OK, I was trying to avoid politics but here is what is happening.
Rubio is trying to push the image of being young and fun, cool and relaxed. Hence the football video (totally scripted but made to look impromtu) and him going on a SPORTS radio show in Iowa.
Right now, he really can't talk much football smack against FSU. They have had the upper hand the last couple of years. But he needs to show he's not a politician, he's "one of the guys" so he comes up with academic smack.
Generally speaking, this wouldn't be a problem. Academic smack is weak smack. Do we give a crap if Vandy's incoming freshmen have a .003 higher average GPA than ours??? If it was between Duke and North Carolina or Georgia and Georgia Tech or even Virginia and Virginia Tech, nobody would care. Let's pretend Rubio was an FSU grad and said this about Miami. No big deal, right? Everybody gets a chuckle and that's it.
BUT--
FSU has a huge inferiority complex when it comes to UF and it burns them up inside--constantly. No matter how successful they may be, the perception is that they are always second best. They rage about this on the inside, they are...angry...at us for feeling superior to them all the time no matter what. It drives them crazy. 'Noles don't bother us so much. We infuriate them just by our existence. They hate us a lot more than we hate them (and I really, really hate them so that's saying something).
Rubio's political mistake was that he hit a very sore nerve and he hit it hard. Plus, ESPN ran with it, as did all the Florida sports media. It was like rubbing salt in their wounds. Normally a freakin' University President would be above this sort of thing but Thrasher HAD to fire back. His alumni base demanded it.
Rubio just wanted to tweak them but he ended up kicking them in the balls with a steel-toed boot.
He misjudged it quite badly.
Funny for us. I'm still laughing at those 'Noles. Stupid 'Noles. Not so funny for Rubio. He's getting a pretty big backlash.
I bet Rubio wishes he had gone a different direction, maybe made some joke about Sgt. Schultz and FSU "I see nothing!". We all know that in the real world, covering up the rape of a coed by a football player is 100 times worse than a (very true) statement that my school is better than your school but the FSU fan reaction is just the opposite.
So, Rubio probably welcomes FSU President's comments so he can play it off as good-natured back and forth rivalry smack, and he absolutely posed for that picture with his FSU staffers "getting him back" with the stuff on the door. He meant to toss a firecracker but he threw a grenade by mistake. Now he's trying to fix it.
In the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy our rivals losing their freakin' minds because somebody said something everybody already knew.
Stupid 'Noles! Can't wait to beat the crap out of them.
Alex.