A disheartened Florida fan, circa 2007. (Photo by Rando Acres)
Since 1904, the mostly annual Georgia-Florida football game, played between the University of Georgia Bulldogs and the University of Florida Gators, has been played in two different states, six different cities, and numerous different venues.
In fact, since 1996 alone, the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party has been played in Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, Alltell Stadium, Everbank Field, and TIAA Bank Field. But enough about their inability to settle on a name for that place.
Every so often, someone comes up with the brilliant idea to argue that the annual Cocktail Party should be moved out of Jacksonville and back to on-campus sites. Or, even more hilarious, they say it should rotate between Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and the revolving door of stadium names in Jacksonville.
The most recent source of these asinine arguments, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, is the head Dawg himself. Coach Kirby Smart has been a staunch opponent of holding the game in its traditional site pretty much from the day he stepped foot on-campus. His reason? Recruiting.
Everything Coach Smart does is geared towards recruiting, it would seem, and he clearly has the results to show for it. The University of Georgia has been bringing in consistent Top-3 recruiting classes for the entirety of Smart’s tenure, which has most recently resulted in that ever-elusive National Championship.
We build new weight rooms for recruiting. We build new practice facilities for recruiting. We build new in-stadium lounges for recruiting. We change the in-stadium music and hire a DJ for recruiting. We start serving Zaxby’s ice for recruiting.
(I’m sure that last one is related somehow.)
Look. All of that is fine. It really does not matter to the football fan’s experience, and many of these things are obvious improvements. Except for the music. Personally, I miss Red Hot Chili Peppers, but that’s just me.
Even though I’m not superstitious, nixing “Party in the USA” remains a wise decision. Because that song is the worst.
Changing the venue of one of college football’s greatest traditions, however, is not a wise decision.
Let’s go all the way back to the beginning of the rivalry to re-examine things more fully.
The first meeting between these two teams happened in Macon, GA of all places, something of a midway point between Lake City, FL and Athens.
Now those of you who know anything about sports or Florida geography will be a bit confused as to why I mentioned Lake City. That is also the key to the controversy why Florida denies the outcome of the 1904 game. An early form of the University of Florida was housed in Lake City and fielded a football team before moving to Gainesville and starting the Florida Gators.
So in 1904, UGA beat a version of Florida soundly in Macon. As Dan Magill famously said regarding the team from Lake City, “That’s where Florida was back then. We can’t help it if they got run out of Lake City.”
The second football meeting between these two programs occurred 11 years later in…wait for it…Jacksonville.
Everyone enjoys the Georgia-Florida game in Jacksonville! Even John Cena! (Photo by Adam Wynn)
It turns out that the neutral site tradition of this game started out because of Florida’s ineptitude. Their home football facility was too small to host most games, so they had to play their home games more than an hour away.
Some people would consider this a point in favor of moving the game. “It’s already practically a home game for Florida,” some will say. “Why should they get to travel 70 miles when we have to go like 500?”
I call it a point in favor of keeping the game in Jacksonville. Why shouldn’t we have an annual reminder that Florida’s football program started off in shambles and only partially recovered in the ensuing 100 years?
Between 1915 and 1932, the lopsided rivalry showed up in Athens, Tampa, Savannah, and Gainesville.
Then, in 1933, the first of what would be more than 60 straight games in Jacksonville.
Georgia outscored Florida 35-0 over a three-year span to open the new chapter in this rivalry’s history. The only two times that the game did not happen in Jacksonville since what I assume was a lovely warm afternoon on the St. John’s River on November 4, 1933 was when the old Gator Bowl Stadium was torn down and rebuilt for the NFL’s expansion Jaguars.
The 1994 and 1995 installments, both vicious Gator beatings of the Dawgs, were played on campus sites. The Gators hosted first in 1994, and then Spurrier famously came to Athens in 1995 on the same day that the Braves won their first World Series in Atlanta.
The less said about that game Between the Hedges, the better, even if we ultimately got our revenge in 2015.
Say what you will about Mark Richt, but he did a lot for Bulldog pride during his final season in Athens when he hung “half a hundred” on Spurrier. The poetic beauty of that moment, man.
Bards will sing of that game for centuries and the heroic efforts of (checks notes) Greyson Lambert?
For 26 years now, the Bulldogs and the Gators have met on the banks of that gorgeous river in an unbroken streak to determine annual football supremacy. I won’t deny that the tide has been largely against us, as the Gators hold a 16-10 lead on the series in that span, with most of Georgia’s wins coming since 2011.
Even still, the argument to move the game out of Jacksonville has never held any weight for me.
The usual arguments surround travel distance and the general “neutrality” of the site. Admittedly, Florida’s campus is closer to the game than Georgia’s. That’s a verifiable fact.
My rebuttal is…so what? Travel is certainly easier now than it was 1933 and the Dawgs still hold a 10-game lead on the overall series over Florida. If travel wasn’t a problem in the 1940s or the 1970s when Georgia was as dominant as ever in the series, why is it so much harder to travel now in 2022?
Not to mention that the city of Jacksonville actually pays the University’s travel expenses now, so it doesn’t cost UGA any money to travel, in theory.
Perhaps it is a little bit taxing on some fans to travel to the game, but I can say that I’ve personally made the trip eight times since my first visit in 2007, and I wish I were going again this year. Given the lengths that I’ve seen some people go to in order to make a home game in Athens, I’d say the net difference is somewhat minimal.
Another common argument against Jacksonville is how the game does more to benefit Florida’s economy when it could be a boon to both Athens and Gainesville in separate seasons. While I see the point, the fact remains that most Georgia faithful spend three or four days in St. Simon’s and the Golden Isles leading up to and after the game.
Ask any business owner on Georgia’s coast and they’ll tell you that the Georgia-Florida weekend is their saving grace heading into the winter months where tourism tends to die. Sure, most of the money flows straight into Jacksonville, but a hefty portion of it stays on the northern side of the border and does a lot to help Georgia families.
If the game were moved out of Jacksonville, I would lose my traditional post-game dinner at the Carabba’s in a shopping center north of the stadium. Why would you heathens want to take this from me? (Photo by Adam Wynn)
(Forgive me for sounding like a politician here, but it is election season, after all.)
Now to tackle Coach Smart’s recruiting argument. Personally, I disagree. I realize how egotistical it is to disagree with the obvious recruiting expert on this matter, but I’m going to do it anyway!
There are several benefits that come from having this game in Jacksonville. For starters, you have national attention on this game every year no matter what. I realize that people think this level of media attention is a given anyway, but consider just how awful Florida was in 2017. If this game were a home-and-home, we probably would have ended up playing at noon and relegated to a second-tier matchup. Or what about 2016 when neither team was any good? There’s no way anyone looks at that game with national interest because, well…why would you?
Admittedly, the SEC contract moving to ESPN after 2023 might shake things up a bit in this regard. For as long as the game has been on CBS, it has been a guaranteed 3:30pm kickoff with national media. All eyes were on the Dawgs in Jacksonville, no matter what the records were between the two teams. We’ll be facing off against an unranked 4-3 Florida team this weekend. Sure, they aren’t quite a dumpster fire, but they aren’t really worth watching outside of the intrigue from the unique venue and the annual tradition.
Smart also said that he slightly prefers the 3:30pm kickoff time to the night kickoffs because of — yep — recruiting. If you keep the game in Jacksonville, you are much more likely to keep that coveted mid-afternoon spot that you think helps recruiting so much.
Oddly enough, I would also argue that the electric night environment in Athens is much more conducive to a great recruiting trip than an afternoon kick, except that the 3:30pm kickoff allows Smart and his staff to have more one-on-one time with recruits after the game. But we’ll talk about that later.
There’s also the unique pageantry of a neutral-site game. Think about Texas-Oklahoma and the Red River Shootout, surrounded by the Texas State Fair in Dallas. Think about the incredible Army-Navy game, one of the largest games of the year that also happens to be between two teams that absolutely never factor in the national championship picture. These neutral games draw eyes because they are so unique, and there is always a wonderful celebration around them.
I highly doubt that Coach Smart is incapable of turning the unparalleled environment in Jacksonville into a recruiting win for the Dawgs.
Give me a sec. Let me finish turkey leg and I’ll be right back with you. Yes, they have turkey legs in Jacksonville. (Photo by Adam Wynn…of Adam Wynn)
No, the real issue here is NCAA limitations. Currently, the NCAA only allows teams to host recruits at true home games. Smart and his staff can leave tickets at the gate for a recruit, but that’s about it.
Rather than uprooting a storied NCAA and SEC tradition, it would be wise for the NCAA to change its laws to give Coach Smart what he really wants. He wants contact with recruits. He wants to be able to meet with them and check in with them while they’re in Jacksonville.
About 15 years ago, there were just a handful of neutral-site games in the country. The three I previously mentioned were standards on the schedule, along with the occasional interesting off-campus meeting here or there. Now, it feels like every big stadium in the country hosts a corporate-sponsored football game to open the season.
We even had two clunkers face off in Ireland this past season, and we really shouldn’t have. I fear that relegating Irish fans to watching Nebraska and Northwestern has irreparably harmed our relationship with that beautiful country.
Whether you like these corporate kickoff games or not, the reality is that we are only going to see more of them in the years to come. Neutral sites are going to keep happening, so the NCAA needs to adapt right now and allow coaches to do their job whether at home or not. Let coaches talk to recruits at neutral sites. Let the staffs do what they are supposed to do.
And I think Smart knows this. I genuinely believe that’s why he keeps bringing it up, because he wants to meet with recruits. He doesn’t really care that the game comes back to Athens or Gainesville. He wants to be able to meet with recruits.
Most every time Smart references moving this game, he references the fact that he can’t meet with a recruit in Jacksonville. That is an intentional statement. So why isn’t the NCAA listening?
College football is undergoing so many changes right now. That is an obvious statement. The playoff has already changed things, and an expanded playoff is only going to further alter the nature of the sport. We’ve seen the hyper-regional elements of college football disappear with West Virginia playing in the Southwestern-based Big XII while Pacific coast mainstays USC and UCLA are moving to the frigid Midwest’s Big Ten.
And again…let me stress the value of that post-game Carabba’s. You can’t get that just anywhere! (Photo by Adam Wynn)
True, there are some schools that have opted out of their neutral-site games in favor of the more common home-and-home series. The Iron Bowl used to play every year in Birmingham, AL until they opted to go back and forth between Tuscaloosa, AL and Auburn, AL. Even Georgia and Auburn used to play neutral-site games in Columbus, GA until they didn’t.
So why would Georgia and Florida keep their game off-campus while the others have gone the way of the dodo and the Wing-T?
Well…have you been to Birmingham or Columbus? They ain’t special.
There’s nothing quite like the view of that split red and blue stadium and the sun going down over the St. John’s with a tense SEC matchup heading into the second half.
The only thing sweeter is seeing the blue side of the stadium empty out and getting to walk down the ramps with your 40,000 closest friends in red and black chanting, “It’s great to be a Georgia Bulldog!”
I want more than anything to experience that with my boys one day, and I would be quite miffed if the naysayers had the chance to ruin one more of the SEC’s and the country’s best football traditions.
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Black Star is the story of Sheriff Duke Boone and his struggle to maintain the peace in the town of Silver Gorge, NV. In his fight, he comes across a vicious gunman, a greedy mine boss, and a supernatural evil that haunts his every nightmare.