MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — In Florida, Saturday was a perfect day for college football.
For only the second time, the state's seven FBS-level teams — Miami, Florida, Florida State, UCF, South Florida, Florida International and Florida Atlantic — all won on the same day. It also happened on Oct. 5, 2013.
No. 6 Miami rolled past Central Michigan 52-3, and the statement win for the day was No. 21 Florida's 52-28 win over No. 4 Ole Miss — a victory that
pushed the Gators to 4-0 under first-year coach Jon Sumrall.
“It's not asleep, but it ain't fully awake yet,” Sumrall said when asked where the Gators are right now as a program. “It's being kind of stirred up a little bit. We're going to get there. It's coming. I promise you, I didn't come here for us to be average.”
UCF won its Big 12 opener by topping TCU 21-13, South Florida rallied in the second half to beat Bowling Green 14-6 and improve to 4-0, A pair of the wins were over FCS-level schools, with Florida State beating Central Arkansas 34-7 and Florida International getting past Long Island University 20-3.
That left the state's hopes for a perfect day to Florida Atlantic, playing the latest game on the schedule — and the Owls came through with ease, rolling past Louisiana-Monroe 45-17.
According to SportRadar, Saturday was the 27th time that all seven Sunshine State programs — at the FBS level — played on the same day.
This marks the third time that all seven teams won on the same week. Besides the 2013 instance and Saturday's 7-0 record, Week 5 of the 2017 season saw the seven Florida schools also combine to go 7-0 — with Florida, South Florida, Florida State, Florida Atlantic, Florida International and UCF all winning on Sept. 30, 2017.
Miami also won that weekend, but beat Duke one day earlier.
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