By: Kipp Branch

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Going into the 1990 season Georgia held a commanding 44-22-2 lead in the annual rivalry game in Jacksonville.

UGA fans went to Jacksonville knowing they would find a way to win the contest even if Florida had a better record or more talent.

Bad things always happened to Florida when games were on the line and they would find a way to lose a game they had won. The Florida fan base had come to expect to lose every year.

Florida fans say that was BS, which stands for “Before Spurrier”. Florida hired their Heisman winning QB Steve Spurrier as their head football coach in 1990.

Spurrier’s teams were known for winning with aggressive and high-scoring offenses, and he became known for teasing and “needling” rivals, both before and after beating them on the field.

He is the winningest coach in both Florida and South Carolina program history, and his last Duke squad won the program’s only Atlantic Coast Conference championship over the last half-century in 1989.

Florida’s four consecutive Southeastern Conference championships in the mid-1990s is the second-longest streak in conference history, behind Bear Bryant’s 1970s Alabama teams, and Spurrier and Bryant are the only coaches to hold the record for most conference wins at two different SEC schools.

Spurrier is second to Bryant in total wins, while leading an SEC program.

When Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel won the Heisman Trophy during the Gators’ 1996 national championship season, Spurrier became the only Heisman Trophy winner to coach another Heisman Trophy winner.

In recognition to his contributions to the university and its football program, the University of Florida officially renamed the Gators’ home field “Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium” in 2016.

Immediately the ball coach dominated the series. Take a look at these scores:

1990: Florida 38-7

1991; Florida 45-13

1992: Florida 26-24

1993: Florida 33-26

1994: Florida 52-14

1995: Florida 52-17

1996: Florida 47-7

Georgia fans stopped coming in droves to Jacksonville and began to say we may never win in Jacksonville ever again as long as this guy is there.

No head coach in history has owned more free space in the head of an opposing fan base than Steve Spurrier has over the Georgia Bulldog nation.

When UGA broke the 7 game losing streak in 1997 to UF the ball coach responded by winning four straight before leaving for the Washington Redskins after the 2001 season.

Spurrier ended his Florida coaching career with an 11-1 record against UGA. Total domination from every possible angle, but the mental control over UGA still lingers to this day.

I’m a huge UGA fan and always seem to expect the worst possible scenario because of one man Steve Spurrier. If you are a Georgia fan and say this Spurrier mojo doesn’t still linger then you are lying to yourself.

The mojo is losing its luster as the years go by, but it still creeps in from time to time.

Steve Spurrier is on the Mt. Rushmore of SEC Football Coaches. The man transformed the SEC into what it has evolved into today.

I’m not a Florida fan, but I respect Steve Spurrier as much as any football coach that has ever roamed the sidelines. Steve Spurrier did a number on the Bulldog Nation that has lingered for 30 years.

Georgia leads the series with Florida now 53-44-2. Florida is 22-9 since they hired the Ole Ball Coach, who got 11 of those wins and he hasn’t coached in this rivalry game since 2001.