AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > October > 26 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USGeorgia must keep up its end of rivalry
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
St. Simons Island — Well, the circus hit town again. Christmas comes in October to the shopkeepers, the restaurants, the motels and, of course, the barkeeps around the marshes of Glynn. The shop windows along Frederica Road have developed a reddish glow. Just a while ago I heard the wail of a siren. You don’t hear sirens wail around here a lot.
They’re here. Georgia Bulldogs gathered along the state line to make the mad rush into Jacksonville on Saturday.
The two university presidents of Georgia and Florida joined in a personal campaign a while ago to dismiss the famous old, though unofficial, slogan, “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” And Jacksonville for years has tried to live down its reputation for traffic snarls. One has been about as successful as the other. Time goes on. Little changes in this old football rivalry that has gone lopsided over the turn of the century.
In fact, it has developed such a Gator flavor that a columnist in Jacksonville, living dangerously, has decided that this series needs Georgia to win one. Publicly announced his out-and-out hope that Georgia wins this one. Just so all these Georgians might feel better about coming to Jacksonville every year. None of this home-and-home stuff, see.
You know, they did that once back in the mid-’90s, while the old Gator Bowl was being remodeled, one game in Athens, one in Gainesville. Nothing changed. Florida won on both sides of the border by a total score of 104-31. They went back to Jacksonville in 1996, and the stadium soon had a new name, Nextel or Alltel, or one -“tel” or another, and now it’s back to what it is really is, Jacksonville Municipal Stadium.
Tell you one thing, these Bulldogs are going to give Jacksonville as little business as need be. This has become a regular pilgrimage destination, come to St. Simons, Brunswick, St. Mary’s, once-upon-a-time Jekyll Island — now it’s in a state of parliamentary squabble — and a weekend becomes an extended vacation. They drive down to the game on Saturday and back that night, leaving as little to the Florida tax budget as possible. It’s a transfusion to the Glynn County economy.
“If it wasn’t for Georgia-Florida weekend, we’d be out of business,” Stan Robinson, manager of Brogen’s, a central gathering place for many a Bulldog on St. Simons. Its “Bulldogs” banners have been beckoning Georgia nomads all week. “It’s bigger than Fourth of July and Labor Day combined. This is what you’d call our ‘season.’ “
I’ve been to Army-Navy, when the two academies were of national rank. And I’ve been to the “Red River Shootout” between Texas and Oklahoma. Neither carries on with such an uproar, with such bitterness as Georgia-Florida. And neither is as much a part of the health of the commonwealth as Georgia-Florida is to its part of the South.
There is this caveat, however: Unless the Bulldogs begin picking up and shouldering their side of it all, chances are the intensity will wear away, and it takes two to make a rivalry.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment | Categories: Furman Bisher, UGA / SEC
Comments
By JohninJax
October 26, 2007 9:32 PM | Link to this
Ha Ha.. I am FIRST!!! Good article Mr. Bisher.
By Chad "Silverdawg" Cornelius
October 26, 2007 9:54 PM | Link to this
For one reason or another, there’s one factor to this Georgia-Florida business that seems to go unnoticed year after year. Unfortunately, in order to put this asterisk of which I speak in its proper perspective, we most look back into a place where most who wear the red and black hate to look, the Spurrier era.
Steve Spurrier took over as Florida head coach in 1990, and while I need not remind everyone what happened, for history’s sake, it warrants repeating. The result was 12 years of misery: 11 losses and being outscored a total of 436 points to 199. I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) the first schedule Spurrier touched was the 1993 season; he scheduled a bye week before the Georgia-Florida game and - with three victories already under his belt form 1990 to 1992 - the Gators won 33-26. But this tactic of scheduling a bye week before the Georgia-Florida game was not a rarity; it would continue every year under Spurrier’s watch up to the last schedule he crafted as head coach, which was the 2003 season. I shouldn’t have to repeat this, but I must because no one seems to get it. Spurrier hated Georgia so much (go back to his days as a player) that he scheduled a bye week before EVERY Georgia-Florida game! From 1993 through 2003, it was standard practice for Spurrier. Ron Zook took over in 2002 and first worked on the Gators’ 2004 schedule, which lacked a bye week before the Bulldog-Gator rivalry: the result, a rare 31-24 Georgia win. Unfortunately, the Florida schedule returned to status quo the following year and another losing streak for the Dawgs looms on the horizon should they drop another one to the Gators.
Fortunately, Georgia has the upper hand this year with a bye last week. While Florida had their hands full with Kentucky, Georgia was resting and getting ready for this one. Hopefully Richt has them ready to stop the bleeding and regain dominance in the rivalry. Oddly enough, with 15 losses in 17 tries, Georgia still owns overall bragging rights in the series, which currently stands at 46-37-2.
By jim
October 26, 2007 10:57 PM | Link to this
Three things the dawgs need to take to heart are: (1) You have to want to win and expect that you are going to win. (2) Don’t think anything is unrealistic and believe you can do it. (3) One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.
Go dawgs
By DawgBone
October 26, 2007 11:20 PM | Link to this
Great post Silverdawg! Looking forward to another Georgia win against a defending national champion.
Go Dawgs!
DAWGBONE
By Dawgs2007
October 27, 2007 1:27 AM | Link to this
Losing to Florida will eventually doom CMR. He needs to step up and start winning a few. No excuses!!
Get it done or go back to Florida State. I no longer care about what he has done for the program. If we can’t beat Florida, we are nothing.
By Ed
October 27, 2007 1:53 AM | Link to this
As a longtime Georgia fan, I share everyone’s concern about the team’s struggles against UF beginning in 1990. However, I don’t get the increasingly popular “death of a rivalry” angle, especially when the team that’s supposedly responsible for saving the rivalry actually has an 8 or 9 game lead in the overall series. We don’t live in a vacuum, and life didn’t start when Steve Spurrier became the UF coach. Mehre, Butts, and Dooley each coached Georgia at one time, and each had a stretch where they beat Florida like a red-headed stepchild. Games played in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s still count, and the Gators lost twice as many as they won in the series during that stretch.
By Ed
October 27, 2007 1:59 AM | Link to this
Richt has been great for Georgia, but I agree that losing to Florida, if it goes on a few more years, could eventually doom him. John Cooper was a successful coach at OSU who couldn’t get past Michigan, and it doomed him. Lloyd Carr’s failures againt OSU in recent years have put him on the hot seat (that series is all the evidence you need that things eventually turn in series such as this).
It will start with better scheduling. Florida is hard enough to beat without having them be our 5th straight weekly opponent while they have two weeks to rest and prepare for us. This weekend is a rare opportunity, let’s hope our guys take advantage of the rest.
By honest_abe
October 27, 2007 2:10 AM | Link to this
if richt continues to win 10 games and competing for sec championships i doubt he gets chased out of athens. even if he keeps losing to those dang gators.
boy oh boy wouldn’t it be special to see caleb king turn in a spectacular performance in his very first game. i know the chances are slim but that would be the cherry on the top for me. a big bruising back with speed and elusiveness. hmmm reminiscing of herschel.
By TC
October 27, 2007 2:18 AM | Link to this
Yes it takes two to make a rivalry and for the last 17 years UF has owned Georgia. It’s not a rivalry. Georgia just hates Florida for beating them all the time. The thrashing will continue and the hate will grow because UGA is going down again tomorrow.
By Nice theory, but...
October 27, 2007 2:46 AM | Link to this
Silverdawg, your theory doesn’t hold water. Bye weeks are scheduled by the SEC league offices, not by the individual schools. Georgia has been losing to Florida since Spurrier’s arrival because he took UF to an entirely different level talent-wise and scheme-wise than UGA and the rest of the SEC for several years. Other than the brief interlude of mediocrity during the Zook years (not all his fault, mind you), UF has managed to maintain an extremely high level of success in its athletic department from top to bottom. The sports now feed off each other, and the football & basketball success are paying dividends in the non-revenue-generating sports as well. The recent tilt of this rivalry toward Florida is more a testament to AD Jeremy Foley — he’s done a masterful job maintaining all of the programs and getting the best coaches in the country to run them.
By This Gets Old
October 27, 2007 3:39 AM | Link to this
Silverdawg I’ve been saying that same thing for years.
Two additional things though,
1)For Satan beating UGA became a zero sum game. He’d played in the damned game and when he took over it meant a lot more to him than it really did to Georgia because we’d been dominating. It was everything and he like it or not, subtly used race to take some of the best Georgia players down to UF. I’ll get hammered on that but it’s true.
2)If this current UGA team had the talent that the D.J. team had, with the off week…no question. Now, as much as I hope I can’t see it. They’ve got a track team down there. We’re young but, so is Florida. They’ll win.
By Bamadon
October 27, 2007 7:24 AM | Link to this
Good luck today dawgs!!! Hope everybody in jacksonville is having a good time. I would love to be at the game, but I have to work. GO DAWGS!!!
By jc_atl
October 27, 2007 9:03 AM | Link to this
Florida crushed Tennessee. Tennessee crushed Georgia. I think you can follow the logic … but actually I don’t expect Georgia to get crushed, just slowly beat down over four quarters by a more experienced, more physical Gator team.
By Dawgs will lose
October 27, 2007 9:22 AM | Link to this
Dawgs will be blindsided and it will just be too much to overcome in the 2nd half. Look at the long faces in the stands….. Look at the long faces in the stands! Go Gators!!!
By Nikki
October 27, 2007 10:06 AM | Link to this
Great read, Bisher. I do agree that the Dawgs need to win more of these games to keep this game interesting on both sides. The Gaytors don’t even care about this game anymore. The new guys have no sense of the history of this game because it’s become so lopsided.It’s very disrespectful.
jc_atl, Georgia beat Alabama. Alabama beat Tennessee. New line of thinking, please.
By Ed
October 27, 2007 10:27 AM | Link to this
I still don’t buy it. Georgia holds a 9-game edge in the overall series, but their struggles the last two decades means it’s no longer a rivalry? Florida would have to win every game between now and 2015 just to tie the series (yeah I know, it seems like they might do that sometimes). It sure seemed like a rivalry when we beat them 7 out of 8 from ‘76 to ‘83, or 8 out of 10 in the 80s. It seemed like a rivalry when we beat them 51-0 in ‘68, 44-0 in ‘82, and 37-17 in ‘97. It seemed like a rivalry when we pounded #1 ranked UF 24-3 in ‘85. It seemed like a rivalry when we won 31-24 three years ago. It is a rivalry, was a rivalry, and will always be a rivalry. Enough of this loser defeatist talk.
By DirtyDawg
October 27, 2007 11:06 AM | Link to this
Oh, it’s still a rivalry alright. At least in my definition of it. Sure there was a stretch when the ‘evil one’ was there when they not only beat us, but they delighted in rubbing our noses in it. If you don’t think that builds up in a true Bull Dog then you don’t know much about dogs. You can only rub their nose in it so much and then they turn and bite you in the ‘b*s’. It might not have been much but I still recall Donnan’s Dawgs’ victory over Spurrier’s Gators. We beat ‘em in every phase of the game - and we won the hell out of the post-game party, finally.
The thing about what Spurrier started is that he created the most obnoxiously arrogant bunch of fans in the SEC, and perhaps the country. Of course being National Champs in a couple of major sports will do that for you as well, but Steve Superior started it all. I’ll never forget that even after Nebraska’s pummeling of UF in that national title game that year, Gator fans opened the next season with that same ‘we’re a better class of folks than you are’ attitude. It makes you want to beat the ever-lovin’ you-know-what out of every single person you see wearing that putrid orange and blue.
As for the current state of the rivalry, they may not think it’s much of one, but I assure you, we do. The games have been close and with one of two bounces of the ball, we win. Will we do it? If we knock Mr. Tebow’s other ‘you-know-what’ off every chance we get. Are we men enough to do it. We’ll know by dark.
By Corporate
October 27, 2007 11:14 AM | Link to this
The Dawgs are the Dogs of the SEC East, losing to South Carolina to the East, Tennessee to the North, soon Florida to the South, and a little later to Auburn to the West. Surrounded as they are by supperior teams, the Dawgs only hope is to fire their worthless coach.
By Rob Lyons
October 27, 2007 3:42 PM | Link to this
We need all the help we can get. We are in desperate need of golfers for a celebrity event on Nov. 15th & 16th at the Heritage Golf Club in Tucker. This is a benefit for the Atlanta Children’s Shelter. Confirmed celebrities participating include Dominique Wilkins, Brian McCann, Johnny Damon, local musicians Morgan Rose, Lajon Witherspoon and Vince Hornsby from Sevendust and many more.
The word has not spread fast enough and we need the media’s help getting out word that we need to fill 6-70 foursomes in 3 weeks. Please Help!
All the tournament information can be found at www.longestputt.com
Thanks!
By Ed
October 27, 2007 7:07 PM | Link to this
CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP GAG, GAG, WHEEZ, CROAK
42-30