The Best Game No One Saw Coming

With the country’s eyes elsewhere, Florida and Georgia put on a show

By Chris Landers

AP Photo

The truth is, objectively, Florida and Georgia did not play a very good football game on Saturday (and really, that might be a little too kind). This year’s installment of the Cocktail Party was downright ugly — penalties, turnovers and everything in between from two would-be contenders who have seemingly fallen off a cliff after an almost unbelievable string of injuries.

But despite the poor decisions and even poorer execution; despite the fact that a combined six losses had rendered the game less relevant than it had been in years; despite more stars in sweatpants on the sidelines than shoulder pads; despite Georgia running out to a 20-0 lead early in the second quarter and threatening to turn it into a laugher, the second half in Jacksonville — that beautifully ugly, wonderfully weird second half — served as a reminder that, no matter the records, we ignore this rivalry at our own peril.

It was shocking to see the extent to which the game was ignored nationally. Both teams had taken themselves out of the SEC East race, both entered the weekend unranked and both were coming off of embarrassing losses the week before. College Gameday all but forgot about it, and the most surprising part may have been that nobody even batted an eye — outside of the Southeast, how many fans could have claimed to truly care?

But the thing we underestimated is that relevancy doesn’t mean much of anything when Florida and Georgia get together. Because these two teams truly hate each other, and not in almost quaint, trumped-up, ESPN-hype-video kind of way, either — Florida and Georgia despise each other, to an almost uncomfortable degree. It’s less of a football game than a loosely organized street fight (this year’s edition featured four or five instances that almost turned into full-on brawls), and regardless of what it means to the rest of the country, it means absolutely everything to everyone in that stadium.

Which is why no one should have really been surprised when we were inexplicably drawn to the television, as Florida, fueled by pride and pretty much pride alone, clawed their way back into the game. After a torrid start, Georgia had gone into a shell — star tailback Todd Gurley was gassed, Aaron Murray (as has been the case for much of the season) lacked any playmakers on the outside, and slowly but surely the Gators started to smell blood. It became increasingly obvious that the Bulldogs had no bullets left in the chamber, and all they could do was pray that the clock would move fast enough.

It started with a simple touchdown drive to pull within 13 — nothing flashy from a Florida offense that had struggled to stretch the field all day, just power running and a war in the trenches. But then cornerback Louchiez Purifoy came up with a safety, the offense drove down and scored again, and what had been an afterthought suddenly turned into one of the wildest scenes — and perhaps the gutsiest drive — of the year.

The two teams kept trading blows, Florida unable to finally get over the hump and pick up one final score. The offense down the stretch was nothing short of abysmal, but somehow, none of it mattered — the sheer emotion was captivating enough, a near skirmish breaking out after every whistle, every play seeming like it could decide the fate of the free world. There were fourth-down stands, coaches challenges, and an out-of-breath Verne Lundquist — everything we love about college football every week condensed into 15 minutes. Georgia got the ball back with about four minutes left, and in a season that turned from dream to nightmare in what seemed like an instant, the Dawgs made one final stand.

Gurley, returning for the first time since suffering a high ankle sprain against LSU, gave it everything he had on the final possession, as Georgia desperately tried to bleed the clock. He had nothing left in the tank, falling just about every time he was touched, but he managed to put together four and five yard gains through force of will alone.

And when the Bulldogs had to have it, one more first down to kill the rest of the clock, it was four-year starter Aaron Murray — in so many ways the redheaded stepchild of the SEC, playing out the string in his final, disappointing season — who came through. Murray hit Rhett McGowan, only on the field because of injuries to Georgia’s two opening-day starters, a yard short of the sticks, and McGowan broke a tackle and carried another defender for just enough to move the chains.

It was a somewhat unremarkable ending to a game that was, just by looking at the box score, somewhat unremarkable. But for those of us who watched it, the records and the injuries and the rest didn’t matter. This was still Florida and Georgia, oblivious, at least for a few hours, to the rest of the country and the rest of their season, slugging it out until someone told them they had to stop.