There are 31 days until Florida's football opener against Florida Atlantic on September 3. Check out Alligator Army's 50 For 50 series for more of our 50 reasons to be excited for Florida football in 2011.
Tragic news from earlier this week: Florida has slipped behind Florida State in the Princeton Review rankings of the top party schools in America. Florida State comes in at eighth on the 2012 list, and Florida checks in at ninth. You know what this means, right?
YOU GOTTA PARTY FOR FLORIDA'S RIGHT TO BEAT FLORIDA STATE IN THE PRINCETON REVIEW PARTY SCHOOL RANKINGS!
See, the cognoscenti in the Sunshine State know that the Florida parties are better: Gainesville gets decent frat ragers or chill house parties or good Midtown crawls rather than drinking binges brought on by the deep ennui of living in Tallahassee. Gators party because we're* good at it and virtually everything else; Seminoles party because they're really not so sure about the everything else part.
And we also know that FSU ranking ahead of UF in anything other than elevation and number of letters in the shorthand forms of the schools' names is rare enough that every FSU student, alum, and fan will have this tidbit on hand for arguments this year. That simply isn't acceptable.
So Gator Nation needs you to party — responsibly, non-fatally, and (mostly) legally — and hard. Celebrate the wins, soak the sorrows, crowd Swamp every night, all that stuff. And, most of all, take back this stupid, meaningless ranking from the 'Noles.
*"We" really doesn't include me, because I'm congenitally and fatally boring. Example: It took me two months to drink a bottle of Mad Dog.