At the University of Florida, Florida’s Governor delivered some education on college football, and the home team falling short of historical expectations, in his latest gripes about the Gators’ gridiron performance.
Gov. Ron DeSantis told a Gainesville crowd that excuses were running out since a legendary coach left the college ranks.
“You know, Nick Saban has retired from Alabama. So this is the window,” DeSantis said.
“I know Georgia is still very tough. It’s a tough league. I get it. But I saw those national championships up back in the day and that was great and basketball too. I mean, so hopefully we’ll get back there. We’re really looking forward to seeing Florida return to being the college football capital of the world like we used to be.”
The Governor has griped about college football in the state not being what it was, including on the campaign trail when running for President.
“I will say, as somebody who was born and raised in Florida, the Florida-Georgia game was a little easier lift for us back in the day than it is now. And you Georgians know what I mean,” said DeSantis during an August campaign stop in the Peach State.
“We’ve done better on almost everything policywise. I can point out many things. College football has not necessarily been one of them. So we’re trying to turn the corner,” DeSantis added.
DeSantis similarly dismissed Billy Napier’s squad during September comments to the California Republican Party.
While he noted that University of Florida was “the top ranked public university in America,” he added quickly that he needed “their football team to start doing a little bit better.”
“Clemson has won in football recently. Florida, our state, has struggled in college football recently,” DeSantis complained in South Carolina. “We were the top state for years and years. We’ve not had anybody compete even to make the playoff until this year.”
“We’ve actually never had a team in the college football playoff since the playoffs started. Fast forward, rewind, when I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, it was like a Florida team was competing for the national title almost every year,” he said on a radio show around the same time in 2023.
“I realized this my first year as Governor. I asked my staff to give me letters of congratulations for all Florida’s high school blue-chip football recruits because we’ve got great high school football in Florida” DeSantis said during another event last year.
“And I’m signing these letters and it’s like, ‘Dear Michael, congratulations on going to the University of Georgia. Congratulations on going to Alabama.’ And I’m like, why congratulate them for leaving our state?”
He has also demonstrated understanding that the game has changed, however. In April, he suggested that an erosion of amateurism in sports — one ironically driven by name, image and likeness (NIL) endorsement schemes such as the one he made law — is to blame for the diminished status of Florida’s historical top programs.
“I think this whole NIL may need some guardrails and the transferring has gotten out of hand. You know, transferring once? Fine, you shouldn’t have to sit out. But to just treat it like a free agency where you don’t know who’s going to come back each year, I think that’s diluted college sports.”
Ironically, of course, Saban has said NIL was one of the reasons he left the game.
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