JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Looking for someone to help motivate his team before facing two-time reigning national champion and top-ranked Georgia in one of the Southeastern Conference’s most heated football rivalries, Florida’s Billy Napier turned to a guy who knows a thing or two about beating the Bulldogs.
The Head Ball Coach.
Steve Spurrier, who went 11-1 in “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” rivalry game as Florida’s coach from 1990 to 2001, spoke to the Gators this week before they attempt to become the first team in nearly two years to knock off Georgia.
“You’d be foolish not to take full advantage of having such an accomplished coach (around),” said Napier, the former Murray County (Georgia) High School standout in his second season as head coach of the Gators. “Coach has got conviction about the University of Florida. He cares about this place. It’s important to him.”
It might mean little when the neutral-site game kicks off Saturday at EverBank Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. Georgia (7-0, 4-0 SEC), has the nation’s longest winning streak at 24 games, and coach Kirby Smart’s team has won five of the past six meetings with Florida (5-2, 3-1) — and is a 14 1/2-point favorite, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, to win its third straight in the series.
“It’s huge,” Georgia offensive lineman Tate Ratledge said. “It’s the one growing up that you always hear about no matter what fan you are. If you’re a football fan down South, it’s one of the bigger games of the year. … It’s something we pride ourselves on and take really seriously.”
Spurrier has cared deeply about beating Georgia since his college days. He lost to the Bulldogs twice — as a sophomore in 1964 and as a senior and eventual Heisman Trophy winner in 1966 — in three years with the Gators. He made the Cocktail Party a priority when he returned to Gainesville as coach in 1990.
“He’s beat these guys,” Florida left tackle Austin Barber said. “He’s played these guys, and it’s just great having that wisdom back. It’s going to really boost us up.”
Added linebacker Shemar James: “Coach Spurrier came in and gave us some words of wisdom, I can tell you that.”
Spurrier probably didn’t have to tell anyone wearing orange and blue that while Georgia’s record is impeccable, the Bulldogs have looked vulnerable at times this season. They trailed South Carolina, Auburn and Vanderbilt — teams with a combined 1-12 record in SEC play — by at least a touchdown before rallying.
And now Georgia is without its best player, Brock Bowers. The 2022 Mackey Award winner as the nation’s top tight end, the 6-foot-4, 240-pound junior leads the team with 41 catches for 567 yards and four touchdowns but is expected to miss a month after spraining his ankle during the Bulldogs’ most recent game, a 37-20 win at Vanderbilt on Oct. 14.
“Brock is a big piece of our team, but we all said that we’re going to go 5% harder to make up for the loss,” receiver Dominic Lovett said. “Football isn’t played by one person at the end of the day, and Brock is a big piece, but with him out it just means that everyone has to step up for the team.”
Georgia junior Carson Beck, the first-year starting quarterback who has proven to be a winning combination with Bowers, would certainly appreciate that.
Saturday’s game will take the former Mandarin High School star — he led the football program to the FHSAA Class 8A title, its first state championship, as a junior in 2018 — back to his hometown. He was also named the state of Florida’s Mr. Football award winner in 2018, and he signed with the Bulldogs as a four-star recruit in 2020 before redshirting his first season at Georgia.
“It’s super cool, growing up there my entire life, to go back in my hometown, Florida-Georgia, it’s big time,” Beck said.
He has thrived this fall as the successor to Stetson Bennett IV, the MVP of all four College Football Playoff games the Bulldogs played the past two seasons. Beck has topped 300 yards passing in three of his last four games and has 14 touchdown passes and five interceptions, and he ranks sixth in the nation with a completion rate of 73.6% (173-of-235) for 2,147 yards, putting him on pace to top Bennett’s program record of 68.28% set last year.
Even so, Beck will not be the most accurate passer of Saturday’s matchup entering the game: Florida’s Graham Mertz is third in the nation at 76.23% (170-of-223) for 1,887 yards. The graduate transfer from Wisconsin has thrown 12 touchdown passes with two interceptions.
Florida and Georgia both had their open date last week, but now begins a potentially daunting stretch run for both teams. The Bulldogs follow with games against No. 16 Missouri, No. 12 Ole Miss and No. 21 Tennessee — a three-week span of SEC games that likely will determine whether they make the four-team playoff for a third consecutive season — before their regular-season finale against Peach State rival Georgia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference
The Gators get struggling Arkansas next week before closing out their SEC schedule against No. 15 LSU and Missouri, then facing No. 4 Florida State, a Sunshine State rival from the ACC.