Jimmie
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
With the exception of a few years in the mid to late 2000’s where I was a casual watcher, I’ve never really been a fan of NASCAR.
It’s not that I had anything against it, watching racing just wasn’t my thing.
However, as Jimmie Johnson’s full-time career comes to an end- and I say full time because race car drivers are like WWE wrestlers, they never seem to completely retire- I can’t help but think back on how he was perceived during that time.
Now, just to be clear, I’m not talking about his legacy- I’m not nearly knowledgeable enough to make those kinds of assessments. I’m referring to how he was viewed among most NASCAR fans, and why.
Johnson entered NASCAR as Jeff Gordon 2.0. He was a good looking, well dressed, articulate speaking (no accent) individual, which meant the ladies loved him and the men, not so much.
The fact he drove for the same owner as Gordon, Richard Hendrick, led to me hearing them referred to as the “Backstreet Boys of racing” on more than one occasion.
It would be easy to put the lion’s share of Johnson’s struggle to win over the diehard fan on him being an outsider, but it goes a little deeper than that.
NASCAR is a tight knit community where names like Petty, Wallace, and Allison mean something; and no name carries more weight in that sport than Earnhardt.
I honestly think had Earnhardt been around the Hatfield and McCoy’s feud would’ve ended with “…and they all gathered around the table in their Earnhardt shirts, thanking the good lord for placing the Intimidator on this earth.”
Fan loyalty runs deeper in NASCAR than any other sport, so to have a racer like Jimmie Johnson winning five straight Cup Series Championships over Dale Earnhardt Jr. was blasphemy at its highest level.
It would’ve been bad enough to have a racer like Tony Stewart or Kevin Harvick defeating Earnhardt Jr. when it was supposed to be his time, but for those defeats to come at the hands of a pretty boy from California was unacceptable.
If Johnson was your average racer, winning a race or two here and there, I still think fans would’ve had the same opinion of him, it just wouldn’t have been nearly as deep seeded.
(I feel like I need to mention I don’t ever remember Earnhardt Jr. and Johnson having any issues with each other, outside of the normal confrontations all drivers seem to have with each other some point. Like most things related to sports, it had nothing to with the drivers themselves, but rather the fans.)
I also believe Johnson’s popularity with the casual NASCAR fan outside of the south was a major reason the sport reached its peak around that time- something I think the diehard fan had difficulty coming to grips with.
If I had to guess it’s been ten years since I, not only watched a NASCAR race, but actually followed what was taking place. I have no idea if Johnson’s popularity within the sport has increased over that time or if it’s stayed the same; I imagine it’s gotten better, but probably not by much.
I have no idea where Johnson ranks among the pantheon of great race car drivers, but for a few years he was one of the more polarizing drivers in the sport, and NASCAR was all the better for it.
Bark and Bite
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
When Kirby Smart took the UGA job in December of 2015 the two main things he had to do was change the mental aspect of the Florida series, and make UGA a more physical football team.
Here are a few things you hear from Florida fans these days:
“We gave the game away”
“We had too many turnovers”
“Georgia is killing us on the recruiting trail”
“Mullen is a better game day coach than Kirby”.
And a new one for 2020: “Covid-19 put us at a competitive disadvantage”
You hear Florida players and coaches say this is just another game, and every sports cliché you can come up with and it will start up right after Florida takes care of Missouri on Saturday.
The fact of the matter is this UGA is one win away from a complete brainwashing of the Florida fan base and that will carry over to the football program.
Let me go on record and say Georgia is going to win the Florida game on November 7th, and with that win you will have an entire senior football class at UF go through the program without a win in the Georgia series.
Sunday, November 8, 2020 will be a glorious morning for Georgia football because The Dawgs will control the series, once again both physically and more importantly mentally, which is something UGA hasn’t done since Vince Dooley decided he didn’t want to control Florida any longer when he retired.
Dan Mullen is already hearing it when he travels around to all the Gator Booster events around the State of Florida now. “Coach, when are we going to beat Georgia?” “Coach, we are letting Kirby come into our backyard and take too many kids out of the State of Florida”. The list goes on and on.
Name me a signature Dan Mullen win in his head coaching career? I’m listening Florida fans.
Going into this game Florida fans have got themselves wound up so tight that they are asking “How are we going to screw this one up?” Prior to 1990 this was the life of a Gator fan.
UGA would roll into Jacksonville, take the game, take all the pretty women, and drink the most cocktails, and roll out of town and leave the Florida fans bitter and resentful because they were mentally brainwashed.
Then something magical happened for UF, they hired Steve Spurrier, who became bigger than life for the program. He became their Sigmund Freud.
Spurrier ushered in the Golden Age of Gator football, but that glimmer is gone, and Steve won’t be roaming the sidelines in Jacksonville anymore.
Urban Meyer rode the Spurrier mystique and left that program in shambles.
Dan Mullen has now been hired to reclaim the glory, but one thing stands in his way and that is the Georgia Bulldogs led by Kirby Smart.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the entire Florida fan base and program are one more loss away in the series from being conditioned from one recruiting to the next that we just can’t beat Georgia.
Physically Georgia is better that Florida currently. Mentally Georgia is light years ahead of Florida currently.
Mark Richt was fired because he was 5-10 against Florida. Will Dan Mullen be the first Florida coach in three decades to eventually get fired because he couldn’t beat UGA enough?
I love the UGA/UF game. I love the game in Jacksonville and hope it stays there forever.
As a UGA fan Kirby Smart has me expecting to beat Florida every year.
Gator fans don’t lose too much sleep worrying about what’s going to go wrong this time.
Dawgs win again 35-20.
The Matchup
By: Teddy Bishop
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Even though the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is being severely curtailed due to Covid-19, the game that accompanies The Party still has significant meaning.
The winner of the Georgia-Florida shootout will likely win the Southeastern Conference East title and take on Alabama in the SEC Championship Game.
The winner of the match-up against Alabama will win the SEC title and secure a spot in the College Playoffs for an opportunity to win a National Championship.
Florida had two games postponed because of a Covid outbreak, including head coach Dan Mullen testing positive, and couldn’t even take the practice field for twenty-one days. But all of that seems to be in the rearview mirror, at least for now.
Mullen has returned Florida to national prominence, going 21-5 in his first two seasons, but has not found to way to beat Georgia. Mullen’s Gators lost to the Bulldogs 37-26 in 2018, and 24-17 last year.
In Athens, Kirby Smart took over as Head Dawg in 2016 and had compiled a 44-12 record going into this Covid-plagued year, including three feasts on Gator tail with only one loss.
Florida opened the season with convincing wins over Mississippi 51-35 and South Carolina 38-24, before falling to Texas A&M 38-41.
Georgia rolled to three consecutive wins to start the 2020 season, beating Arkansas 37-10, Auburn 27-6, and Tennessee 44-21, before running into an Alabama buzzsaw 24-41.
The debacle in Tuscaloosa notwithstanding, Georgia’s defense has looked good for the most part. On the other hand, the Gator D has been porous at times.
The high-powered Gator offense is forcing maintenance crews to change a lot of light bulbs on scoreboards, averaging over 42 points per game, but the Bulldogs offense hasn’t done too shabbily either, putting up 33 points per contest.
A huge key to any game, of course, is the play of the quarterback, and it says here that Kyle Trask gives Florida the advantage over Stetson Bennett and the Dogs in the QB Dept.
Through three games, Trask has thrown 14 touchdown passes with only one interception, averaging well over 300 yards passing per game.
In four outings, Bennett has 7 TD passes and 3 interceptions, while averaging about 240 yards passing per game.
Having quoted all those stats, I don’t believe Florida has faced a defense as good as Georgia’s. If you take away the Alabama game, which you can’t, of course, the Dawgs are surrendering fewer than 13 points per game.
Trask’s task is to avoid pressure from the Georgia defense, and I just don’t see that happening.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two local players now wearing the Red and Black for Georgia: former Brunswick High offensive lineman Warren McClendon and former Glynn Academy kicker Jack Podlesny.
Podlesny is having a sterling season for the Dawgs, converting 14 of 14 extra points and eight of 10 field goals, including a 51-yarder.
McClendon (Willie’s nephew), a redshirt freshman, is arguably the best offensive lineman ever to come out of Glynn County, certainly the best I’ve seen in my 18 years of broadcasting Brunswick High football.
Final score for the 2020 Georgia-Florida game: Bulldogs 33; Gators 30.
Podlesny kicks a last second field goal to win the game. McClendon, of course, makes the key block.
The Smart Choice
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
After Georgia’s 41-24 loss to Alabama, Georgia fans took to social media complaining about head coach Kirby Smart. Some fans went as far as saying it was time for change.
If you want to start www.FireKirby.com or #FireKirby, let me, a longtime UGA adversary, drive that bandwagon.
All Kirby has done is build an Elite program in Athens, and I will happily let you idiots ruin that to benefit my Gators.
Getting back on topic, Georgia fans are a bunch of arrogant, spoiled, crybabies. Georgia has not won a National Championship since 1980 and up until 2015 Georgia has only been relevant a couple years at a time during the 1990s onward.
Fans have been comparing Smart to Mark Richt after Georgia’s loss to Alabama (again) last weekend.
Anyone who is honestly considering the idea that Georgia’s program is in the same place now as it was then should simply go look up the 2015 Georgia vs Alabama game.
All Georgia fans wanted was a program just like Alabama. Kirby achieved that goal in year two of his legacy in Athens. But, losing to Nick Saban three times (National Championship Game, SEC Championship game and October 17th) has Bulldog Nation on edge.
Kirby has constructed a program through recruiting. Georgia’s current class is ranked number third in the nation, and they have finished with the number one class in the country 3 out of the last 4 years. In my opinion, Kirby and staff are the top recruiters in the country.
The state of Georgia is a hotbed for high school football and Kirby gets who he wants in his home state. He also goes into Florida and recruits the top talent to their neighbor in the north.
The quickest take you’ll get on the last Alabama vs Georgia game: Matt Jones is better than Stetson Bennett!
Don’t get me wrong Kirby has his issues with hiring and firing offensive coordinators and five-star players transferring to other programs, he’s good but certainly not perfect.
I heard some Georgia fans saying he can recruit but he can’t coach. That is the biggest pile of bull. Kirby simply runs the defense and Georgia’s defense is simply the best in the country.
Kirby has outcoached Florida’s Dan Mullen the last two seasons. Completely controlling both games with his style of play.
Being 3-1 versus the Gators, Kirby knows the importance of this game as a player, and now, he coaches just like the Ole’ Ball Coach.
Mark Richt was 5-10 against the Gators in his 15 years in Athens.
So, the smug Bulldog fans who are whining about the Alabama loss, who are you hiring to replace Kirby?
There are only three other coaches in the country at the same level as Kirby Smart: Nick Saban, Dabo Swinney and Ryan Day.
The Bulldogs are the favorite in the SEC East to travel to Atlanta to face Alabama in the SEC Championship game.
If Kirby gets a chance in Atlanta to face Nick Saban again during this COVID environment shows his coaching prowess.
To Georgia fans, please just shut up and enjoy the greatness in front of you.
In my opinion, Kirby Smart is one of the top 5 coaches in college football.
Keys To The Game
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Dan Mullen was reprimanded and fined $25,000 for his actions in Saturday night’s fight between Florida and Missouri. The brawl was sparked after Gator quarterback Kyle Trask was hit up high and late by Missouri’s defensive lineman Trajan Jeffcoat and no penalty was called on the play.
In my opinion, there is no place for this kind of conduct in college football. I do not condone Mullen’s actions and I think the fine was insufficient.
Mullen down played his actions by stating, “from my understanding, I think our guys thought they took a late hit at our quarterback and they’re going to protect him.”
Reaction on social media started flooding in about potential fine and suspension. I heard from a few Bulldog fans on how Mullen is an embarrassment. Mullen’s reputation has taken a hit on social media with his recent comment about “Filling the Swamp.”
Former Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush on FOX Saturday Football stated, “That was a dirty hit and I loved the way Dan Mullen and the Gators responded.”
Mullen’s actions had a positive reaction on his team’s play in the second half. Now can that carry over to the “World’s Largest Cocktail Party”?
Here are a few thoughts about the Florida vs Georgia game.
Georgia is a five point favorite.
Georgia has a huge advantage in talent if you believe stars matter.
The Saturday night injury suffered by All-American safety Richard LeCounte in a motorcycle accident had fans everywhere startled. My prayers for a full recovery go out to him and his family.
LeCounte is the heart of the Georgia defense, he was the SEC Player of the Week for his 13 tackles, three pass breakups, and a fumble recovery against Kentucky.
Georgia is suddenly hit by the injury bug with Jordan Davis, Quay Walker, Julian Rochester, Monte Rice, Lewis Cline, Tyrique Stevenson, George Pickens, Kenny McIntosh and Ben Cleveland all battling injuries.
Florida has two players suspended for the first half, starting defensive end Zach Carter and Antwuan Powell. Add those to the players that missed last week’s game due to COVID and the Gators could be short handed in the battle for the SEC East Division.
My questions going into this game:
Which Florida Defense shows up, the one that got shredded against Texas A&M or the one that controlled Missouri?
Which Georgia Offense shows up, the one that dominated Auburn or the one that struggled against Kentucky?
Who will be under center for the Bulldogs? Stetson Bennett, JT Daniel or Carson Beck
Can Dan Mullen out coach Kirby Smart?
Which team wins the turnover battle?
If you have the answers to these questions then you know who will win this game. The winner of this game is in the driver’s seat to represent the SEC East in Atlanta.
Swimming Forward
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Miami Dolphins are having a season better than most people would have expected before the season started.
They were 3 – 3 with starter Ryan Fitzpatrick. They won two consecutive games with him and were second place in the AFC East. Kind of a strange time to bench him for rookie Tua Tagovailoa.
The last time we saw Tagovailoa his final season at Alabama was cut short due to a devastating hip injury.
It was so bad we don’t even factor in the broken nose he also suffered on that play. That injury was so bad it could possibly end his football career so it’s impressive the fifth overall pick has kept battling.
The biggest factor for this QB change is the potential for a high 2021 draft pick.
They traded disgruntled tackle Laremy Tunsil to the Houston Texans and they will have their first-round pick.
The Texans are 1 – 6 and heading for a terrible season. The front office probably wants to find out now if Tua is the answer. If not, they might have an opportunity to Draft Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields.
Let’s recap Tua’s first start. I didn’t think they did him any favors with letting him play against the Los Angeles Rams.
As you know LA has super star defensive tackle Aaron Donald and corner back Jalen Ramsey. Not very quarterback friendly. Miami shocked us with an upset win, 28 – 17. Delving deeper though we see Tua was not the reason.
Tagovailoa completed 12 of 22 pass attempts for 93 yards and 1 touchdown.
Those sound like 1970’s stats. He also had one fumble. The Rams had 471 total yards and Miami only had 145 yards.
They also had 31 first downs and the Dolphins only had 8. The difference in the game was turnovers and special teams.
Los Angeles had 4 turnovers and Miami had 2. Miami scored a touchdown on a fumble recovery. They also returned a punt for a touchdown.
Here’s some of what Tua had to say about his first start. “I don’t think I played to the standard of what this offense is capable of. There were certain plays where I could have stepped up and made the right throw, made the right decision. But I’ve heard it many times from the guys in the locker room: I’s good that we still came out with the win. Aside from that, thank God we’ve got a good defense, so when we do start to string good plays together, we know that we can be able to make plays and then get the ball back and continue to try to do the same.”
Tua also added, “It was fun just being able to go out there and play a full 60-minute game now. Being that it was my first start in the NFL. We really faced a really good defense. I’m proud of what we’ve got to do offensively, but I do know that there’s still a lot of things we need to correct come Monday. But you can’t say that this defense isn’t really good — they’ve got [Michael] Brockers, they’ve got Aaron Donald, they’ve got [Taylor] Rapp, Jalen Ramsey and all these other guys — and not expect to be stopped a good amount of times. That’s just not realistic.”
Miami is now 4 – 3 but they won’t have a winning record for long. The next game is at Arizona. Kyler Murray is playing very well and living up to being the first overall pick in 2019.
I hope Tua can continue to improve because he’s on a very short leash.
Out Of Sorts
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Florida Gators might be the team that embodies this strange 2020 season the best.
The Gators stopped all football activities Oct. 13 after a coronavirus outbreak spread through the team.
Head coach Dan Mullen and two assistants also tested positive, with at least 26 players positive since that time.
“Everybody’s really excited to get back to football and get back playing,” Mullen said. “I think that’s something that is big within the team right now is that ability to get back out on the field.
This year’s been a unique year like no other, with stops and starts and different schedules. Our guys have handled everything extremely well throughout the year. I think they’re going to be really excited to get back out there on the practice field.
“I don’t expect us to come out there and have our sharpest, most crisp practice of the year, but I expect us to have great energy, excitement and enthusiasm to be back out there to get going as we build up to Saturday.”
During the two-week quarantine period Florida had to postpone games against LSU and Mizzou. That was much needed time to gain experience and try to get better against outside competition. They also were not able to work out during this time.
Through the first three games quarterback Kyle Trask looked like a Heisman Trophy frontrunner. He’s thrown for 996 yards, 14 touchdowns, 1 interception while completing 72% of his passes.
His favorite target is another Kyle, tight end Kyle Pitts. Pitts has 17 receptions, 274 yards and 7 TD’s. UF looked like one of the best offenses in the nation.
The Gators were ranked No. 4 in the last game they played at Texas A&M. They were upset by the Aggies and lost 41 – 38. I think the team’s confidence was shaken after that loss then they have not had the opportunity to build it back since the last two games were postponed.
The defense has been atrocious. They’ve given up an average of 495 yards per game and 33 PPG. I don’t think that’s something they can flip a switch and fix quickly.
Before the teams COVID outbreak they had one advantage going into the Georgia game, which was a bye week. That week was used to reschedule the Mizzou game.
No matter how hard they try, game shape can only be worked on by playing games. I think the team will struggle in this game. Also, if there are any injuries, they will be in jeopardy of missing the following game against UGA.
Florida will be at a disadvantage going into the November 7th showdown. Their defense can’t stop anybody without any of the things we talked about factored in.
At this point we do not know what we are going to get out of them. The offense might be out of sync now with the layoff.
Rooting for Tom Brady?
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
For the past eighteen years, I’m not sure if there’s an NFL player I have liked less than Tom Brady. (I don’t count the year he took over for Drew Bledsoe because both he and New England were underdogs, and even I enjoy an underdog story.)
When other quarterbacks around the league yelled at their teammates or got in their face for making a mistake, a la Dan Marino back in the day, I viewed them as motivators who cared about winning. When Brady did it, I vilified him as a jackass.
While I applauded players for their business endeavors outside of football, I thought Brady was pompous for basically everything that had to do with his TB12 brand.
He was the rare player where I knew I viewed him through a hypocritical lens, but I didn’t care.
Yet, to my own dismay, there I was a few weeks ago watching Tampa and Chicago play on a Thursday, actually rooting for Brady.
It was as if I was having an out of body experience and my soul kept yelling at me, “No, don’t do it!”
Obviously, one of the reasons for my change of heart is that Brady no longer plays for New England. I’ve always put Patriot players in the same category as New York Yankee players- I can’t pull for them while playing for their respective teams but have no issue rooting for them once they leave.
But the main reason I’m starting to see Brady in a different light has to do with the year he’s having. Up to this point of the season, when you look at some of the major categories we use to determine a quarterback’s success- completion percentage, td/int ratio, yards per completion) the 43 year old is above his career average in every one.
And it’s not like this season is the continuation of a downward trajectory that still happens to be better than average. You could’ve made that argument over the last two or three seasons, but statistically speaking, Brady is on pace to have his best overall season in five years.
There’s no denying Brady and Belechick had a great run together with the Patriots but entering this season I was interested to see how each would adjust without the other.
My original hope was that both would implode, and I would revel in their struggles; it’s good to know New England is holding up their end.
It’s probably been four or five years since I allowed myself to admit that Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback to have played in the NFL.
Since that time, all he’s done is win a couple more Super Bowls and continued to be one of the best in the game.
The fact he’s doing this at an age when most of his peers have either already hung up their cleats or are barely clinging to a team, makes what he is accomplishing even more impressive.
I know there will be some that will argue he was surrounded by great talent and coaching, but so was Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, John Elway, and basically every other Hall of Fame quarterback you can mention.
And of course, there are those who will scream “Deflategate” at the top of their lungs, and while I won’t disagree with you, in my mind Brady has done enough to overcome that rebuttal in regards to him being the best ever.
That said, I still cringe a little saying these nice things about him, just not as much as I used to.
Worth The Hype
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Some rivalries are formed due to their close proximity to each other. Some rivalries are forged on the field or court due to memorable games, indelibly ingrained in your mind for years. Other rivalries come about because both programs have sustained a level of excellence unmatched by most programs.
What makes a rivalry special is when you can combine all three of these aspects; something Georgia and Florida have come close to achieving in the past, it has just never quite gotten there.
Location has never really been the issue, not because the schools are all that close to each other, but because the game is played in Jacksonville every year.
Normally, I’m not a fan of playing an entire series at a neutral location, but in this case it works.
Whether it’s allowing an equal number of Georgia and Florida fans to attend on a yearly basis, or making it easier to attach a moniker like “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party”, the central location in Jacksonville has really enhanced the game and rivalry.
As for the games themselves, there have been some really great ones, the problem is most of them took place years ago.
Recently, the games haven’t been all that competitive or memorable. There also hasn’t been a ton of parity between the two teams.
By that I mean in most cases the rivalry has been dominated by one team or the other. It’s been a little better in recent years, but even looking at the past twelve seasons the programs have just alternated three-year winning streaks.
Part of the reason the dominance has see-sawed back and forth is even though both teams have seen some level of sustained excellence, rarely have they both experienced it at the same time.
Over the last twenty years, only three of games were played with both teams being in the Top 10. (Two of those games have taken place in the last two years, so that’s at least a sign things might be changing.)
That’s not to say the games can’t be great unless they’re both ranked in the Top 10, but if you’re trying to attract a national audience, which is needed if you want it to be considered a top tier rivalry, having something on the line certainly helps.
Miami and Florida State is a perfect example. Their games from the mid-80’s through the early 00’s were some of the most memorable in college football and almost always had national title implications.
Regardless of where you lived, or what teams you rooted for, that was the game you tuned in to watch.
Now that neither team has been relevant for years, outside of Jameis Winston’s tenure in Tallahassee, the game is merely a blip on the college football radar.
As I alluded to briefly, if you desire the rivalry to be perceived as one of the best in the nation, the future looks promising.
Both teams have excellent coaches, who don’t seem to have ambitions of leaving their respective schools to go along with top of the line sports facilities and strong recruiting pipelines- all important attributes to not only reach the pinnacle, but to stay there.
The Georgia/Florida game has all the makings of becoming a great, nationally recognized rivalry.
The last two years have been a good start; could this year’s game be the one to put them over the edge?
Leading In
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
It’s been a weird year, which isn’t news, but it keeps coming up with ways to feel new bouts of weirdness.
The newest odd sensation was a sense of lacking where it doesn’t belong. Halloween came (with sadly few trick-or-treaters, at least in our neighborhood), Halloween went.
That old familiar football showdown between the University of Georgia and the University of Florida – traditionally positioned closer to All Hallow’s Eve – was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, the game was pushed back a week and will now take place on November 7th. However, even that day won’t feature the same, familiar pomp and circumstance and it makes me wonder…if it isn’t a big, drunken, hate-filled party on the beach and at the stadium, is it really Georgia/Florida?
I think the answer is both kind of and kind of not. I’ve been down to Jacksonville for the game, and it is an atmosphere unlike most anything else, particularly for what is always a mid-season game and doesn’t always feature two evenly matched teams.
This is a rivalry that runs very, very deep, and the partying and pageantry is a massive part of that tradition; without RV City, the Bold City Bash, the Georgia-Florida Hall of Fame luncheon, and, perhaps most notably, no tailgating, can this Georgia/Florida week feel like Georgia/Florida week?
Mercifully, the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs have done their respective parts to make this a game worth investing in, even if the investors, aren’t sipping brews in northeastern Florida all day long.
Instead, this year’s game is a big one because the SEC East will be hanging in the balance. So, while TIAA Bank Stadium will only be at 25% capacity, all fans across the Southeastern United States will be hanging on to every snap.
And it should be a contest worth watching. Both UGA and Florida rebounded from their first losses of the season last week, with Florida smacking Missouri around 41-17 and Georgia, who has been ranked higher but won less impressively, beating Kentucky 14-3.
UGA’s not-so-pretty win might foreshadow troubles they could have against Florida.
Their defense held the opposition to 3 points, but quarterback Stetson Bennett was intercepted twice and passed for just 131 yards.
Coach Kirby Smart said after the game that he is going with Bennett against the Gators on Saturday.
That offense is going to have to step up in a huge way if they want to match up with Florida, who has put up at least 40 points in 3 of their last 4 games.
Their defense also looked to have turned a corner after an embarrassing showing two weeks ago; more bad news for the Bulldogs.
There’s also the issue of Florida’s blood being up. There was a matter of a late hit on their quarterback on Saturday, which led to a brawl with Missouri that saw two Gators get ejected.
Now, that might sound like it doesn’t affect their game against UGA, but they’re hungry and they’re probably pissed about being ranked below Georgia in weeks when they don’t feel like they should be.
This game could be a statement for a team that has players willing to get ejected for fighting.
With a quarter of the fans in the stadium and the normal pomp and circumstance that surrounds this game is absent this year.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this game won’t feel like the hard-hitting contest that fans are used to.
However, the rest of the context, and particularly the SEC East crown hanging in the balance, means that this one is going to be about football in a way that it isn’t always. And it should be very good football.
