JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Georgia’s football season has been a tale of resilience.
The fifth-ranked Bulldogs have trailed at halftime in four of their five Southeastern Conference games. They dialed up defense down the stretch, made plays in crunch time and pulled out three of those close contests to stay in the hunt for the SEC championship game and the College Football Playoff.
Whether it’s talent, coaching or a little bit of luck, those experiences should help in the final month of the regular season. Georgia’s playoff push in November begins Saturday against regrouping Florida in the rivalry known as the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” as the teams meet at Everbank Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars.
“If you can’t get up for a game like this, you don’t need to be playing,” said Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart, a former Georgia defensive back in his 10th season as head coach at his alma mater.
Georgia (6-1, 4-1 SEC) has won four in a row and seven of eight in the neutral-site series. Only one of those eight was even close, a 24-17 victory for the Gators in 2019.
Both teams are coming off an open date, and while Georgia is a 7½-point favorite, no one really knows what to expect from this one.
Florida (3-4, 2-2) fired fourth-year head coach Billy Napier after its most recent game, a 23-21 home win against Mississippi State, and used the off week to rally behind interim coach Billy Gonzales. He made no staff changes, but have the Gators tweaked enough behind the scenes to make a difference on the field and in the rivalry?
“At the end of the day, the message is simple: You can’t be thinking about if you’re leaving or if you’re staying,” Florda receiver J. Michael Sturdivant said. “You have to focus on what’s going on today and how you can help the team win.”
Florida will be without two of its best receivers, Vernell Brown III and Aidan Mizell. Both were ruled out Wednesday. Brown leads the team with 32 catches for 451 yards this season, while Mizell had been coming on lately, with 11 for 107 and a touchdown.
With that duo sidelined, Sturdivant TJ Abrams, Dallas Wilson and Tre Wilson will be asked to do more against the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs rank last in the SEC with eight sacks, the first time they’ve sat at the bottom of the league in any defensive category during Smart’s tenure. Georgia also sits 14th in third-down defense and 12th in pass defense.
Smart emphasized better tackling and getting off to better starts during the off week.
“It just comes down to execution,” Georgia linebacker CJ Allen said. “Executing at the right time and eye discipline.”
If the Gators don’t win Saturday, it will be a while before they get the chance to beat Georgia in Jacksonville again.
This matchup marks the last one in Jacksonville until 2028. The rivalry will break from its traditional home and be played at NFL venues while EverBank Stadium undergoes a $1.4 billion renovation that has been long in the planning.
The “Cocktail Party” will relocate to Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium next year and to Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium in 2027. The game is expected to return to Jacksonville on a multiyear contract.
Atlanta was the obvious choice for Georgia’s home game in 2006, while Orlando, Miami and Tampa bid on Florida’s home game in 2027.
The schools have played annually in Jacksonville since 1933, with a two-year hiatus while the stadium known then as the Gator Bowl was being renovated before the Jaguars’ inaugural season. The game moved to Gainesville as the Gators hosted in 1994 and to Athens the following year when it was the Bulldogs’ turn.
“I like the home and home,” said Florida safety Bryce Thornton, whose father Bruce played running back at Georgia from 2000-04. “I actually want to go up there and play. … I just think it’d be a different dynamic.”
It worked out fine for the Gators back then. They won 52-14 in Gainesville and 52-17 in Athens, part of a run of Florida dominance in the series from 1990 to 2003 as the Gators won all but one meeting (1997) in that stretch.