Florida-Georgia Game Adds New Characters But Unique Appeal Remains Unchanged
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 | Football, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The scene below is one they never forget.
Tens of thousands of people getting ready for the show, half of them decked in orange and blue, the other half in red and black. Smoking grills as far as the eye can see. Motor homes and tailgate parties stretched all around. Boats clogging up the St. Johns River below.
They remember the rush and tingling they felt at first sight. They first see it when driving over the Hart Bridge in Jacksonville on their way to the annual Florida-Georgia game. The bridge stands high above the river and guides the team buses right into EverBank Field, which sits where the old Gator Bowl once stood proudly as the home of this rivalry.
“You get charged when you come over that bridge and you see all the RVs and the passion and the tradition of the game,'' Gators coach Will Muschamp said.
Muschamp saw it as a player at Georgia in the early 1990s. He'll see it again Saturday for the first time as head coach at Florida.
The annual Florida-Georgia rivalry is knee deep in history, tradition and feistiness. The two schools don't even agree on how many times they've met, with Georgia including a 1904 encounter in Macon in its official ledger. Florida claims its football team didn't start competing at the varsity level until 1906.
They call it the Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville, Georgia-Florida in Savannah. It remains one of college football's great rivalries regardless of records or rankings. It's all about the rancor when these two teams meet.
“As soon as you cross that bridge, that's when you start feeling the game,'' Gators linebacker Jon Bostic said. “Most of the time, it's when you step in the stadium or when you step off the bus.''
When the Gators and Bulldogs cross that bridge Saturday named for Isaiah David Hart – the man who founded Jacksonville – which direction will they take? That is the biggest question entering the 2011 version of this border war.
The Gators enter with a three-game losing streak, the same situation they faced a year ago before Chas Henry's 37-yard field goal in overtime lifted Florida to a 34-31 victory. Georgia is going in the opposite direction. The Bulldogs have won five consecutive games since losing to Boise State and South Carolina to start the season.
The game has huge implications on the SEC East race as usual.
“Neither team is ranked as high as we're accustomed to, but it's still for the bragging rights between the state of Florida and the state of Georgia,'' said former Gators running back Nat Moore, who experienced the rivalry in the early 1970s and is being inducted into the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame on Friday. “I expect both teams to come in there fired up and ready to play and trying to resurrect their season.''
Georgia once dominated this rivalry, winning nine of 10 in the 1980s thanks to Herschel Walker, Run, Lindsay Run and legendary coach Vince Dooley. The Gators have dominated in the last two decades, taking charge after Steve Spurrier's return to Gainesville in 1990 with 18 wins in the last 21 meetings.
Florida's last loss to Georgia came in 2007, a game that fifth-year senior running back Chris Rainey remembers more than Florida's wins the past three seasons over Georgia.
The Bulldogs won 42-30 and caused a stir when the entire team ran onto the field to celebrate their first touchdown of the game with a dance now known as the Gator Stomp.
“It sticks in my head when people do something like that,'' Rainey said. “It's embarrassing and we lost the game.''
The next season the Gators got payback with a 49-10 win in which former Florida coach Urban Meyer used a pair of late timeouts to give the Bulldogs some extra time to think about their 39-point loss.
If the Gators want to keep their SEC hopes alive, they have to beat the Bulldogs on Saturday for a fourth consecutive year. It's a game fifth-year senior quarterback John Brantley certainly has had on his mind.
In fact, shortly after Brantley suffered a severe ankle sprain on Oct. 1 against Alabama that has sidelined him the past two games, he made it clear to Muschamp how hard he would work to get back onto the field before his senior season ended.
Part of the reason: Florida-Georgia.
“When he had his injury, he was very disappointed and hurt and down,'' Muschamp said. “He told me back then, 'I want to get back for Georgia.' It's important to John. Of course, his dad was a Gator and his uncle was a Gator and they understand the importance of this game.
“There is no question that he's really pinpointed trying to get back for this game.''
Now that it's almost here, Brantley offers the Gators their best hope of snapping a midseason slump and keeping alive hope of winning the SEC East. Georgia's goal is to keep pace with division co-leader South Carolina and make it back to the Georgia Dome – the place they opened their season with a loss to Boise State – and the SEC Championship game for the first time in six years.
This game doesn't have national championship implications like it has in the past. It doesn't have a Heisman favorite like Walker or a hometown hero like Tim Tebow, but it has that it factor like few other games can match.
Muschamp went to the game as a fan growing up. He played in it during college. And now he gets to coach in it.
No one has to tell him what to expect on Saturday.
“Growing up in the South, you understand the impact of that game,'' Muschamp said. “You get goose bumps talking about it.''
