We here at Riptide are staunch supporters of the South Florida secessionist movement. So when the New York Times put together a map of college football team fandom based on Facebook likes across the country, most probably saw it as a welcome excuse to click on something for five minutes while their boss wasn't watching.
We saw the results in Florida as the perfect plan to divide it into three separate states.
The Miami Hurricanes have a solid lock on Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, which make up the core of our South Florida secession plan anyway. Obviously, we'll take the Keys, and Hendry County apparently too, why not, and the swampy portions of western Collier County. We don't trust all those Ohio retirees to take care of our wetlands anyway.
The 'Noles own the Panhandle, which is the only truly southern portion of Florida anyway. The only reason we've kept it this long is because without it, the silhouette of our state would go from "Hmmm, Florida kind of looks like a dong" to "Wow, that state is literally shaped like a dong." It is time that we let them go, because we'll be shaping the dong-shaped portion of Florida into two half-dongs anyway. The Panhandle now has no more use to Florida whatsoever.
Then there is the rest of Florida. People so dumb that there that their favorite team is still the Florida Gators despite the fact that FSU are the defending national champs and the Miami Hurricanes have more national championships. Tim Tebow will undoubtedly be elected governor of this new state, which probably isn't the best idea, but it is no longer our problem.
As a side note, the Gators are apparently the third most popular team in the entire nation. They're also the number one team in the Bronx somehow, though that's with less than 10 percent of fans.
"But, wait," you might say, "What of that gray splotch around Orlando? Do they not get there own state?"
No, UCF does not get its own state. Sorry.
Remember a few years ago when the South Florida Bulls were kind of riding high? At one point they were ranked number two in the nation. They had wins over FSU and UM. The future looked so, so bright. If this map was created then you would have likely seen a green splotch over Tampa Bay, but now the Bulls are nowhere to be found on the map. (Granted the Times map only includes data on the 82 teams who were the most popular in at least one county, so even though the Bulls don't show up in Pinellas or Hillsborough County's top three favorite teams on the map, they probably are. They're just not the favorite.)
So sorry, no state of your own until you win a national championship. Also, Micky Mouse is constitutionally prohibited from being governor as he is a fictional cartoon character.
Escambia County is the only county in Florida whose favorite team is not a Florida team. They prefer the Alabama Crimson Tide and will be gifted to that state and renamed Saban County. No returns.
Also, for no other reason but LOL, the Miami Hurricanes are the number one team in FIU's home zip code of 33174 with 59 percent fandom.
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