THE ENDURING SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 1984 GATORS
Early fourth quarter. Gator Bowl. 1984 Florida-Georgia.
Facing a 3rd & 7 from their own 4-yard line, Florida head coach Galen Hall, sensing blood in the water, sought to bury Georgia.
“I remember the night before,” Florida head coach Galen Hall told me in a 2020 interview, “I told the team, ‘Someone is going to make a play that is going to change this game. I don’t know who it’s going to be, but it’s going to be someone and it could be you. I want you to think about that tonight.’”
Fresh off a goal line stand to preserve 17-0 lead at the end of the third quarter, the Gators running game provided some breathing room to set the stage for Hall to catch Georgia off guard.
Hall was a new arrival to Gainesville in 1984. He didn’t care that Florida had lost six-straight to Vince Dooley’s Bulldogs or dwell on the Gators’ tortured past in this rivalry. He played quarterback at Penn State under the tutelage of a young quarterback coach named Joe Paterno and spent the previous decade as the offensive coordinator for Barry Switzer’s famed wishbone attack that led Oklahoma to back-to-back national titles and eight consecutive Big 8 championships. He was an outsider who was impressed with the talent level on the roster Charley Pell had built and he expected to win now.
“It was a called play,” Hall said of his bold third down selection deep in UF territory. “I didn’t think they would be expecting it.”
Freshman sensation QB Kerwin Bell lined up under center with a split back formation and a tight end to the right. Sophomore WR Ricky “The Rocket” Nattiel lined up to the left of the formation with WR Gary Rolle out to the right.
Bell snapped the ball, took a quick five-step drop, immediately locked in on Nattiel, and launched a beautiful spiral into the November Jacksonville sky.
The perfectly arced ball fell down from the heavens past the reach of a diving Georgia defender into the arms of Nattiel, who broke free down the sideline around midfield, glanced back at the nearest defender, and high-stepped his way into the end zone from about 30 yards out to send Florida into a state of delirium.
Hall added, “It was one of those things where we said, ‘Hey, let’s take a crack.’ Kerwin threw it perfect, Ricky caught it, and the rest is history.”
“That right there — if you could ever be on a sideline or in a game or in a stadium — was one of the most joyous moments in Florida history,” walk-on DL Chris Burrows told me.
A half-century’s worth of frustration evaporated in a single 96-yard pass from Bell-to-Nattiel.
“We had a job to do,” starting LB Mark Korff told the media after the Georgia win. “This team gets closer and closer every week. They [NCAA/SEC] can drop all the bombs on us they want. The worst that can happen is we can lose, so we just keep hitting.”
The 1984 Florida Gators football team withstood the relentless onslaught of adversity brought about by the hovering black cloud of a NCAA investigation, confronting every bit of turbulence with an unwavering resolve – whether it be a coaching change or the loss of a starting quarterback at the tail end of fall camp – until they emerged victorious as the undisputed champion of the SEC.
An imperfect team from an imperfect time.
Final 1984 SEC Standings [Sports Reference CFB]
Hall on the 1984 Gators
I was fortunate enough to connect with Coach Hall in a 2020 to discuss his time at the University of Florida.
Coach Hall stepped into a turbulent situation. He arrived in Gainesville for the final moments of the Charley Pell era as the new offensive coordinator from an established national power.
We discussed his time at Oklahoma and went game-by-game through the 1984 season.
Nick Knudsen:
Oklahoma had an incredible run while you were in Norman. You were promoted from WR coach to OC in 1973 and lost one game in three years.
Galen Hall:
Yeah, we had some very good coaches. Jim McKenzie died of heart attack and whenever Chuck Fairbanks went to the Patriots, Barry Switzer moved up from OC and I took OC spot. Barry and I were there six years together before I took the OC job. It took an upset by Kansas in 1975 to lose a game in three years. In 1975, Big 8 sports writers voted us the most disappointing team in the conference for that loss even though we won the national title.
Nick Knudsen:
Oklahoma won a national title in 1974 too, correct? Split with USC.
Galen Hall:
Yes, we were on probation.
Nick Knudsen:
Staff changes made after a few four loss seasons. How did you connect with Charley Pell at Florida?
Galen Hall:
I was very happy at Oklahoma after a lot of years there. After the 1983 season, I remarried and I felt it best that Elaine and I get a fresh start. I was very fortunate at the time to know Lynn Blevins, who was the Gators golf coach, who had been at Oklahoma previously. He would always come back and talk about how great Florida was and that made me interested.
Mike Shanahan was also the offensive coordinator at Florida at that time. Mike was a GA at Oklahoma in 75-76, so Mike and I were very good friends.
Charley had plenty of good candidates for the job.
Just sort of the combination of me looking for a place to move to get a new start with my family and after interviewing with Charley and meeting Charley and Ward [Pell’s wife], we decided it was a very good move for us, which it turned out to be.
So that’s the connection: the golf coach Lynn Blevins and Mike Shanahan.
Nick Knudsen:
You came from one of the traditional college football powers at Oklahoma. Pell was working to build Florida into one of those powers. What was your impression of what Pell had built at Florida to that point?
Galen Hall:
I always had the opinion, probably like Charley had, and I think Bryant had at one time made the statement that Florida was a sleeping giant because of all of the athletic talent in the state of Florida. I think that people knew Florida was a place where you could be very successful in the college football scene.
I was excited about it and excited about how all of the assistant coaches, Mike Heimerdinger (WR), Phil Maggio (OL), Larry Kirksey (RB) was coming in with me at the time on offense, and you had Joe Kines as the defensive coordinator talking about how the talent we had here was perceived to be very good.
I was very excited about it and looking forward to the challenge.
At that time, I didn’t realize how tough the conference was. Coming out of Oklahoma, we played Auburn in the Sugar Bowl and had played Kentucky in the 1980s so I didn’t have much exposure to the SEC. I didn’t realize the toughness of the conference until I came to Florida.
Nick Knudsen:
Lots of talent in the Pell era, but they lacked consistency. They’d score 53 one week, then turn the ball over six times the next. What did you like about what that the offense had been doing and what changes did you want to make right away?
Galen Hall:
We had such talent, I don’t think people realize, but we had seven future number one NFL draft choices on offense in 1984. For me to come in and make wholesale changes to a squad like that would not have been the right thing to do.
I thought it would be easier for me to adjust and learn the Florida offense than take 80-90 players and teach them a whole new offense when they were already so good. We didn’t make many changes.
We made sure we were a balanced offense. We tried to be a 50/50 run to pass and I think we came close. The biggest change for me was incorporating more of a pass offense into my mental understanding of offensive philosophy after being in a run first offense at Oklahoma.
Nick Knudsen:
Before the season, the school and Pell agreed to part ways at the end of the year. How much of a distraction was the ongoing NCAA investigation into the football program?
Galen Hall:
I didn’t focus on what was in the newspapers. We had to decide on a quarterback throughout fall camp.
Nick Knudsen:
The team opened with a heartbreaker in Tampa against Miami, a tie at home against LSU, and a 63-point outburst in the first win over the season against Tulane. The school changes its plans and decides to remove Pell after the win. How did you receive word about the Pell’s dismissal?
Galen Hall:
On Sunday morning, I went in for our meetings. We worked all day and went home early. I walk in the door and my wife, Elaine, says, “[AD] Bill Carr called and wants you to come back to the office.”
I said, “When?”
She said, “Now!”
I went back to the office and that’s when Carr informed me about what was going on and that they wanted me to be the interim head coach cause I was the new guy on the staff and there wasn’t anything swirling around my head.
I agreed, but I asked how Charley was doing because I was concerned about Charley.
The only request I made was that I be considered for the job.
Then we had a meeting downstairs with the squad. We told them we wanted to keep things going in the direction in which we were headed. We had just had a good game against Tulane and had an open date the next week.
We gave them a couple days off and then got back to practicing.
That’s about how it went down.
Nick Knudsen:
How did it feel to be selected as the interim head coach?
Galen Hall:
I was shocked, excited, apprehensive. It was my first time as a head coach, but I didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about it. I was the offensive coordinator with new people who I hadn’t worked with and they were very good coaches, but my job was to get the offense ready to go function.
Then you get the added burden of trying to get everything together. There were very helpful people around the program: Chris Patrick [Head Trainer], Bud Fernandez [Head Equipment Manager], and all of the trainers and equipment guys had the schedule that had be laid out by Charley. We tried to follow them as best we could. They were very helpful to me and took a lot of the burden off of my shoulders. It allowed me to concentrate on the offense and get the overall feeling of the football team.
Nick Knudsen:
Did you get the opportunity to sit down with Pell after he was dismissed?
Galen Hall:
Elaine and I went by his house whenever it happened. We went by and talked to Charley and Ward and I don’t know what you can say.
He didn’t say much, but he was very supportive and most of his concern was about the players. He was concerned the players would be hounded about his departure and told me, “Galen, take care of the players cause they’re going to go through a lot.”
He was very concerned about his players and any help he could provide in any way, he would be glad to do.
Charley was concerned about the people. He was concerned about his players, all his coaches, and his support staff. He wanted me to know that if could be of any help to me, that he’d be glad to.
Nick Knudsen:
How did the players react?
Galen Hall:
Players were in shock. The guy who recruited them was no longer there. They were very supportive of me. I’m sure there were a lot of them who were skeptical. I felt I had to prove myself to them that I’m a pretty good guy and had their best interest at heart. I’m sure there was a lot of apprehension and lot of things the players were concerned about.
Nick Knudsen:
A few players described Pell as a prototypical SEC coach at that time who knew how to motivate a team and resembled a Southern Baptist preacher. They said your quiet confidence had a calming effect on the team.
Galen Hall:
Yeah, Charley was wound really tight. I think if you look at Charley’s background, he came out of the Bear Bryant background. From what I know, and I only met Bear Bryant once, but from what I understand, Bryant was a domineering person over everybody. Probably over his coaches especially.
Charley was demanding on his coaches and players…coaches especially. I don’t think I was that type. I came from the Barry Switzer background of, “Hey, we got good coaches, let’s let them coach.”
I think the assistant coaches under Charley were wound so tight that it carried over to the players and the players were wound tight.
If you use the word “calming,” I think my handling of the assistant coaches may have reflected in their handling of the players. Not that they were any less demanding, but maybe in the way they were demanding is maybe what the players mean who said there was a calming effect on them.
Not taking anything away from Charley cause Charley built himself a heck of a football team.
Nick Knudsen:
I heard one theory from a former player that said Pell would have the energy level so high with the team early that the team came out strong, but tailed off late. That could have been one of the reasons they lost a few heartbreakers during the Pell years. Did any specific mentors influence your style of coaching?
Galen Hall:
When I got the job, I talked to Joe Paterno and he said, “You don’t build up too early.”
Jim McKenzie was the coach I was hired to work for at Oklahoma in 1966. He often stressed it’s an 11 game schedule and you’re supposed to win some of those. Some of those are going to be dogfights til the end. If you got a good football team, let the others take their course and show you have enough confidence in them that they’re good enough to go win some of those games.
I tried to avoid building the team up too early and the big games, the ones we had to win, at that time we got ready to play and stayed in for the whole go.
I think it was a little bit of a different philosophy at that time.
Nick Knudsen:
Did you work with Paterno while you were QB at Penn State?
Galen Hall:
Joe Paterno was my quarterbacks coach. I’d known him since my senior year of high school, so I’d known Joe a long time. In fact, his wife, Sue, was in my class.
Nick Knudsen:
Your first game as head coach in 1984, Florida hosts Mississippi State. Charley Pell is at the game and the players saluted him after the game. What stands out in your memory about that first game?
Galen Hall:
I had been in the press box [as OC] for the first games. I came down on the field against Mississippi State and I didn’t wear a hat. If you have a noon game in Florida Field and you’re bald, you ought to be wearing a hat. I found that out the hard way.
I got in after the game was over and Malcom Jowers, the state trooper assigned to the head coach, said, “Coach, you’d better look at your head…”
Nick Knudsen:
Syracuse comes to town after beating Nebraska and you shut them out.
Galen Hall:
Dick McPhearson and I used to talk since we both had Eastern backgrounds. They had themselves a heack’uva a football team. They had a great nose guard named Tim Green.
We got ready to play, but we were so good that it was sort of hard for them to give the respect to an Eastern team at that time [the same respect that they’d give a SEC opponent]. After Syracuse beat [#1] Nebraska, that got the team’s attention. We didn’t play well on offense, but defensively we played well in that one.
Nick Knudsen:
On the road at Tennessee for a tough one where Anderson finished it off with a strong run for a touchdown.
Galen Hall:
That game gave our kids confidence.
I kept telling them that we’re a good team and we just need to go play a complete game and get it done.
Tennessee was a good offensive football team. Going up there and playing in front of that crowd didn’t bother me. We kept the crowd quiet most of the time. Kerwin had a great day throwing the ball. I remember Frankie Neal making plays.
Our defense hung in there and had good players too, but our kids going up there and holding up to win in front of that crowd did a lot to make us a good football team.
Nick Knudsen:
By this point in the season QB Kerwin Bell was a freshman sensation. He was a walk-on that became a starter days before kickoff against Miami.
Galen Hall:
I’m glad you asked about Kerwin Bell.
When I came to Florida in the spring, Charley and I would meet and talk about the quarterbacks. Any discussions about the quarterbacks would be done between Charley and I up in his office.
We had seven quarterbacks: Dale Dorminey, Roger Sibbald, Donny Whiting were the three returning, then there was Kerwin and three other freshmen.
Charley said that since Dorminey and Sibbald were both going to be seniors, he said, “You got to decide between one of those two because I’m not going to have a senior backing up a senior,” which is the right thing to do. You don’t want your first and second string quarterback to graduate and leave you with an inexperienced quarterback again.
Whiting didn’t make it through the spring semester and he was gone. So Kerwin and Rodney Brewer, a highly recruited true freshman, came into fall camp battling for the third spot. The third spot really ended up being the second because during the fall, we moved Sibbald to defense.
On a Wednesday or Thursday before the Miami game, Dale tears his knee up on goal line practice.
[Later that evening, Pell went to find Hall with the official news that Dorminey was out.]
I’m in the dining hall that same night and Charley comes up and says, “You’d better eat and go find Kerwin cause Dorminey is out and Kerwin’s your starting quarterback.”
I shook my head, he shook his too, and then I went to find Kerwin.
A lot of things make a great quarterback, but what Kerwin had was confidence. He was strong and very intelligent, but he had confidence. Kerwin probably handled the whole situation better than I did as far as being nervous because he had great confidence.
We go down to Tampa to play Miami to open the season and he played very well. We almost upset them. Well, it would’ve been an upset at the time considering our situation. Later in the year, it wouldn’t have been, but we almost got the job done.
I remember standing up in the press box. We go ahead after we score with 0:54 seconds to go and [UF DC] Joe Kines said, “You scored too soon!”
He was right. [Miami QB Bernie] Kosar took them down the field and scored.
[Miami head coach] Jimmy Johnson was coaching in his first game at Miami and we had coached together at Oklahoma, so Jimmy and I got together before the game and talked a little bit.
Nick Knudsen:
What was Jimmy Johnson’s energy like before that game?
Galen Hall:
Knowing Jimmy, he was always confident they would get the job done. I’m sure he was talking different to me as an assistant that he would to Charley.
I think he had the same thought about the state of Florida as I did…it’s a really good place to be.
Nick Knudsen:
Following a lopsided homecoming win over Cincinnati, Auburn and Bo Jackson come to town, but the defense shuts them down.
Galen Hall:
You start getting ready for that Auburn game and we were hearing, “Auburn and Georgia back-to-back, we can’t handle it” or “we’ve never handled it.”
[Note: Auburn and Georgia were two of Florida’s oldest conference rivals dating back to the creation of the SEC. In the 1950s, Florida started playing Auburn and Georgia in a back-to-back stretch later in the schedule. In 50 seasons of SEC play (1933-1983), Florida had only beaten both Auburn and Georgia four total times: 1952, 1956, 1962, and 1973. The treacherous Auburn/Georgia stretch of the schedule was a major obstacle to overcome at that time.]
Galen Hall:
If you get ready to play Auburn, you know you have to worry about Bo Jackson. Our defense was dominant in that game and Neal broke two counter plays in the second half to score the two touchdowns. We had a good victory against them and that set up the next one.
Nick Knudsen:
Next up Vince Dooley and Georgia in Jacksonville. You’re new to town. Did you understand the intensity of the Florida-Georgia rivalry before you arrived?
Galen Hall:
No, I didn’t. I learned it after it was over.
We played Texas-Oklahoma every year and several times we’d play Nebraska at the end of the year. For a while there, they’d be #1 and we’d be #2 or we’d be #1 and they’d be #2, so I had been in big games before. From that standpoint, the idea of playing Georgia didn’t awe me like it might have awed everyone else, which was very fortunate.
Once you go and get indoctrinated to it though, you realize just how big this thing is.
Nick Knudsen:
Back then, Georgia was the team who regularly played spoiler when Florida had an opportunity to win the SEC. The “Year of the Gator” would often turn into “Wait Til Next Year” after the Georgia game. In 1984, Florida was in control, but the game was still in hand until a goal line stand followed by Bell to Nattiel for 96 yards early in the fourth quarter.
Galen Hall:
I think that’s a pretty good statement.
Whenever Georgia drove down the field in the third quarter, everyone was sort of in the mindset of, “Well, here it goes again,” until our goal line stand by Sibbold. We stopped them and the quarter changed.
I remember the night before, I told the team, “Someone is going to make a play that is going to change this game. I don’t know who it’s going to be, but it’s going to be someone and it could be you. I want you to think about that tonight.”
We have to take the ball off our goal line and it’s 3rd & 8 and I thought we’d better go try to get one. I didn’t think they would be expecting it and then we made the Bell-to-Nattiel play. That made the whole season come to a head.
Everyone realized we did it.
Nick Knudsen:
Was that a called play or an audible at the line of scrimmage?
Galen Hall:
It was a called play.
It was one of those things where we said, “Hey, let’s take a crack. Kerwin threw it perfect, Ricky caught it, and the rest is history.”
Nick Knudsen:
You called the offense as the head coach, correct?
Galen Hall:
Yes, in 1984-85, I called the offense.
Nick Knudsen:
After a 27-0 beatdown of Georgia and the Gators go to Kentucky. You need to win and have LSU lose [tied LSU 21-21 in second game] to win the SEC outright. Is it true that the team found out they had clinched the SEC title on the plane?
Galen Hall:
That’s true.
We were on the plane coming back and the pilots had the LSU game on in the cockpit. They came on and mentioned that LSU had lost. I knew when we beat Kentucky we had a chance at being outright SEC Champs and it came about.
Little did I know, I guess [AD] Bill Carr, Jeremy Foley, or Richard Giannini had organized a celebration reception at the stadium. There were people on the road coming back. We rode with Malcolm [Jowers] in his state trooper car with President Criser and his wife while the buses followed. We pulled right into the stadium and walked in through the tunnel.
They had the lights on and there were probably 30,000 people there celebrating the victory. I was just amazed and it was a heck of a day. I was named head coach and to win the conference that day, it was totally amazing.
Nick Knudsen:
You were named head coach that day, correct?
Galen Hall:
My attorney came to me Thursday night and told me he was meeting with President Criser to discuss you being head coach.
There was supposed to be a noon announcement on Friday to make me head coach, but my lawyer came in and said it wasn’t done yet. He came to the game in Lexington and talks continued in Kentucky and around midnight on Friday, I was told the deal was done. So I expected to be named head coach, but they didn’t announce it until the rally that night.
Nick Knudsen:
What was it like to win the first SEC title in school history?
Galen Hall:
Totally amazing!
Before I arrived at Florida, I didn’t realize that it had never happened because I saw Florida as a football program with so much potential.
When I was at Oklahoma, you just expected to win the conference. You just thought that was what was going to happen. We not only thought about winning the conference, but the national title. That’s what our goals were.
That was a challenge with our players at Florida—they were under a stigma of “something is going to happen.” So we had to get them over that hump a little bit. The goal line stand and the pass to Ricky got them over that.
I didn’t realize how tough it was to play up at Kentucky in November due to the weather. Back then people talked more about the weather and we faced some tough games up there. Thankfully, Bobby Raymond kicked all of those field goals!
Nick Knudsen:
Six field goals that day for Raymond in the win over Kentucky!
Galen Hall:
Yeah, I don’t know who was calling plays that day, but we just couldn’t get the ball in the end zone. Whoever it was did a poor job! We were up and down the field but we just couldn’t get it in the end zone.
Nick Knudsen:
Now we move on to the less fun part.
Some of the bad news starts to trickle in the following week. The SEC says no Sugar Bowl and we’re sending LSU instead.
Later, a two year ban and scholarship reduction. The SEC Executive Committee votes to allow Florida to keep the title. A month later it’s overturned when the SEC Presidents vote to strip to the title.
Galen Hall:
When sanctions came down, people thought it was just 10 scholarships off of who we were recruiting in the next two years, but that was not the case. They took the 10 scholarships off the top. We were at 95 scholarships in 1984 and that meant we had to be at 85 scholarships the next year and 75 scholarships in 1986.
If the scholarships would have come off the top, we would have been able to sign 40 players over the next two years when everyone else was signing 60. By reducing the overall limit, it only allowed us to sign 11 one year and 14 the next. Over a two year period, Florida State and Miami are signing 60 and we’re only signing 25 players.
[Note: Miami went on to win three national championships in 1987, 1989, and 1991. Florida State began a 14 season stretch of Top 5 finishes starting in 1987.]
President Criser asked, “Well, what’s that mean?”
I told him, “Until I can recruit a class of 30, which ended up being Emmitt [Smith]’s class, and redshirt them, we’re not going to be back to where we want to be until about 1990.”
Nick Knudsen:
Stellar prediction, Coach Hall.
Galen Hall:
That’s what I thought and that’s what came true.
For those kids that came with us through the 1985 and 1986 recruiting classes, that’s a tribute to them for hanging on. We still didn’t have a losing season, but we weren’t at full strength again until we were able to fully redshirt and develop players.
Steve did a great job of carrying it on.
[Hall by the years (final records): ‘84: 9-1-1; ‘85: 9-1-1; ‘86: 6-5; ‘87: 6-6; ‘88: 7-5; ‘89: 7-5.]
Nick Knudsen:
What was your reaction to the SEC title being stripped from the 1984 team?
Galen Hall:
They might say they’re taking it away from us, but we knew we accomplished it. Everyone in the state of Florida, every Florida Gator knows what we accomplished that year. It may no longer be in the record book, but everyone that knows anything about it knows that we won the conference championship that year.
Nick Knudsen:
How do you feel about the way the school has recognized the team in general?
Galen Hall:
I believe they deserve to be recognized. They were here. They accomplished it. They went out and played for the University. They graduated from the University. They stayed loyal to the University and they should be recognized.
We love the Gators. We’re pulling for them and wish them the best of luck every year!
