Repost with Updates: The "F" in Florida

Every year, the same thing.

See, here's the deal. I grew up in the 1990s, at least the part of me that's conscious of what goes on around me. Born in '79, I don't remember the National Championship year or any game featuring Herschel Walker. The first time I ever saw Herschel play it was on television, and it was for the Philadelphia Eagles. The first Georgia game I remember seeing was a victory over Mississippi State in the early '90s, and the first head coach I remember was Ray Goff. I remember distinctly sitting around my grandparents' dining room table in Athens listening to my father and my uncle and my grandfather all say the same thing: Goff should bench Preston Jones for this new what's-his-name kid, Eric Zeier, but that he'd never do it because UGA didn't start freshmen at quarterback, period.

I say all of that to say this: I don't remember beating Florida. In the '70s and '80s, we owned Florida. We broke their hearts every year, stealing SEC titles from them when they were in contention, beating them like a rented mule when they were bad. Those two decades are the reason why the series is so bloody lopsided in our favor, and perhaps the fact that I missed all of that made my childhood a little easier. All I ever knew was Florida beating us year in and year out.

I had three real best friends growing up. One didn't pay attention to sports; his asthma and Nintendo addiction kept him inside. One was a die-hard Philadelphia Eagles fan; even in games of pick-up basketball he claimed to be Randall Cunningham. The third lived down the street from me. The bus stop was in his driveway.

He was a Florida fan.

His parents met at Florida. His whole life, he set a goal to go to Florida. And throughout the cold Fall and Winter (when we still had those in North Carolina), I had to stand out there, on his driveway, staring at his oversized down-stuffed Florida jacket, and listen to him say, "It doesn't matter how good Georgia is this year. We're going to beat you. Florida is the greatest ever." My only response, being woefully undereloquent in the ways of sports at the time, was merely, "F Florida!"

He and I had fallen out of touch by the time the 1997 game rolled around, but the first thing I wanted to do after we won that game was to call him up and taunt him the way he had taunted me. I didn't watch that game, though; school and girls and being angsty kept me away from watching sports at all.

We flash forward. Five years later, and we had returned to form, losing four straight to the Gators. All of a sudden, a couple of heart-stopping victories over Clemson and South Carolina and Tennessee behind us, we were 8-0 going into Jacksonville and ranked the highest we'd been at this point in the season since the Dooley years. No one wanted to jinx it, but there were talks, more like vague mumbles, really, of our first SEC title since 1982. There were even lower rumblings about a national championship. This team had no Herschel, but many said that it was a better all-around team than the 1980 Dawgs, certainly the most talented since that magical three-year period. So what do we do? We go down to Jacksonville and we...fail to convert a single third down all day! It was over. The dream was over. As if to prove that old cliche, I didn't sleep a wink that night, and barely slept the next. F Florida!

The next year I'm up in Niagara Falls with my then-wife, celebrating our second anniversary. I have no idea where we found the money to do that; I was in grad school at Georgia and she was making less than twenty grand a year. At any rate she allowed me to stay in and watch the Cocktail Party on TV and, convinced that this year was the year, I glued myself to the television.

I still remember that little dink of a screen pass David Greene threw to Tyson Browning that ended the game. We were BETTER than Florida all day long, but we couldn't score. My wife and I went out and walked in the snow that had begun to fall on the New York/Ontario border, but I couldn't talk to her. I could only talk to those green idiots down south: "F you, Florida!"

I'm the type of person who, when something goes right for Georgia on the field, gets up out of my traditional overstuffed football-watching chair and screams at the television. 2004 was no different, and, like the year before, we were better than Florida all day long. The only difference was that we were scoring, and in big bunches. But we let Florida get back into the thing in the second half, and knowing that game I was afraid until the end that we would lose. Given everything I've described above, you'll forgive me if, as the offensive line circled around the backfield so that David Greene could take a knee, my own knees buckled under me and I fell to the floor in tears. My wife, nine months pregnant with our first child, ran into the room, asking me what was wrong. "We're going to win the game," I said. "We're going to win the F'ing game."

After the 2007 game I was gloaty. We had been on a two-game losing streak to the Gators, sure, and we really should have beaten them in 2005 (that game, more than any other, made me realize that it was time for Mark Richt to stop calling plays. I mean, come on...you're running Joe Tereshinski out of the shotgun? It was like CMR didn't even know that D.J. wasn't playing!), but I was cocky. I knew we were going to beat Florida, and then we just embarrassed them all day long. It was really no contest, and the only time I was really afraid was when Wandy Pierre-Louis returned that Stafford INT for a touchdown. After that, it was smooth sailing. I strutted around, happily proclaiming that we had beaten Florida, knowing that great things were coming, having been formally introduced to a young man named Knowshon. So it surprised me more than anybody when, as I was online listening to the post-game show and ordering my victory shirt, I suddenly broke down crying. What's this? This was no end to a seven-game drought. This wasn't the 2004 senior class finally living up to its promise. This was basic stuff; beating a rival two out of four years. That's why it's a rivalry, because both programs RIVAL each other in talent, right? So why was I so emotional? My God, what had Florida done to me?

Now we're gearing up for yet another Cocktail Party, regardless of what the UGA and UF administrations think the game should be called. This one is the first since 1979 in which neither team is ranked going into the game. Somehow, though, it's also an elimination game: the winner has a shot at the SEC East, while the loser must win out just to go to Shreveport. How are we both still in it? Florida was already out of it in 2007, having already lost to Auburn and LSU. In 2004 our loss to a good Tennessee team had taken us out of SEC title contention. The 2005 Florida team had already lost to Auburn and LSU and had a new coach. In 1997 both teams had already lost to Tennessee.

This year, however, it's for everything. If you don't believe that, imagine what would happen in Gainesville should Urban Meyer lose four straight for the first time in his career, should lose after a bye week for only the second time in his career. Imagine what will happen in Athens should Mark Richt lose yet another decision to yet another inferior Florida team. All week long I'll be nervous, replaying both 2002 and 2007 in my head over and over again. All week long I'll think about this game, strategizing and theorizing, all the while knowing that my opinions, observations and input have absolutely no bearing on the game Saturday.

And all week long, the way some people say "How do you do?" and some people say "What's up?," I'll be walking around my little life, saying "F Florida!"

Absolutely brilliant dapolla! Thanks!

Everytime I read this, it's like I'm reading it for the first time.

F-Florida! Go Dawgs!

Thanks for taking the time and sharing, After our mess in Columbia I wrote that my song this year for the Dawgs was "I'm walking the floor over you" by Ernest Tubbs.

I will take a win in any form Saturday, but if I had my druthers... I want a good old fashion trashing. I want UF coming off the field broken like a china doll. Pay back is long and I mean long over due. Go Dawgs