Eight seconds remained at The Swamp. Florida led South Carolina 17-16, but the Gamecocks had moved into range for Ryan Succop to attempt a 48-yard field goal. Steve Spurrier stood on the opposing sideline, looking for a win on his first visit to Gainesville as South Carolina’s head coach.
Jarvis Moss had other plans. He rose above the protection, got a hand to the kick, and sent the ball away from the uprights. Florida survived. The Gators stayed in control of the SEC East race and kept their national championship hopes alive.
That block became one of the defining plays of Urban Meyer’s early years in Gainesville. Nearly 20 years later, however, Meyer remembers something other than the title race when he talks about that night.
“I remember the year before when we lost to South Carolina. I went to my radio show, and I got booed,” Urban Meyer said on A Peek Inside Florida Football on November 4.
“We lost a few games, and you know, Shelley didn’t feel it as much as I did. I couldn’t stand it. You know, I just didn’t feel welcome. I lost to Alabama, lost to LSU, and I couldn’t really go anywhere. Imagine walking into your radio show and getting booed.”
That was the part of his Florida experience that stayed with him. The coach who would eventually deliver two national championships to the Gators had once struggled to walk around Gainesville without feeling that the city wanted him gone.
The trouble began in November 2005. Meyer was in his first season at Florida, while Spurrier was in his first year coaching South Carolina after spending 12 seasons leading the Gators.
The two met in Columbia on November 12, with Florida ranked No. 12 and carrying a 14-game winning streak against the Gamecocks. South Carolina won 30-22.
The result ended Florida’s hopes of reaching the SEC Championship Game, and it gave Spurrier a victory over the program where he had built his coaching legacy. The Gamecocks had now won five straight games, while Meyer had suffered a defeat that would follow him back to Gainesville.
“Emails and letters and Nancy would try to hide them from me,” Urban Meyer said. “You know, about get the hell out of the town and you don’t belong here, and so it was rugged.”
The problem was not simply that Florida had lost a game. Spurrier’s history with the Gators made the defeat sting in a different way.
He had won the Heisman Trophy as a Florida QB, led the program to its first national championship in 1996, and remained a towering figure in Gainesville. Meyer was trying to establish himself in a job where the previous HC’s shadow had not gone away.
He admitted that the experience affected him more than it did his family. His wife, Shelley, didn’t feel the hostility in quite the same way, but Meyer struggled to get past it. He described that period as “miserable” and remembered how difficult it had become to go out in public.
The rematch came on November 11, 2006, at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Spurrier was back in Gainesville, this time as the visiting head coach. Florida entered the game ranked sixth in the country and needed a victory to secure its place in the SEC Championship Game.
South Carolina made the evening uncomfortable. The Gamecocks led 16-10 in the fourth quarter before QB Chris Leak threw a 21-yard touchdown to Dallas Baker. The extra point put Florida ahead 17-16 with three minutes remaining.
However, South Carolina still had one chance to take the game away.
Succop lined up for the 48-yard attempt with eight seconds left. Florida had already blocked two kicks during the game, including an extra point, but the most important one was still to come.
Moss broke through and blocked Succop’s kick, preserving the one-point win. The final score was 17-16. Florida had completed an undefeated run through the SEC East and moved closer to a championship opportunity.
The Gators beat Arkansas 38-28 in the SEC title game before defeating Ohio State 41-14 in the BCS National Championship Game. It is easy to look back at Moss’s block as the moment that set the championship season on course. Meyer, though, offered a more uncomfortable explanation for what was going through his head.
“I wasn’t thinking national title,” Urban Meyer recalled. “I was thinking about the ramifications on my family, on me, on our program. And I looked at the livelihood of my family, myself. And the reality was that if we lose this one now, this is going to be tough to rally back.”
Florida’s current team has its own problems to solve. The Gators entered November 2026 at 5-3 under first-year head coach Jon Sumrall, after losing 27-8 to Georgia on October 31. They are preparing to face Oklahoma on November 7, with the immediate task of recovering from a difficult rivalry defeat.