Swamp Kings: Why Netflix's Florida Gators documentary could be an all-time classic or a total dud
A little more than a week before Florida’s opener at Utah this fall, college football fans, particularly those fond of the glory days of the Florida Gators, could be served a delicious appetizer in advance of the 2023 season with a Netflix documentary on the Urban Meyer era at UF.
Could doing some heavy lifting here.
The aptly-titled “Swamp Kings” could be an all-time doc, or it could be an indefensible dud.
The series Untold reportedly plans to wade into the wild waters of 2006-09 Gators, which won two national championships, two SEC titles and produced one of the most famous college football players of all time in Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow. At the same time, there was an underbelly of shadiness around Meyer’s program, as Florida was plagued by negative off-the-field headlines and player arrests.
During Meyer’s tenure, more than 30 players were charged with various sorts of crimes — high and low. Some players got busted for underage drinking or open container laws, but there were also plenty of serious charges including domestic violence, fraudulent use of credit cards, aggravated stalking, burglary and aggravated assault.
Aaron Hernandez is the most famous convicted criminal off Florida’s title teams, but he wasn’t even the lone alleged murderer to start for a title team. Just last month, former UF starting safety Tony Joiner reached a plea deal with the State Attorney’s Office after a years-long murder case involving the death of his ex-girlfriend.
There was also the case of defensive back Jamar Hornsby, who was accused of ringing up 70 fraudulent charges in 2008 on a credit card that belonged to a woman who died in a motorcycle crash — and that wasn’t even his first arrest at UF.
Offensive lineman Ronnie Wilson, a starter on the 2006 title team, fired off an AK-47 outside a nightclub in 2007, and was booted from the program by Meyer. But the punishment only lasted one season, as Wilson returned to team in 2008. Star defensive end Carlos Dunlap was accused of a DUI after falling asleep at a stop-light the week before the 2009 SEC Championship Game. Fellow defensive end Jermaine Cunningham reportedly assaulted a Jimmy John’s employee. Cam Newton transferred after stealing a laptop from another UF student.
There are a slew of other memorable arrests and plenty of other examples of Meyer refusing to discipline his program. There are also TONS — and I say that in all caps as someone who was attending the University of Florida during this very time — of rumored stories that have yet to see the light of day.
So I ask: How deep into muddy swamp waters will “Swamp Kings” actually go into what was really happening at Florida from 2006-09?
The documentary doesn’t need to be some wholly salacious story. Just the truth. Not sanitized. Not overly dramatized.
Just real.
The 2006-09 Gators were among the most talented teams in college football history.
They were awesome.
Tebow was transcendent. Same for wideout Percy Harvin, who had plenty of off-field-field drama as well. Other stars included the Pouncey twins, Brandon Spikes, Joe Haden, Chris Rainey, Riley Cooper and others.
Meyer himself was a generational head coach, and he groomed future head coaches like Dan Mullen, Charlie Strong and Steve Addazio on these UF staffs, too.
The Gators were the ‘it’ program for a multi-year period until they fell to Alabama in an instant classic 2009 SEC Championship.
Nick Saban took the crown from Urban Meyer as the new king of college football that night in December, and Florida’s program hasn’t been the same since. Meyer coached just one more season at UF before “retiring” due to health concerns.
So will the documentary tell the whole story? Will it highlight the greatness of the Gators — like the dramatic wins over Tennessee and South Carolina in 2006, upsetting Ohio State in a blowout in the title game, getting revenge on Georgia’s end zone stomp in 2008 and holding Sam Bradford and Oklahoma to just 14 points in a second championship victory — while also revealing even more dirty details on all the problematic off-the-field issues?
We’ll see.
But I’m skeptical.
Meyer, Tebow and others are all reportedly among those interviewed for the project. But will they offer real insight or will they continue their decade’s long stance of omertà on a program running amok?
“Swamp Kings” has an opportunity to be an awesome doc, but if it offers little new insight and is chocked with stale interviews and line-item reports highlighting news already known, then it will be a major missed opportunity to tell the true story about one of the most insane and magnificent short-term runs in college football history.