Florida–Georgia football rivalry

Series history

The two universities do not agree on when the rivalry began. The University of Georgia's athletic department counts a 1904 match its football squad played against a team from a school known as the University of Florida. The game was held in Macon, Georgia, and Georgia won 52–0. However, this was not the modern University of Florida in Gainesville, but one of its four predecessor institutions: a school previously known as Florida Agricultural College, based in Lake City. Florida's University Athletic Association does not include this game in the series record, as it occurred before the modern university was established by the Florida Legislature in 1905, and before the new entity fielded its first officially-recognized football team in 1906. UGA sports historian Dan Magill sums up Georgia's attitude: "That's where Florida was back then. We can't help it if they got run out of [Lake City]."

The first game acknowledged by both schools was held in Jacksonville in 1915. The rivalry has been renewed annually since 1926, except for the 1943 season when Florida did not field a team due to World War II. For most of its history, the game has been played at neutral sites. From 1916 to 1932, it was played at several sites in Georgia (Athens and Savannah), and Florida (Tampa, Gainesville, and Jacksonville). Every year since 1933, the game has been held in Jacksonville, except for 1994 and 1995, when the contest was held at the respective schools' campus stadiums due to the reconstruction of what is now EverBank Field for the National Football League's Jacksonville Jaguars expansion team. The stadium was not available for play in 1994 due to construction, so that year's game was played in Gainesville, Florida. In 1995 the stadium was available (and was used by the Jacksonville Jaguars for their ten home games), but for fairness, the 1995 game was played in Athens, Georgia.

The game has often had championship implications, with both teams competitive in the Southeastern Conference. Florida, which did not win the SEC title until 1991, had its hopes dashed several times by a loss to Georgia in Jacksonville. The game took on new importance when the SEC split into Eastern and Western Divisions in 1992, with both Florida and Georgia in the Eastern Division. As the two teams have frequently led the division, the game has often effectively determined who will represent the Eastern Division in the SEC Championship Game. To date, Florida has twelve Eastern Division titles while Georgia has five.

While the two universities agree that Georgia leads the overall series, they disagree as to the overall series record due to the disputed 1904 game. As of the 2016 contest, Georgia leads with a 50–43–2 record by its reckoning, and 49–43–2 by Florida's count. Georgia dominated the series before 1951 and had a 15–5 record in the 1970s and 1980s. Florida compiled an 18–3 record against Georgia from 1990 to 2010. Since 2010, the series has been split, 3–3.

The designated "home" team alternates from year to year, with ticket distribution split evenly between the fans of the two teams. In past years, fans from Florida and Georgia were assigned seats grouped in alternating sections of the stadium, and the contrasting colors worn by the fans (red and black for Georgia, orange and blue for Florida) created a "beach ball" visual effect in the stands. Recently the seating arrangement has split the stadium lengthwise and fans sit on the side corresponding to the sideline their team occupies. For many years, the "home" team wore their home jerseys and the visitors their white visiting jerseys. Since 2014, both teams have worn their home jerseys.

Traditions, nicknames, and trophies

The game is one of the busiest annual events in downtown Jacksonville, and attracts huge crowds that congregate around the stadium for tailgating and other happenings, particularly at the Jacksonville Landing, a riverfront plaza facing the St. Johns River. As a result the game and associated revelry have been known as "the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party", a nickname first coined in the 1950s by Bill Kastelz, sports editor for The Florida Times-Union. Kastelz claimed he came up with the name after seeing a drunk, stumbling fan offer an alcoholic beverage to an on-duty police officer. The "Cocktail Party" nickname proved so popular that the City of Jacksonville used it for many years. However, the city dropped it from most official usage in 1988 following a series of alcohol-fueled outbursts. In 1984, Florida fans stormed the field and tore down the goal posts after a 27–0 victory; the following year, a 24–3 Georgia win led Bulldogs fans to do the same, ultimately resulting in 65 arrests. Thereafter, the city cracked down on excessive drinking and soon dropped its use of the name. In 2006 both schools and the Southeastern Conference asked CBS and the city to abandon the name in promotions due to concerns about alcohol abuse by students and other attendees.

Since 2006, the rivalry has lacked an official name. It is generally called the "Florida–Georgia game" in Florida, or "Georgia–Florida game" in Georgia; some entities, including the Jacksonville newspaper The Florida Times-Union, rotate the name each year to list the designated home team first.

Unlike many college sports rivalries, the Florida–Georgia game historically has not been played for a trophy. The city of Jacksonville announced that it would award the winning teams the goal posts from the game in 1986, in order to persuade fans not to storm the field and destroy them as they had the previous two years. However, no goal posts were ever given out as neither university wanted them.

In 2009, the student governments of the two universities announced the creation of a new trophy, the "Okefenokee Oar". The 10-foot-long Oar was donated anonymously to the University of Florida in 2009, and has opposing sides carved with symbols and logos from each school. The Oar was carved from the remains of a 1,000-year-old cypress tree that once grew in the Okefenokee Swamp, which straddles the Florida–Georgia border and was the source of an interstate boundary dispute. Beginning with the 2009 contest, the Okefenokee Oar is presented to the winning university's student body president. No trophy is presented at the game, however.

Site of game

The Florida–Georgia game has usually been played at neutral sites rather than the schools' respective home fields since the very beginning of the rivalry. Florida often played "home" games against major college opposition at off-campus sites before Florida Field was constructed in 1930. Up until that point, contests with Georgia were held in Jacksonville (3 times), Savannah (twice), and Tampa (once), along with three contests in Athens. The teams played in Gainesville for the first time in 1931, then returned to Athens in 1932. From 1933 onward, the game has been played in Jacksonville except for a home and home set in 1994 and 1995, when the Gator Bowl was being rebuilt for the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL. In almost 100 meetings, the game has been played in Athens or Gainesville a total of only seven times, and there are no plans to do so again in the future.

By playing the game at a neutral site, rather than on their respective campuses, both universities' athletic programs derive more revenue from the game than if the site rotated on a "home-and-away" basis. As of the 2009 contest, the universities made $1.7 million every year, or $3.4 million every two years, as opposed to an expected $2.2 million every two years if the game were played at their respective home stadiums. The game weekend is also extremely lucrative for Jacksonville businesses, particularly in the downtown area, with many reporting that it is their busiest weekend of the year.

There has occasionally been calls to move the game from Jacksonville, most often when Georgia or Florida is in the midst of the losing streak against their rival. However, the schools have continued to renew their contract since it makes financial sense for both schools to keep the game in Jacksonville. For example, despite vocal calls to move the game to Atlanta or make it a home-and-home contest, Georgia's athletic board unanimously agreed in 2009 to a six-year contract to keep the game in Jacksonville through 2016.

Notable games

As with most rivalries, there have been a number of close games over the years, often generating controversy and anguish over how the game ended for one of the teams involved. Like the series itself, most of the early memorable games favored the Bulldogs, with more recent ones favoring the Gators. Among the most memorable:

1928: Ending the drought

When Charlie Bachman became the 1928 Gators' new head coach, he inherited a team loaded with talent recruited by his predecessor, Harold Sebring. However, he also inherited a program which had never come close to beating the Georgia Bulldogs, their Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association rival. Georgia was 6–0 against Florida with five shutouts and a scoring advantage of 190–9 in their meetings so far.

The teams met again in Savannah, Georgia on November 10, and Bachman's Gators finally beat the Bulldogs through the efforts of Florida's "Phantom Four" backfield of Dale Van Sickle, Carl Brumbaugh, Rainey Cawthon, Clyde Crabtree and Royce Goodbread. With Florida holding a commanding lead in fourth quarter, jubilant Gator fans prematurely rushed the field to tear down the goal posts, resulting in fist fights breaking out between supporters of the two schools. Order was restored, the game was completed, and Florida earned its first victory in the series by the score of 26–6.

1941: Sinkwich beats Florida with a broken jaw

Georgia's All-American back Frank Sinkwich had broken his jaw in a game earlier in the season, but that didn't keep him off the field. Wearing a custom-made chinstrap attached to his helmet, Sinkwich ran 31 times for 142 and two touchdowns and kicked Georgia's first field goal since 1924 in the Bulldogs' 19–3 victory over the Gators. When speaking about the loss after the game, Florida coach Tom Lieb simply said "Too much Sinkwich."

1942: 75 and oh!

Having lost most upper-class players to service in World War II, the 1942 Florida Gators brought an inexperienced 3–4 squad into Jacksonville for the 1942 contest with Georgia. The Bulldogs, on the other hand, still had many veteran players thanks to the draft deferments of the players who were enrolled in the University of Georgia's ROTC program, and brought a 7–0 record and No. 1 ranking to Jacksonville.

Georgia halfback Charley Trippi and Heisman Trophy-winning back Frank Sinkwich combined to score seven touchdowns as Georgia crushed Florida 75–0—the largest margin in series history. The Bulldogs finished the regular season 10–1, won the Southeastern Conference championship, defeated the UCLA Bruins 9–0 in the Rose Bowl, and were named national champions by multiple polls and ratings services. Meanwhile, the depleted Gators did not win another game during the 1942 season, and with even more players joining the war effort afterward, would not field a team at all in 1943.

1949: Hunsinger ends Georgia's streak

The post–World War II 1940s were a tough slog for the Florida Gators. Coached by Raymond Wolf, the Gators' collection of recent high school graduates and returning war veterans suffered the indignity of four consecutive losing seasons—the lowest point in the history of the Gators football program, ironically remembered by the close-knit players as the "Golden Era." But there were still stars and bright moments; Wolf's 1949 Florida Gators were led by senior lineman Jimmy Kynes and running back Chuck Hunsinger. Given little chance by anyone to beat coach Wally Butts' Georgia Bulldogs in Jacksonville, Kynes inspired his two-way linemen to their outstanding effort of the season, stopping the Bulldogs' running game on defense, and blocking for Hunsinger on offense. Hunsinger rushed eighteen times for 174 yards and three touchdowns, and the Gators won 28–7, breaking a seven-game Georgia winning streak. Wolf's overall coaching record doomed his four-year tenure in Gainesville, but on that day he was carried from the field by his players.

1952: 30–0

Florida had only beaten Georgia once in their previous ten games coming into their 1952 meeting, and Florida coach Bob Woodruff was 0–2 against his arch-rivals. Attempting to jump-start his Gators' sluggish offense, Woodruff moved quarterback Rick Casares to fullback and inserted running back Doug Dickey into the quarterback position for the game. Casares had been recruited by Georgia, but upon meeting coach Butts felt he was too rough with his players, and attended Florida instead.

Led by Casares on offense and All-American Charlie LaPradd on defense, the Gators dominated the Bulldogs 30–0 in Jacksonville, which would remain the Gators' largest victory over the Bulldogs for almost forty years, and was the first shutout over the Bulldogs since 1937. Casares scored two touchdowns, three extra points, and a field goal; and halfback Buford Long ran for 116 yards on 10 carries.

Georgia suffered through several sub-par seasons in the 1950s, and Florida held an advantage (5–4) during the decade for the first time in the rivalry.

1964: Vince Dooley arrives

While Georgia still held an overall advantage in the series, Florida enjoyed a 10–2 streak from 1952 to 1963 under head coaches Bob Woodruff and Ray Graves. That changed with the arrival of Vince Dooley as the new head coach of the underdog 1964 Georgia Bulldogs. In a game where the Bulldogs' quarterback failed to complete a single pass and was intercepted twice, Dooleys' 'Dogs relied on their running game, a staunch second-half defense, and a little bit of luck to beat Graves' tenth-ranked Florida Gators. With the game tied at 7–7 in the fourth quarter, Bulldogs placekicker Bob Etter lined up for a potential game-winning field goal. Instead, in a wild broken play, the Bulldogs' center and placeholder mishandled the snap, but Etter picked up the bobbled ball and ran it for a touchdown to win the game 14–7.

Dooley's teams would split their first seven games 3–3–1 against Graves' Gators. Thereafter, Dooley's 'Dogs would go on to dominate the rivalry, winning fourteen of the nineteen games from 1971 to 1989.

1966: Heisman curse?

The seventh-ranked 1966 Florida Gators entered the game with a 7–0 record and the opportunity to clinch a share of their first-ever SEC title. The Gators' senior quarterback, Steve Spurrier, had just locked up the Heisman trophy the previous week with a stellar performance versus the Auburn Tigers. The Florida–Georgia game turned out very differently, however, as the Bulldogs defense dominated the game, and Spurrier threw three interceptions in the 27–10 Georgia victory. All-American defensive tackle Bill Stanfill would later reference Spurrier in recounting his experiences growing up on a farm in southwest Georgia before the advent of weightlifting: "Holding pigs for my dad to castrate was quite a challenge. I can't say that helped prepare me for football, but it sure did remind me an awful lot of sacking Steve Spurrier."

Spurrier returned to Gainesville as the Gators' head coach in 1990 and emphasized the annual Florida–Georgia contest as the "biggest of the year." Under his tenure, the Gators were 11–1 against their bitter rivals.

1970: Rip, strip, and grip

The 1970 Florida Gators featured All-American defensive end Jack Youngblood, and he pulled off one of the most remarkable plays in Florida football history. With Bulldogs leading 17–10 and in possession of the ball at the Gators' two-yard line, Youngblood stood up Georgia back Ricky Lake short of the goal, forced a fumble and fell on the football. "They ran a lead play to my side, and I cut it off", Youngblood said. "I'm standing there holding the ballcarrier and I take the ball away from him, and gave it back to our offense." Gators quarterback John Reaves and wide receiver Carlos Alvarez then connected for two touchdown passes in the final 5:13 to rally the Florida Gators to a 24–17 victory.

1975: Appleby to Washington

The 1975 Florida Gators came into the game with a 6–1 record and No. 7 ranking, while the Georgia Bulldogs were 5–2 and ranked No. 19. The Gators' offense was led by running back Tony Green, who ran an early one-yard touchdown to put the Gators ahead 7–0. The Gators led 7–3 as time was winding down in the fourth quarter. Georgia's "Junkyard Dawgs" defense allowed yards between the 20-yard-lines, but ceded little ground in the red zone. The Bulldogs set up at their own 20-yard-line with 3:10 remaining, and head coach Vince Dooley did something he rarely did: he called a trick play. Tight end Richard Appleby accepted the handoff on a reverse to the right, but instead of running downfield, he threw the ball to wide receiver Gene Washington for an improbable 80-yard touchdown play. The Gators' final field goal attempt never had a chance, as the snap was rolled to the holder, and Georgia won 10–7.

1976: "Fourth and dumb"

The 1976 Florida Gators were 6–1 and ranked No. 10 coming into the game, and again seeking to secure their first SEC football championship. The Gators held a 27–13 halftime advantage and seemed to have the game in hand until the Bulldogs scored early in the third quarter to cut the lead to 27–20. Then, faced with a fourth-and-one situation at the Gators' own 29-yard-line, coach Doug Dickey decided to go for the first down rather than punt. Gators running back Earl Carr was stopped short by Bulldogs safety Johnny Henderson. Led by quarterback Ray Goff's game management and running back Kevin McLee's 198-yard rushing performance, the Bulldogs seized the momentum and scored three touchdowns on their way to a come-from-behind 41–27 win. After the game, Dickey said: "We were not outplayed. We were outcoached. I made some dumb calls." Sports writers seized on Dickey's mea culpa, and in subsequent months and years popularized the phrase "fourth and dumb" to refer to Dickey's failed fourth down attempt and the game itself.

1980: "Run, Lindsay, run!"

Trailing the underdog 1980 Florida Gators with their perfect season and their No. 2 ranking in jeopardy, the Bulldogs executed one of the most famous plays in college football history. Georgia was behind 21–20 with time running out, facing third down and long yardage from their own 7-yard-line. After scrambling around in his own endzone, Bulldog quarterback Buck Belue found wide receiver Lindsay Scott open in the middle of the field near the Georgia 25-yard-line, and hit him with a 25-yard pass. Scott darted through Florida's secondary and outran everyone down the sideline, scoring the game-winning touchdown with only seconds left on the game clock.

Long-time Georgia radio announcer Larry Munson's legendary call of the play gave the game its nickname:

Florida in a stand-up five, they may or may not blitz....they won't. Buck back, third down on the eight. In trouble, he got a block behind him. Gonna throw on the run. Complete to the 25. To the 30, Lindsay Scott 35, 40, Lindsay Scott 45, 50, 45, 40 . . . Run Lindsay, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott!

The improbable 93-yard pass play sealed the Bulldogs' 26–21 victory, and kept Georgia's national championship hopes alive. The Bulldogs moved to No. 1 in the next round of polls and would go on to win the 1980 consensus national championship.

1984: Bell to Nattiel

After suffering many a heartbreaking defeat to the Bulldogs with a conference championship at stake, coach Galen Hall's 1984 Florida Gators entered the contest undefeated in the SEC. The Gators dominated early, building a 17–0 lead by early in the second half. But the Bulldogs seemed to come alive in the third quarter, mounting a long drive; however, Georgia's drive died in the shadow of the Gators' goal line when they were stuffed on fourth down, checking the Bulldogs momentarily but pinning the Gators deep in their own territory. On the third play following the change of possession, Gators quarterback Kerwin Bell dropped back into his own end zone and lofted a long pass to streaking receiver Ricky Nattiel, who went 96 yards for a touchdown. The Bulldog momentum was snuffed out and the Gators went on to a convincing 27–0 victory, eventually completing an undefeated conference schedule for the first time in Gators history.

1985: 'Dogs upset No. 1 Gators

The 1985 Florida Gators entered the contest on a roll: coming off an emotional win over the Auburn Tigers, undefeated, and ranked No. 1 in the nation for the first time in school history. This would not be a repeat of the 1984 game, however. As they had done so many times in the past, the Bulldogs spoiled Florida's season, defeating the Gators 24–3 with freshmen running backs Keith Henderson and Tim Worley both rushing for over 100 yards.

1993: Timeout

In constant rain, the usually prolific passing game of coach Steve Spurrier's 1993 Florida Gators was stymied. Instead, the Gators relied on tailback Errict Rhett to amass 183 yards and two touchdowns to build a 33–26 fourth-quarter lead. Led by quarterback Eric Zeier, the Georgia Bulldogs mounted a drive into Florida territory in the final minute and a half. Zeier completed what appeared to be the game-tying touchdown to Jerry Jerman with five seconds remaining in the game. However, Gators cornerback Anthone Lott had called a timeout just before the ball was snapped, forcing the Bulldogs to play the down again. Lott was called for pass interference on the ensuing play, giving Georgia one last untimed chance to score. Zeier's final pass fell incomplete, and the Gators won a hard-fought, but controversial 33–26 victory.

1995: "Half a hundred between the Hedges" in Athens

With Jacksonville's rebuilt Jacksonville Municipal Stadium still under construction, this traditional neutral-site showdown was held on the universities' campuses for the first time in over sixty years in 1994 and 1995. After winning at "The Swamp" the previous season, the undefeated 1995 Florida Gators hoped to repeat the feat at Sanford Stadium against a struggling Georgia Bulldogs team led by soon-to-be-fired coach Ray Goff.

Gators starting quarterback Danny Wuerffel threw for 242 yards and five touchdowns before leaving the game in the third quarter. With the Gators leading 38–17 in the fourth quarter, Gators backup quarterback Eric Kresser threw for two more touchdowns, one with 1:21 remaining, to make the final score 52–17. After the game, Gators coach Steve Spurrier stated that he had wanted to be the first opponent to hang "half a hundred" on the Bulldogs in their own stadium because "we heard no one had ever done that before." The Gators' fifty-two points remains the record for most scored against Georgia "between the hedges."

2002: Gators upset No. 4 Bulldogs

The 2002 Bulldogs brought a perfect 8–0 record and No. 4 ranking to the annual grudge match in Jacksonville. Under new head coach Ron Zook, the Gators limped into the game with a 5–3 record and were unranked for the first time in over a decade. In a reversal of many Florida-Georgia games over the years, it was the underdog Gators who would ruin the Bulldogs' season.

Trailing 7–6, the Gators took the lead with a key play on defense. Upon entering the contest in the second quarter, Bulldogs quarterback DJ Shockley was intercepted by Gators safety Guss Scott, who returned it for a touchdown, giving his team a 12–7 lead after a failed two-point conversion attempt. The Bulldogs moved the ball but could not punch it into the endzone, settling for two field goals to take a halftime 13–12 lead. The defenses continued to dominate in the second half, until an early fourth-quarter Gator drive ended with a touchdown pass from quarterback Rex Grossman and gave Florida a 20–13 advantage. The Georgia offense failed to score again and failed to convert a third-down in thirteen attempts as Florida held on for the upset.

2007

The 2007 Georgia Bulldogs are remembered for the "Gator Stomp", a first-quarter mass celebration of the entire Georgia team in the Gators' endzone after Georgia's first touchdown, a move that emotionally rallied the underdog Bulldogs. Because of the staged celebration, Georgia received two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and was forced to kick off from their own 8-yard line. After the game, Georgia coach Mark Richt acknowledged that he ordered his team to draw an excessive celebration penalty after their first touchdown, but intended that only the eleven players on the field would celebrate, not the entire team. The motivational tactic paid off for Richt, as Knowshon Moreno ran for 188 yards and Georgia's defense sacked Gators quarterback Tim Tebow six times in a 42–30 victory. The high-scoring game was the first in series history in which both teams scored thirty or more points.

2008

As the 2008 game approached, both coaches repeatedly stated that the previous year's incident would have no bearing on the contest. Florida coach Urban Meyer went so far as to issue a gag order to his players, instructing them not to talk about the 2007 game with the media. In his authorized biography, published following the season, Meyer said: "That wasn't right. It was a bad deal. . . . We'll handle it, and it's going to be a big deal."

The Bulldogs and Gators were both ranked in the top 10, and the winner would have the inside track in the SEC Eastern Division race and a possible shot at a national title. Some commentators went so far as to call it the biggest match-up in the series history, or at least the previous 20 years. After the Bulldogs missed two field goals and failed to recover an onside kick after their first score, the Gators took a 14–3 halftime lead. In the second half, the Bulldogs turned the ball over four times and the Gators turned the game into a 49–10 rout—the Bulldogs' second worst loss of the series. The Gators went on to win the SEC Championship Game and the BCS Championship Game that season.

In an apparent response to the Bulldogs' endzone celebration of the previous year, Meyer used both of his remaining timeouts with less than a minute to play, giving his team and fans more time to celebrate the victory. After the game, he broke his pre-game silence on the 2007 celebration. "Was it motivation for our players? Yeah, it was."

2012: Bulldogs upset No. 2 Gators

Florida entered the 2012 matchup with their arch-rivals holding a 7–0 record and a No. 2 ranking while Georgia came in 6–1 and ranked No. 12, making the contest a key game in the race for the SEC East title. Both teams featured had strong defenses and ball control offenses, so the contest was unsurprisingly low scoring. Florida was down 17–9 late in the 4th quarter when they mounted a potential game-tying drive deep into Georgia territory. Gator quarterback Jeff Driskel completed a pass over the middle to tight end Jordan Reed, who appeared to be heading to the endzone before Bulldog defensive back Jarvis Jones punched the ball out of his hands, and Georgia recovered at their own five yard line. The lost fumble was Florida's sixth turnover of the game and allowed Georgia to hold on for the win. The victory sent the Bulldogs to the SEC Championship game.