The SEC also asked the players to return their 84 rings. The story goes that Lomas Brown said if they want my ring back they know where to find me. Obviously no one took him up on that and he still has his ring. I doubt that the SEC got many back. Also heard that we still have the trophy stashed away some where in the bowels of the athletic building. Interesting 1985 story below from the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel .
The 1984
Southeastern Conference football trophy in a glass case outside the
University of Florida football offices disappeared over the holiday weekend.
"It's somewhere around here, collecting cobwebs," said
Florida assistant athletic director Norm Carlson. "I went up to Florida coach) Galen Hall and asked him if he knew where it was and he said, 'No, do you?' "
Carlson said the consensus around the athletic offices Monday was the cleaning crew locked it away someplace safe because of the three-day holiday weekend.
"Maybe the SEC rep came to get it when no one was here," joked a Gator official.
NCAA probation for recruiting violations, the trophy remained in their possession -- until this weekend.
SEC Commissioner Boyd McWhorter said from Birmingham, Ala., unless he hears otherwise, the conference won't be asking for it back.
"The trophy to me, as I've said all along, is symbolic," McWhorter said. "The official records show we have no conference champion for 1984, that the title was vacated. Any trophy to the contrary, notwithstanding, doesn't mean anything."
But to the Gators it means everything. "SEC Champs," is posted on T-shirts, cups, mugs, license plate frames and posters in the campus bookstore and around town. The trophy is pictured on the cover of the Gators' 1985 media guide. In the Gator Bait 1985 Football Yearbook, several references are made to the "1984 SEC title," the Gators' "first-ever league championship" and "last year's title-winning season."
Sugar Bowl because of pending NCAA sanctions. The football program was placed on a two- year probation that mandates no television or bowl appearances and the loss of 10 scholarships a year for two years.
In April the SEC Executive Committee voted to allow Florida to keep the SEC title. However, SEC presidents on May 29 voted 6-4 to take it away.
Florida President Marshall Criser said the school would not give up the 1984 SEC championship.
"By any standard of fairness, and in our hearts, 1984 will always be the Year of the Gator," Criser said. "As a university we shall continue to proclaim the 1984 team as SEC football champions."
The flow of traffic is light through the football coaches' office. Only coaches, players, sports writers and a few student aides walk by the trophy on a daily basis.
"We don't acknowledge the title was ever taken away from us," said senior tight end Tom Peddie of Hollywood. "We don't care what other people are saying. I've got my SEC Champs plate on the front of my car.
"It doesn't matter what anyone says because everyone knows what the real truth is. The bureaucrats can do what they want. They've never taken a snap, they've never been on the field. It's just all political. We won it on the field and no one can take that away from us ever."
Hall said adversity was what molded the Gators last season.
"The SEC's decision did nothing to change the way I feel about the '84 Gator team," Hall said. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the '84 team was, in my opinion, the finest in the nation, and they performed superbly on the field, and that's where games and championships are won."