It's not just UT fans who are excited about the big Florida game on Saturday. Every other year, orange-and-blue shirts and jerseys add some variety to Neyland Stadium, as Gator fans make a mass exodus to Knoxville.

Memories of a rivalry
To head up to Tennessee early Thursday, like she had planned, Vicky Haynes Pratton had a lot to get ready.

But packing for the Gators’ away game in Knoxville is a familiar process to Pratton, who has not missed a Florida game in Knoxville in about 20 years.

“I can remember sitting in the rain, many games in the rain,” Pratton said. “I can remember losing and being on the top row of the stadium and all the fireworks going off. ... I’ve been there to see it all.”

The Pensacola, Fla., native graduated from the University of Florida in 1975. She missed the play of Steve Spurrier by a few years, but she saw quarterback John Reaves connect with wide receiver Carlos Alvarez on the gridiron.

One of the major factors in the planned trips to Neyland Stadium for the Gators-Vols game is Pratton’s cousin settling in Nashville.

“We head on over to Nashville and then head to Knoxville for the game,” she said.

Plus, the availability of cheap golf at public courses makes visits alluring.

Even though Pratton, 56, cheers on the Gators, she enjoys the games that turned into nailbiters, literally. She remembers sitting with her cousin in the middle of Neyland Stadium dur- ing the game in 2000, when a controversial play, ruled a catch by wide receiver Jabar Gaffney, made the Gators victorious and left the Vol faithful angry. She remembers biting her fin- gernails, decked out in gator-blue fingernail polish, during that finish.

Then, there was the 1998 overtime win the soon-to-be national champion Vols had over the Gators. After Florida kicker Collins Cooper’s attempted field goal went wide left, orange-and-white-clad Vols fans stormed the field.

“All the fans were out there pulling up the grass,” she said. “They wanted a piece of history. They took the goal posts down and carried them off. We literally couldn’t get out of the stadium because the fans didn’t want to leave the stands. So we basically said, ‘Oh well, I guess we’ll stay.’”

She calls that experience the major memory that sticks out in her mind of all the Gators-Vols games in Knoxville she’s been to. The ’98 game, of course, was the first year after Peyton Manning.

“We always took pride in the fact that Peyton couldn’t ever beat us,” she said.

Many Vols fans might see incoming Gators as villains walking into hostile territory, but Pratton and her family do not take the adversarial nature between the fans as serious. When someone says something to them about being Gators fans,
they just smile.

“People who let that stuff bother them don’t need to be going to away stadiums,” she said. “I just think it’s hilarious.

It doesn’t matter to me. People say so-and-so fans are the worst. I just don’t buy into it.”

In fact, she said good-natured gamesmanship makes the experience more enjoyable.

“I love the spirit,” she said. “The more spirited the fans are, the more fun I have. That makes it fun. I don’t want to see us go play somebody we’re going to kill. I want to see the big games.”

In that vein, she hopes for both teams to do well.

“I’m a little disappointed that we’re both not doing a little better,” she said. “But I think, for both teams, it means a lot. We need to show that we actually play four quarters and that our quarterback can actually play.”

But there is another thing she misses about the UT-Florida rivalry.

“I really miss being able to make fun of coach (Phillip) Fulmer,” she said. “We really miss that.”

Hope for a return to the glory days
For Steve Russell, sports director at WRUF radio station in Gainesville, Fla., this is the first year since 1998 that he will not make the trek to Knoxville.

His first experience in Neyland Stadium is one of the most memorable ones for Vols fans.

"That was pretty scary because the fans just came running on the field and just running around and almost got trampled," he said. "It was a little weird, not in a bad way. It's just a lot of people were on the field."

Russell said he enjoys the experience of going to Neyland Stadium.

"When you go there, you're dealing with over 100,000 people," he said. "You're dealing with as rabid a fan base as there is in the SEC. It was fun to go to. I've been to every SEC road venue. I always enjoy SEC crowds."

With a brother-in-law and sister-in-law in Knoxville, Russell has stayed with family before going to the game. He remembers, in the heat of the rivalry during the late '90s and early 2000s, hosting a simulcast call-in show with ESPN 1180 AM Knoxville radio host Tony Basilio.

"His show could be heard here (Gainesville)," he said. "My show could be heard there (Knoxville). I took calls from Knoxville. He took calls from Gainesville. That was during the time when the rivalry was pretty intense, a lot of fun."

He said the station did the Tennessee-Florida radio simulcast more than one year, but the station has never done a simulcast with any school other than Tennessee in this manner.

Russell yearns for the days of a more heated rivalry between the two schools, saying lately Florida has succeeded, while Tennessee has struggled.

"I hope that Derek Dooley does a nice job, and I hope that Tennessee gets back to prominence," he said. "... Not that this game doesn't mean anything because it does, but it just does not have the sizzle it used to have."

It was thrilling, he said, when both teams were good, and this opening SEC game could give a leg up to one team and drastically hurt another's chances.

"I just hope it gets back to that," he said, "because this rivalry deserves that."