Dropped The Ball
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The 2002 Georgia Bulldogs finished the season as SEC Champions for the first SEC title in 20 years for UGA.
UGA beat FSU in the Sugar Bowl and finished ranked #3 nationally. This was Mark Richt’s best football team in his 15 years at UGA, but the only blemish on the schedule was at The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail party. Here is that dreadful day through the eyes of this writer.
November 2, 2002 was a beautiful day in Jacksonville.
Weather was great and Georgia fans were in Jacksonville in force.
UGA was unbeaten, Spurrier was gone to the NFL and Florida was down. They were coming into the game with three losses for the first time since the 1980’s.
This was going to be the year that UGA put UF in its place and took control over the series again.
UGA fans had been beaten into submission by the Evil Genius before he took the Washington Redskins job. Spurrier had gone 11-1 against UGA in his 12 years in Gainesville.
Ron Zook was the Florida coach and UGA came into this game very confident that they would blow out Florida.
I was supremely confident also. You could tell early in the day that the Gator Nation was nervous, and we smelled that and it was like a hungry football team attacking an all you can eat country buffet.
The game was the first and only night game at the Cocktail party. I have never talked so much trash at a football game in my life.
I just knew unbeaten UGA was going to blow out the Gators. I had my best trash talk lines ready like “Shreveport in December at the Poulan Weed Whacker Bowl, you better have a winter jacket Gators”, or my favorite “The Grand Ole Opry at Christmas time is the highlight of a Music City Bowl Trip”.
We knew well because UGA was just there the previous season, but when talking trash facts do not enter into the mix, and it’s UGA/UF and we had an 8 hour tailgate experience and who cares Georgia keeps Florida from falling into the ocean on any map or atlas you can purchase.
We started the walk from our tailgate spot to the stadium looking like Ric Flair making a championship match entrance and talked down to just about every Florida fan that would make eye contact.
We got to our seats and settled in, thankfully. Drink of the day was Jim Beam and 7-Up.
Fred Gibson was hurt and could not play. Billy Bennett missed 3 FG’s and Rex Grossman threw the WR screen pass 237 times that day and UGA just could not stop it.
At halftime I talked Scott Spence out of walking back to the truck. When UGA struggles Spence will head to back to the vehicle in a New York second. Then it happened trailing 20-13 in the 4th quarter Terrence Edwards dropped a wide open TD pass that would have tied it and reality starts creeping in.
Well UGA blows the game and a National Championship appearance to UF, and in classic Gator form they were waiting on us on what seemed like 10 mile walk back to the truck.
One lady yelled in my ear “Same ole Georgia” It escapes me what my response was back. One guy was standing on top of a planter yelling “I heard a lot of crap coming in here today, but I don’t hear anything now”.
We labeled the one hour trip back from Jax to the Golden Isles as “The Trail of Tears”. I fired Mark Richt after this game. 5th straight loss to the Gators.
Looking back on this makes me understand now that this isn’t the same ole Georgia of 2002.
Kirby has instilled toughness in the program. Georgia has better talent, and a two game winning streak and has physically whipped Florida over the past years to a combined score of 78-24.
Give me UGA 27-20 in 2019, but the game is on November 2nd again, however which makes folks like me nervous.
Steve Spurrier created that doubt in all of us Dawg fans. Damn you Ball Coach. The WLOCP is a great American sporting event that you need to experience at least once in your lifetime.
