It was supposed to be the turning point. It was supposed to be the spot where the Florida Gators’ narrative changed and their universe returned to normal.
Instead, Florida’s inexplicable 38-20 win over Georgia on Nov. 1 ended up being a blip on its radar screen.
“That was a weird game,” said junior defensive back Vernon Hargreaves, a first-team All-American last year. “I didn’t expect it to look that way, I don’t know about y’all. Running the ball over 50 times and beating that team how we did? You know, we want all games to be like that.”
They weren’t. After that supposed watershed moment, the Gators dropped a 23-20 overtime decision to South Carolina two weeks later, and coach Will Muschamp was fired. He coached the last two games, which included a 24-19 loss to rival FSU 24-19 in the regular-season finale.
The Gators finished 7-5 after beating East Carolina 28-20 in the Birmingham Bowl. Not exactly to stuff of which Florida has become accustomed this century.
“Last year was crazy to me,” sophomore receiver Brandon Powell said. “Basically we didn’t finish. That was the whole thing about last year. If we finish we easily win most of those games we lost.”
Said senior defensive lineman Jon Bullard: “You don’t want to believe it happened. A few plays and a few games and we’d be sitting here talking about something totally different. … It is what it is. We’ve just got to learn from it and try not to let it happen this year.”
The Georgia game stands as the brightest light in an otherwise dark year. The No. 9-ranked Bulldogs arrived at EverBank as double-digit favorites on the heels of a pair of resounding road victories over Missouri and Arkansas. The emergence of Nick Chubb as Todd Gurley’s replacement had renewed Georgia’s confidence that it could that it could still realize its goals with Gurley’s season sidelined.
But the Gators, long deemed offensively inept, found a weakness in the Bulldogs’ defense and exploited it to death. They ran the ball an unfathomable 60 times for 418 yards. Sophomore tailback went for 197 yards himself with two scores, including a 65-yard run.
“I don’t know how it happened or why it happened but it did,” Hargreaves said.
“We were just doing what we wanted to on offense against them,” Bullard said. “I was like, ‘where’d this come from?’
Said Powell: “Everybody was just executing that day. That’s all it really was. Everybody did their job. At the end of the day that’s why we beat Georgia.”
A lot has changed since that strange day on the banks of the St. Johns River. The Gators tabbed Jim McElwain from Colorado State and brought him in to ensure that their offense is consistently productive. Like Georgia and most teams in the league, Florida will also is in the throes of a quarterback competition. Dante Fowler went third as an early entry in the NFL draft and the Gators are looking to grow up quickly on the offensive line.
But what hasn’t changed is the importance of that fall classic versus Georgia in Jacksonville.
“We already know it; everybody knows it,” Hargreaves said. “Florida-Georgia, you have to be ready.”
Last year, the Gators were and the Bulldogs weren’t.
