Bishop Media Sports Network
Frederica Academy Knights Coach’s Show w Brandon Derrick October 26
Brunswick High Pirates Coach’s Show w Garrett Grady October 26
Memorable Moments
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The city of Jacksonville will get its annual rowdiness booster this weekend when Florida and Georgia come to town.
About time Jacksonville gets excited about some football. If top-ranked Georgia wins, it will be a game closer from claiming the SEC East and continuing its unbeaten season.
If the Gators are able to spoil all of that momentum, it will make up for what I’m forecasting to be a mediocre season.
Here’s a look at the five best all-time moments from the World’s Largest Cocktail Party.
- THE TIMEOUT: Let’s start it off with one of the most controversial endings in college football history.
In a game which featured consistent rain, the Bulldogs were down 33-26 in the fourth quarter. But with the help of quarterback Eric Zeier, the Bulldogs drove into Florida territory with 1:30 left.
With five seconds left, Zeier threw what was thought as the game-tying touchdown to Jerry Jerman, but Gators cornerback Anthone Lott called timeout right before the ball was snapped.
Zeier’s next and final pass fell incomplete, and Florida held on to the victory and went on to win the SEC and Sugar Bowl.
- THE GATOR STOMP: After years of Gator wins, Georgia’s head coach Mark Richt decided to change things up.
To start, Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno scored to give the Bulldogs the 7-0 lead in the first quarter. Then, the entire team came into the end zone to celebrate with Moreno, which is now referred to as the “Gator Stomp.”
That move gave the Bulldogs the motivation it needed to take down the defending national champions with a 42-30 win.
Moreno ended the day with 188 yards on the ground, and the Bulldogs defense sacked Florida’s Tim Tebow six times.
- HALF A 100: In 1994, the battle was moved to Gainesville because Jacksonville’s stadium was being used by the Jags and in return the battle took place in Athens in ‘95.
Georgia was 5-3 and limping through head coach Ray Goff’s final year.
Florida was undefeated and coach Steve Spurrier – at the height of his cockiness – decided he wanted the Gators to be the first team to “hang half a hundred between the hedges.” The Gators scored seven touchdowns and accomplished that goal with 1:21 left in the game.
- TIMEOUTS: Georgia had won the year before in a game where the entire team ran into the end zone to celebrate the first touchdown.
Although the Gators did not discuss their anger, they were seething and a picture of the celebration hung in every player’s locker.
Each team had one loss when they met in 2008 and the winner would be in the driver’s seat to win the SEC East and have a possible shot at the national title.
The Gators jumped out to a 14-3 halftime lead and then Georgia imploded in the second half, turning the ball over four times.
Florida capitalized and scored 35 unanswered points. The vindicated Gators then went on to win the SEC title and national championship.
1.RUN LINDSAY, RUN:
The most memorable moment had to be when the Bulldogs went on their championship run in 1980.
The Bulldogs were down 21-20 in the fourth quarter, facing third-and-long at their own 7-yard line.
Backed up in his own end zone, Georgia quarterback Buck Belue found Lindsay Scott at the 25-yard line. Scott was able to blow past the Florida secondary and score the game-winning touchdown with seconds left on the clock.
The 93-yard touchdown pass kept the Bulldogs’ title hopes alive. They moved to No. 1 in the polls the following week and went on to win their second consensus national title.
All in all, this is a historical matchup that college football fans look forward to every year. There have been plenty of memorable moments from this series, but these are five that really stand out from the rest. Let’s hope for a safe and sportsmanlike battle- although no one ever anticipates it.
Camden County Wildcats Coach’s Show w Jeff Herron October 25
MCA Buccaneers Coach’s Show w Bradley Warren October 25
Proud Gator Hater
By: Jeff Doke
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
I was born and raised in the United Methodist church.
In fact, I currently serve as Assistant Pastor at the very church I grew up in. My parents made sure that I was, among other things, raised with a strong sense faith.
Of course, they were responsible for raising me as a member of Dawg Nation, and thus responsible for one of the great incongruities of my life.
You see, in Mark 12:29-31, Jesus tells us that the Greatest Commandment is to ”love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.“ And to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
There’s the problem – I can’t completely do that. I just can’t do that for the sole reason that the Florida Gators exist.
I HATE the Gators. Always have. With every fiber of my existence, with every breath I draw, down to every quark, neutron, positron, electron, atom, and molecule that makes up my mortal form. Hate, hate, hate ‘em.
The host of one of my favorite Dawg-centric podcasts (and I listen to a lot of them), says that every good Dawg fan is first and foremost a Gator hater. Boy howdy, do I agree with him. Nothing but contempt for those lousy, stinkin’ Gators.
I hate their color scheme. To be fair, I have a distaste for orange-clad sports teams in general, but blue and orange especially (lookin’ at you, Mets…).
I hate their uniforms. I don’t care if it’s their standard home and aways, the word mark helmet kit, their ‘60s block letter throwbacks, those stupid alligator skin pattern monstrosities, or this year’s black helmets (“Oo! Black helmets? How CREATIVE! <end sarcasm>”).
I hate their mascots. Albert AND Alberta. Take a mascot, give him an opposite gendered partner, and you’re just half a step from parading Furries on your sideline for all the world to see. Ew. And they’re wearing orange and blue? Double ew. (Again, lookin’ at you, Mr. & Mrs. Met…)
I hate the Steve Spurrier years. I hate the Ol’ Bawl Coach and his stupid visor. Visors are for tennis courts and golf courses, and this deviant made them mainstream for football sidelines. I hate that painful 11-1 streak he put up against us in the ’90s.
I REALLY hate the fact that after that, he had the audacity to give the Gamecocks hope. That’s just cruel.
I hate the Urban Meyer years. I hate that he was able to ride Spurrier’s coattails (well, at least what coattails were left after Ron Zook) and get Gator fans two more Nattys, making them even more unbearable than before (I know, I didn’t think that was possible either).
I REALLY hate the fact that after that, he had the audacity to give the Jaguars hope. Again, just cruel.
I hate what coaching there did to Will Muschamp. I know it was that swamp water still sludging through his bowels that made him disrespect the hedges the way he did when he was at Carolina (again with the giving hope to the Gamecocks…YOU MONSTERS!).
I hate Gator fans. I actually dated a girl once who went to UF during the Spurrier era. She admitted that the students didn’t care about the actual game at the WLOCP since they knew they were going to win anyway and just wanted the excuse to drink off campus.
I still regret that one.
Regardless, there are still some things I love about UGA’s biggest rival (definitely NOT lookin’ at you, Tennessee…). I love the fact that Georgia still leads the series all time 54-44-2.
I love the fact that UGA is coming into this year’s matchup ranked #1 in the nation for back-to-back years.
I love the fact that Florida keeps hiring booger-eatin’ morons as head coach like Dan Mullen & Billy Napier, pretty much guaranteeing that the numbers on my “Days Since Florida’s Last National Championship” calendar keep going up (5,034 as I write this, in case you were wondering).
And I love that my mama raised me right. She raised me to be a Gator hater.
Georgia Bulldog Legend
By: Joe Delaney
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Georgia Bulldog fans everywhere were saddened to hear of the passing of the great Charley Trippi this week.
It’s easy to think that yeah, the old dude was pretty good from what we’ve all heard……… Well, think again. Charley Trippi was GREAT. His passing this week at the age of 100 marked the end of a great era in Georgia football.
As a youth on St. Simons MANY years ago, I read about the exploits of Charley as I looked at the history books.
This was mainly to read about our own Lamar “Racehorse” Davis. It was difficult to read anything about the Dawgs of that era and not hear mention of Charley.
My interest in Racehorse came from him coaching me in youth football on St. Simons, alongside the Glynn Academy great Lee Owens.
Racehorse’s son, the late Lamar “Pic” Davis, and I grew up together on St. Simons and we ran around with our own little group of hoodlums. It was a wonderful time to be a kid with about 6000 people on St. Simons. It was kind of like Mayberry with a beach.
So, Charley was great? As the Georgia Florida game looms upon us consider this. In the 1942 game, the Bulldogs won 75-0 over the Gators. Charley threw a TD pass. He also ran for two more touchdowns and returned an interception for a fourth score. Seen anyone doing that lately? Charley was the man!
In the 1943 Rose Bowl, Charley, Racehorse, 1942 Heisman winner Frank Sinkwich and the Dawgs ran all over the UCLA Bruins in route to a 9-0 win.
Trippi was named the game MVP. The game really wasn’t that close as the Dawgs rolled up 379 yards of offense to the Bruins 157. The Bulldogs hammered out 22 first downs to 4 for UCLA in front of 93,000 fans. The Bulldogs would wait another 75 years to play in the Rose Bowl again.
In 1943 and 1944 Trippi was in the military and returned halfway through the 1945 season. Still, he was named All-SEC and led Georgia to a 20-6 Oil Bowl victory over Tulsa, in which he threw a 54-yard TD and returned a punt 69 yards for another TD. But the best was yet to come.
1946 was Charley’s senior season and the guy went CRAZY. He led Georgia to an undefeated season.
In the season finale against Georgia Tech, he accumulated 544 yards of offense and scored 3 TDs in the 35-7 rout of the Bees.
The Dawgs finished out the season with a 20-10 win over North Carolina. Charley was named the Maxwell Award winner as the best collegiate player in the country and came in second in the Heisman voting to Glenn Davis of Army.
That spring in Athens, Charley played shortstop and outfield for the Diamond Dawgs and hit .475 with 11 home runs in 30 games.
He chose to play football over baseball even with the New York Yankees and other MLB teams lobbying for his services.
The 6’0 186lb Trippi went on to have a stellar career with the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL. Being the number one overall pick, he signed an unbelievable, at the time, $100000 contract with a $25000 signing bonus. The Cardinals got their moneys’ worth.
Charley is in the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
His #62 was retired by the Dawgs. In a fitting tribute, Bear Bryant said “Charley Trippi was the greatest college football I ever saw”. Yes, Charley was THE MAN.
Trippi had a long and wonderful life. He passed away this week in his beloved Athens. Rest in Peace Charley. DAMN GOOD DAWG.
Instant Classics
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Georgia-Florida rivalry dates back over 100 years.
If you ask Georgia the first meeting was in 1904. If you ask Florida the first game was in 1915. They have played every season since 1926, with the exception of a World War II interruption in 1943.
The game has been held in Jacksonville since 1933. It’s one of the few neutral site rivalry games in college football. Let’s take a look at some of the best games in the series history.
1966: #7 Florida was 7 – 0 entering the game. Quarterback Steve Spurrier went on to win the Heisman Trophy and Walter Camp Trophy this season but he couldn’t beat Georgia.
The Bulldog defense forced him to throw three interceptions and won the game 27 – 10.
All-American defensive tackle Bill Stanfill said: “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.”
This game defined the rivalry years later when Spurrier became the head coach of his alma mater in 1990. He emphasized the Georgia game as “the biggest of the year” and his players responded well to that.
2002: Since 1990 Florida only lost one game to Georgia.
The Bulldogs were 8 – 0 and ranked fifth going into this game. The Gators were surprisingly 5 -3 and unranked. They upset UGA and won 20 – 13.
Florida QB Rex Grossman was very inconsistent but he played well. Grossman threw for 339 yards and two touchdowns.
“This was huge,” Grossman said. “It couldn’t have been any bigger for us.”
“It’s real unbearable,” said Georgia senior tackle Jon Stinchcomb, tears streaming down his face. “For the rest of our lives, all the seniors will know they never beat Florida. It’s one of our biggest rivalries, and we’re all 0-4. That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow.”
This was UGA’s only loss and they finished 13 – 1 and ranked third.
1997: #14 Georgia snapped a seven-game losing streak in the series with an emphatic 37 – 17 win. Junior safety Kirby Smart intercepted two passes in the game. His mother Sharon is from Florida and she may have been more happy about the victory than he was.
“She was born and raised in Florida, almost went to the University of Florida, she’s from Plant City,” Smart said this week. “So, it meant a lot to her. And getting to see her, that was probably the best part of it.”
Robert Edwards rushed for 124 yards and tied his school record with four touchdown runs. Hines Ward finished with 203 total yards.
“That’s one of the few scores that I actually remember,” said Matt Stinchcomb, an All-American left tackle for the Bulldogs. “I don’t think I can tell you what the score was I don’t think in any other game that I’ve ever played in – 37-17 sticks out in my mind. It was certainly a special day for sure.”
The Gators had won 52-14, 52-17 and 47-7 the previous three years against the Bulldogs.
Jason Bishop Show w Kipp Branch October 21
Frederica Academy Knights Coach’s w Brandon Derrick October 19
