EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second story in a series on the 15 most memorable SEC football games beat writer David Paschall has covered since joining the newspaper in 1990. The games are being presented in chronological order.
When it came to Southeastern Conference football in the 1990s, the number of people who pulled something over on Florida coach Steve Spurrier was quite small.
Roy Kramer was on that list.
Spurrier had just guided the Gators to their first SEC title in 1991 when he learned Kramer was forming two six-team divisions with the additions of Arkansas and South Carolina and planned to have the division winners play for an overall league crown. Until Kramer implemented an SEC championship game in 1992, the only such contests existed among 12-team leagues at the NCAA’s Division II and Division III levels.
“I didn’t even know it was legal,” Spurrier said in 2011, when the league was staging its 20th championship showdown. “I remember asking him one time, ‘The NCAA approves that?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, as long as you have two divisions, you can put one together.’