading in 1997. There are various problems with them:
-1981 and 1982 softball
It’s true that FSU won AIAW (governing body for women’s collegiate sports at the time) softball national championships in 1981 and 1982. There’s just one problem. The two titles they claim were both slow pitch softball tournaments, something that Wikipedia page just conveniently forgot to mention. In reality, Utah State was the 1981 national champion in softball, while the 1982 championship was split between UCLA (NCAA) and Texas A&M (in the last year of the AIAW). Even FSU’s own athletics site admits that those championships were slow pitch, though they added their own twist to it by claiming that softball was slow pitch at the time, which is wholly false; the two just coexisted at the same time. Anyway, there’s no way I’m going to give FSU credit for a national championship in a sport I dominated in high school gym class. Slow pitch softball is like coach pitch baseball. There’s no defensive skill involved because anybody with decent hand-eye coordination can crush it over the fence, no problem. I probably hit a home run nine out of every ten times up, and that’s nothing special because half my gym class can say the same thing. So yeah, slow pitch softball championships don’t count.
-1981, 1982 and 1984 women’s indoor track and field/1981 and 1985 women’s outdoor track and field
Nowhere else on the internet does FSU claim these national titles. Not in FSU’s official media guide (you can find their list of championships on page 33), not on the NCAA’s list of outdoor track and field champions or indoor track and field champions, and not even on FSU’s track and field wikipedia page. Nice try.
-1997 Cheerleading
Cheerleading is not a sport. Sorry. Admittedly, some can question whether gymnastics (in which UF has three national championships) is a sport or not, but I draw the line at cheerleading.
So there we are. 11 national championships. Five made up out of nowhere, two in a game that’s been reduced to intramural, and one in the popular after school activity in high schools across the country. Whenever an FSU fan tries to claim 19, remind them of that.
I should point out one more thing. Some FSU fans are really smart, successful people with a good amount of common sense; this doesn’t apply to them. I’m not bashing the entirety of the Florida State fan base, because some of them are really good human beings with good heads on their shoulders. But there is an unfortunately large quantity of FSU fans with substandard levels of intelligence who irritate Gator fans purely for the sport of it. It’s unfortunate that I have to pander to that level, but hey, if this ends even one argument, it’s served its purpose.
