By: Joe Delaney

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Well, here we are with the latest installment pf the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party”.

This year’s edition has twist and turns as is usual in this heated rivalry.

Gone is Billy Napier and the Gators are in disarray. The Dawgs are ranked #5 and should win easily right? Not so fast………….

When you look at the history of the rivalry it makes you realize how scary a game this is for the Dawgs.

The Gators have absolutely nothing to lose and that makes them very dangerous. The Dawgs better be ready to play because this IS the biggest game for Florida and stranger things have happened.

Let’s look at a few of the great games, notes and players in Georgia Florida history through the Bulldogs eyes.

Let’s start at the beginning. Did you know the two schools can’t even agree on how many games have been played?

Florida says that the 1904 game doesn’t count because that was the University of Florida Lake City. Well Georgia won the game 52-0 played in Macon. The great UGA historian Dan Magill remarked many years later, “that’s where Florida was back then. We can’t help it if they got run out of Lake City.” Now that’s how you start a rivalry!

Who can forget the 1975 game and the amazing Larry Munson. Yes it’s the Appleby to Washington game with Larry being ……well Larry!

With 3:10 left in the fourth quarter Vince Dooley calls an end around pass. Larry takes it from there………“and Washington caught it thinking of Montreal and the Olympics and ran out of his shoes right down the middle 80 yards!” Georgia goes on to win 10-7.

A year later it was Florida leading the Dawgs 27-20 in the third quarter. Head Coach Doug Dickey has a brain fart of epic proportions and goes for it on 4^th and 1 from his own TWENTY NINE yard line. Florida gets stuffed and Georgia goes on to win 41-27. The play and the game are always remembered as “fourth and dumb”.

Ah yes, 1980. No column on the Georgia/Florida game is done without it.  A strong dose of Herschel and a shot of Buck and Lindsay! The great Larry Munson ends the call of Buck and Lindsay with “man is their gonna be some property destroyed tonight! I gave up….you did too….out of it…..out of it and gone. Miracle!”  Nuff said.

In 2007 it was the “Gator Stomp”. Georgia’s Knowshon Moreno dives into the endzone for a first quarter touchdown and the ENTIRE Georgia team runs on the field. Georgia goes on the sack Heisman winner Tim Tebow 6 times in the 42-30 Georgia win.

And who can forget the “evil genius” aka Steve Spurrier. Ole Stevie went 11-1 against the Dawgs in his Tenure as Head Coach of the Gators.

He was a brilliant coach and probably loved beating the Dawgs more than anything. His “fun and gun” offenses had some of basics of what offenses run today.

So why did Spurrier have such a distain for Red and Black? It goes back to 1966.

Dooley’s Dawgs roll into the old Gator Bowl to face the Heisman winner Spurrier and the Gators. Well, the Dawgs intercept Spurrier 3 times and he was constantly harassed by Bill Stanfield, the Georgia great.

In the funniest quote I’ve ever seen the good old country boy Stanfield would say, “holding pigs for my dad to castrate was quite a challenge. I can’t say that it helped me prepare for football, but it sure did remind me an awful lot of sacking Steve Spurrier”!

Yeah its Georgia Florida. The old boys from Florida have their share of golden memories also. That’s what makes it so great. For many it’s the biggest game of the year.

No matter what the records are. Its Georgia Florida, a great big slice of Americana. Strap em up Dawgs and don’t forget that injured Gators are dangerous.