GAINESVILLE — Former Florida football star John L. Williams had no use for his 1984 SEC championship ring, so he gave it to the one person who cherished it.

Nora Williams tracked her son’s many feats in football and was the longtime keeper of a ring her son rarely wore because the title it represented had been erased. 

At her 2013 funeral in Palatka, John L. Williams placed the ring next to Nora during their final goodbye.

“I knew from that point on it would be well taken care of; she guarded it so well,” he told the Orlando Sentinel this week. “Because they took it from us, there’s no need for me to flaunt it around on my finger. So I put it in the casket with her, and she took it with her.”

The bittersweet and symbolic act buried nearly three decades of ill will that until recently would continue to simmer with many members of the 1984 squad.

But Williams, dozens of his teammates, several coaches and others behind the scenes will be honored Saturday night in the Swamp during the Gators’ homecoming game with Kentucky.

For many who’ll attend, a collection expected to be at least 90 people, UF’s recognition is long overdue.

“There’s been a lot of bitterness, a lot of anger,” former offensive lineman Scott Trimble, a standout from Lake Brantley, told the Sentinel. “Not to sound petty or anything, but they kind of ignored us for 40 years. It’ll be cathartic for all of us — kind of, maybe a final, final.”

Some, especially longtime Florida fans, consider the ‘84 squad perhaps the best in school history. 

Those Gators won the school’s first and long-awaited conference title, went 9-1-1 and were named national champions by The New York Times. But NCAA infractions placed coach Charley Pell’s program on three years’ probation, led UF to fire him after three games and the SEC to nullify the championship the following spring.

Collateral damage became a group of players featuring 19 of 22 starters who would go on to NFL careers. Among them were three first-round NFL draft picks in the backfield, including Williams; a line tabbed “The Great Wall” and led by first-round pick Lomas Brown; and a defense with future All-Americans and NFL stalwarts Alonzo Johnson, Jarvis Williams and Tim Newton, who starred at Orlando Jones.

“There was a ton of talent,” former Great Wall member Billy Hinson told the Sentinel. “It was a special team.”

Hinson, the team’s starting left guard, has spearheaded the push for recognition and mended fences.

UF athletic director Scott Stricklin warmed to the idea.

“​​Forty years is a long time,” Stricklin told the Sentinel. “As hard as everyone works to use Florida athletics to engage and keep people connected to the university, we should find a way to stay engaged with them — to let them know that what they did here there’s a level of appreciation. 

“A lot of guys on that team had nothing to do with the stuff that went down. This will be an opportunity to heal some wounds.”

Stricklin recalled his first brush with the ’84 Gators during a trip to Gainesville as a freshman student worker at Mississippi State for the SEC’s ’89 baseball and track and field championships. 

“The hotel we were staying at had something about the ‘84 team, first SEC championship,” he said. “I remember knowing that it had been stripped and just how hard that probably was on everybody.

“Coach [Steve] Spurrier will tell you his ‘90 team, with the best record in the SEC, should have been champions. So, we have eight we recognize, and there’s 10 teams that played well enough on the field to deserve being SEC champions.”

The ’84 Gators started 0-1-1, with a last-minute loss to defending national champion Miami and a 21-21 decision to LSU. UF fired Pell following a Week 3 rout of Tulane.

Interim coach Galen Hall then led Florida to eight straight wins and a 5-0-1 SEC record.

On the flight back from a 25-17 win at Kentucky, featuring a school-record 6 field goals by Bobby Raymond, the Gators learned Mississippi State had edged LSU 16-14 in Starkville to deliver Florida the SEC title.

“We’re jubilant. We’re cheering and yelling and screaming on the plane,” Trimble recalled. “As the pilot came into Gainesville, he actually circled Florida Field and did a little bank so that you could see out the window and look down. We saw all these people in the stadium with the lights on, it was incredible. 

“Then we land, we get off the plane, there’s probably 5,000 people at the airport — they’re going nuts.”

The ensuing bus ride to Florida Field, where at least 30,000 fans awaited the Gators, was an unforgettable moment during quarterback Kerwin Bell’s football life.

“The streets were packed, filled with people,” Bell, now the head coach at Western Carolina, told the Sentinel. “I saw 60-year-old men crying — they were so emotional — because Florida had never won an SEC championship. That’s a memory. Through all the things I’ve been able to do in football, that one sticks out the most.”

Soon, memories would be all that remained.

To maintain their SEC title, the Gators agreed to sit out the Sugar Bowl, a 28-10 loss by LSU to Nebraska, and miss a shot for the national title won by upstart BYU of the Western Athletic Conference.

“If we’d have gone and showed up in the bowl game against whoever they put us against, we would have had a chance to win it outright,” Bell said.

In April 1985, SEC presidents voted to invalidate the Gators’ title. 

The championship trophy disappeared. Some wonder if it’s collecting in the south end zone storage room, under the scoreboard at the Swamp.

“It’s over there somewhere,” Hinson said. “I was told it was never given back.”

The school soon painted over a sign on the stadium wall acknowledging the championship.

Hinson, who resides in Jacksonville, and most of his teammates still have their rings. Much more has been lost.

Following Alonzo Johnson’s funeral in February, Hinson decided it was time to save what remained. Johnson’s son will wear his father’s No. 93 jersey Saturday night.

“I was driving back and I said, ‘We got to get this team together,’” he said. “And so I just started calling some guys.”

Then fellow Great Wall member Jeff Zimmerman died March 1. More than 20 people involved with the ‘84 team have passed away.

Hinson said a recent phone call with teammate Scott Armstrong punctuated the importance of reviving relationships that had meant so much 40 years ago.

“It was like we were in the locker room yesterday,” Hinson said. “I told my wife, ‘That is really amazing.’ That’s the connection. Life is very short.

“Heck, we might not be here next year.”

Hinson helped organize a tournament Friday at Gainesville’s Ironwood Golf Course, before the ’84 team is recognized the following night. 

Before the game, John L. Williams will serve as Honorary Mr. Two Bits during only his third Florida game since his final season in ’85.

“It’s beginning to mend what has been a bad situation,” he said. “I gave the University of Florida my all when I was there. I feel good about it.”

Yet, Williams, Hinson and their former teammates hope this weekend’s gathering and anniversary celebration is not a culmination, rather a start.

“We need to do something every year,” Hinson said. “The bond we had that was lost for all those years, what we went through … now some of that’s kind of coming back.”

Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com

Up next …

Kentucky at Florida

When: 7:45 p.m., Saturday, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium

TV: SEC Network

MIAMI GARDENS — The Indianapolis Colts appear primed to bring quarterback Anthony Richardson back from his oblique injury, and for the Miami Dolphins on Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium, that could present some good or some bad.

First, the good: Richardson’s return means the Dolphins don’t face veteran backup Joe Flacco, who has been very effective in relief of Richardson this year, as he was when he was inserted for the Cleveland Browns last year and won NFL Comeback Player of the Year.

Flacco is completing 65 percent of passes and has thrown seven touchdowns to one interception. Meanwhile, Richardson, the former Florida Gator and second-year dual-threat quarterback, has completed 50 percent of passes this season while throwing three touchdowns and six interceptions. And who knows if he comes out a bit rusty after he last was seen exiting early on Sept. 29 against the Pittsburgh Steelers?

But Richardson also presents mobility and athleticism that’s virtually unheard of among quarterbacks. A freakish athlete at 6 feet 4, 244 pounds, Richardson also has uncanny arm strength to strike way down the field.

In recent history, the Dolphins have had their share of struggles against running quarterbacks. Take Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills or Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens as examples.

“When he pulls the ball down to run, he looks like John Riggins,” Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver said, likening the passer to the powerful Jets and Washington rusher of the 1970s and 1980s. “He’s enormous, he’s big, he runs through people, and then he has a hose for an arm. … So just his skill set, his physical attributes, he is certainly still maturing as a player, but I think his ceiling is incredibly high.”

While Miami was not really looking at first-round quarterbacks in Richardson’s 2023 draft class, the unicorn from the Gators who was picked fourth by the Colts still stood out to coach Mike McDaniel.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen that,’” McDaniel said. “Really big, fast and has a cannon. He’s a cool player to watch, very confident and a problem for defenses.

“Anytime you have to play team defense to minimize the impact of a player, that speaks to the player. Pass rush has to be connected to coverage, run fits have to be on point and he can do a lot of things if you allow him to.”

Every pass play, the Dolphins will essentially have to be prepared to defend two different plays — the one that’s drawn up for Richardson to throw from the pocket and the play he can make by escaping the pass rush. And in between, beyond running with the ball himself, he can extend plays to give receivers more time to get open.

“He can spread the field, and he makes you defend 11 people,” Miami cornerbacks coach Mathieu Araujo said. “From a coverage standpoint, I think the first thing you see is just the extension of plays. … For a guy who’s big and can run, he’s looking to get the ball out of his hand when he does extend the play.”

Dolphins defensive tackle Calais Campbell, who actually was in the same draft class as Flacco as two of the few remaining NFL players in their upper 30s, has seen all types of quarterbacks in his experience. And he had a rousing endorsement for Richardson.

“Richardson is probably the ultimate athlete and probably, from a pass-rusher standpoint, the biggest challenge we’ll have so far this season,” Campbell said Monday as Miami got the week of preparation started coming off the bye.

But early in his budding career, Richardson appears to be turnover-prone. Miami can look to capitalize on that.

The Dolphins will do it while continuing to move cornerback Jalen Ramsey around on the defense, which could present confusing looks for a young passer.

“I don’t think there’s a position on the football field he hasn’t played,” Weaver said. “You blitz him sometimes like a Sam ‘backer. We’ve put him all over the place. We’ve blitzed him from the corner position. I’m almost ready to put him at inside ‘backer just to try to mess with these offensive guys.”

A big reason the Dolphins can afford to use Ramsey as that “ultimate chess piece” that Weaver famously mentioned when he first took the defensive coordinator position in Miami is fellow cornerback Kader Kohou presenting similar levels of flexibility. When Ramsey goes somewhere new, Kohou, mainly a nickel corner, can fill his usual boundary cornerback role.

“Without Kader being able to do what he can do, it doesn’t allow Jalen to do what he’s done in his career,” Araujo said. “Kader is as big a part of that as Jalen. When you move one guy, someone else has to do another job.”

The Indianapolis ground game can also be minimized if star running back Jonathan Taylor misses another game with his ailing ankle. The Dolphins have struggled in run defense, and Taylor’s absence would shrink the Colts’ ability to throw him and Richardson out there together as a quarterback-tailback rushing duo that could be comparable to the Ravens’ combination of Jackson and Derrick Henry.

“When I watch (Taylor), he reminds me a little bit of (former Jaguars standout) Fred Taylor, in the sense that he has some patience and vision,” Weaver said. “He’s a guy that’s going to dip in and out of holes — Le’Veon Bell type back — and then still has the speed to get away from guys.

“If he doesn’t play, it certainly doesn’t hurt us. If he does play, you always want to play against the best, and I consider him one of those.”

An Orlando City fan faces up to 40 years in federal prison after throwing two flares at Inter&Co Stadium during the club’s home season opener and burning a child, according to federal prosecutors.

Prosecutors announced Thursday that a grand jury indicted 37-year-old Giovanni Ramirez Reyes on a charge of arson of a building that led to personal injuries.

Ramirez Reyes was identified as the fan lighting and throwing the flares within The Wall, the stadium’s supporter section, during the team’s Feb. 24 draw against CF Montréal, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.

Prosecutors said the flares produced a large fire that damaged the stadium and injured the child. Records detailing the investigation against him — conducted by authorities in Orlando and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — remain under seal.

Orlando City released a statement after the incident that said the perpetrator could face up to a lifetime ban from the stadium.

On Thursday, club spokeswoman Jackie Maynard said in a statement to the Orlando Sentinel “additional individuals” also received bans from the stadium for violations of “stadium protocols [that] enabled this offense.”

“We continue to emphasize that the safety and security of our fans, our players or our staff will always be our number one priority. Our Club will never tolerate any actions that jeopardize or impact that assurance,” the statement read.

If convicted, Ramirez Reyes faces a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in federal prison but could receive up to 40 years. He was arrested Tuesday and pleaded not guilty before he was released.

His next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 12.

Although Friday’s preseason contest against the Sixers will serve the Magic‘s final dress rehearsal against a different opponent before Wednesday’s season opener in Miami, Jamahl Mosley felt it was important for his team to get some shots up on the Kia Center court.

That’s why Thursday, Orlando held practice in its home arena rather than AdventHealth Training Center, located only a couple of blocks away.

The Magic went through drills to get a better understanding of what a home game will feel like before hosting Philadelphia and eventually the Nets next week after opening night in South Florida.

“The guys did a tremendous job of locking in on those things and understanding the ‘why’ we came over here,” Mosley said.

Orlando would have already gotten a chance to play at Kia Center, but last week’s home preseason game against the Pelicans was canceled and not rescheduled because Hurricane Milton.

“It’s good to be back,” Magic center Moe Wagner. “It’s so different than the [practice] facility. It’s been a while. I’m obviously excited to get it started — it’s so different to play games than practice.”

Orlando dropped its first two preseason contests on the road — at New Orleans and San Antonio — but Mosley still views this time as a chance to learn about his team regardless of those results.

To gauge where the Magic sit ahead of the regular season, Mosley plans on experimenting with rotations against the Sixers.

“We’re looking to get different lineups [and] a different combination of guys to see, if the things we’ve been working on and implementing, how they work against another team,” he said. “Our guys have done a great job of concentrating and focusing on those small things that we’ve been implementing throughout camp.”

Health updates

Wendell Carter Jr. (sprained left ankle) is “doing well” and went through Orlando’s entire practice, according to Mosley.

It’s a positive sign for the center who was injured in the preseason opener in New Orleans.

Meanwhile, Magic guard Cole Anthony is dealing with “a little cold” but is “doing better,” said Mosley, who added that Anthony participated in practice Thursday. Anthony was wearing a mask during the media-viewing session of practice but went through his normal shooting reps with the coaching staff.

Philadelphia is expected to be without a handful of key players, including league MVP Joel Embiid, who was shut down for the remainder of the preseason Sunday as part of his left knee management, the team said.

The Sixers also said 6-time All-NBA wing Paul George has a bone bruise but he doesn’t have structural damage to a hyperextended left knee from Monday’s preseason game against Atlanta. He’ll be re-evaluated next week.

Sixers first-round pick Jared McCain was released from the hospital Thursday morning after taking a hard fall late in Wednesday’s preseason win vs. the Nets.

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com

Up next …

Magic vs. Sixers

When: 7, Friday, Kia Center

TV: Bally Sports Florida