There are possibly people reading this whom I love and who root for the Florida Gators. If this is you, I ask that you respect my privacy during this difficult time.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning counted the ways in which she loved somebody. I have elected to put the format to better use
I have tried to approach the Florida rivalry with maturity, perspective, and an understanding that college football is nothing more than a game played by young men whose choice of university should not determine how I feel about an entire populace.
Then somebody does the Gator Chomp, and there goes all that personal growth into the sewer -- like drain-pouring a bad bourbon.
Georgia plays Florida this week, and yes, "hate" is the appropriate word. Please spare me the speech about 'throwing out the records'. I would prefer to throw out everything orange and blue, starting with whatever pair of jeans somebody in Gainesville is currently converting into formal wear.
I loathe the Gators. I despise the Gators. I detest the Gators.
An editor might tell me those three sentences are redundant. I would tell that editor I’m willing to make room for a fourth. The Gators and the state from which they come are a blight on society, and there simply isn't the technology or verbiage available to measure the mass of my hatred.
Moving on to the game.
The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Next question.
Let’s start with establishing what this game is called.
It is the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.
I don’t care what the political powers, university administrators, television executives, or sponsors would prefer we call it. They can put whatever they like on the paperwork. I’m not inviting anybody over to watch the paperwork.
Some games spend a century trying to develop a personality. This one has a name that tells you where it happens, what to bring, and why your uncle Bo probably shouldn’t drive home. It's Red Solo cups and Blue Solo cups, filled to the brim with grain alcohol, hunch punch, or some sort of sissy vodka drinks that go well with frayed denim shorts and bad taste.
You don’t improve on that with a branding meeting or with a mandatory political correctness training module.
The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Always has been to me. Always will be. Now that we’ve settled the name, let’s discuss the guests I can’t stand.
Some Cocktail Party traditions deserve to be passed down
“Gators eat boogers.”
There it is. The poetry of my people. Put it on a T-shirt, wear it to a football game, and let future civilizations decide what it says about the Bulldog Nation. I’m comfortable with their findings.
Is it juvenile... sophomoric... infantile? Certainly. So is getting emotionally wounded because a man in a visor called a better football game than your coach did, but some of us have been carrying that around for decades.
Something is endearing about a rivalry that can encompass generations of football history and still find room for a booger joke. Somewhere, a Georgia fan is explaining defensive tendencies and RPOs to their child. Somewhere else, another one is explaining why that shirt is funny. Both are providing an education.
And then there are the jorts.
No, Florida fans, we are never letting that go. You could arrive in Jacksonville wearing a custom-tailored Italian suit, and I would assume there was a pair of cutoff denim shorts underneath it in case the evening turned fancy... or catches charges (which, I guess, is fancy to a Florida fan).
Every fan base has something it cannot escape. We bark at people. I understand that. I have made peace with my place in the ecosystem.
You people have business-casual Daisy Dukes. We'll call that another Georgia win.
Welcome to OUR backyard, swamp critters
This year, the Cocktail Party moves to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. (Yes, I realize that complicates the “outdoor” part. We have already established that I am not accepting questions about the name. Moving on.)
Truthfully, this game belongs on the campuses. Athens one year. Gainesville the next. Let the students have it. Let the bands march through their own towns. Let each fan base experience the pleasure of sending its rival back home, broken and miserable.
I would happily accept a trip to the Swamp every other year if it meant Florida had to come between the hedges in return. But while we wait for that outbreak of common sense among the NCAA scheduling braintrust, Atlanta will do nicely.
For three decades, Georgia and its fans have crossed the state line to play a supposedly neutral-site game in the state of Florida. Yes, I understand the tickets are split. I understand Jacksonville has history and a need for revenue. I also understand how to read a map.
Thirty consecutive games inside your state borders, and now we get one inside ours. I trust you’ll forgive us if we don’t spend the afternoon worrying about your comfort. Please wipe your feet. We don’t know where those flip-flops and jorts have been.
Steve Sidious and the dark side of the visor
Of course, any honest explanation of Georgia’s feelings about Florida eventually and painfully arrives at Steve Spurrier.
I can acknowledge Spurrier's brilliance, appreciate his place in college football history, and admit that the sport benefited from having a coach who could deliver a solid punch line instead of explaining that his team "needed to execute" in a halftime interview.
But I do all of that through clenched teeth and with a queasy stomach. To a Georgia fan, Spurrier is Emperor Palpatine in a visor.
Steve Sidious.
You could practically hear him inviting us to let the hate flow through us. Then he would call another touchdown pass and say something at the postgame press conference that made you want to throw the television into the driveway.
The Head Ball Coach understood something essential about rivalry football games: Beating somebody hurts them once. Being funny about it allows the wound to remain open and even grow.
And he was funny. That was the aggravating part. He was a human salt shaker, constantly pouring his substance into the Dawgs' open wounds.
It would have been easier if he’d been a bore. Or Urban Meyer, who at least gave us reasons to dislike him that had nothing to do with football. But Spurrier had to be funny. We had to watch him beat us and then spend the rest of the weekend hoping nobody repeated what he’d said about it.
Naturally, everybody repeated it. That kind of irritation creeps into your bones like osteoporosis. Thank god social media wasn't around then.
Years pass. Coaches change. You develop responsibilities, perspective, and maturity. Then you see the visor, and suddenly you need to take a walk and practice your Reiki.
Two words for you, coach. Bobby Bowden.
The Gators have been grilled lately
Now, before anybody mistakes this for a Red and Black eulogy, let’s establish the facts.
Georgia has won five straight against Florida and eight of the last nine. The Bulldogs lead the overall series 58-44-2, and for any Florida fan who wants to argue there have only been 103 meetings, you can go pound swamp mud.
This is not a rivalry in which Georgia is wandering the field around, hoping to survive the afternoon while Florida fans explain the natural order of things. At the moment, the natural order involves Georgia doing the explaining.
We have been grilling Gators, both on the field and at the tailgate. Not metaphorically, either. Put them on the smoker and let the heat do the work -- low and slow.
Five straight is not a fluke. Eight of nine is not an accident. That is a sustained stretch of Georgia reminding Florida who has been running this particular span of the rivalry. I am not saying this to be arrogant. I am saying it because arrogance is one of the few things Georgia fans have earned the right to enjoy this week.
The Gators can bring up old memories, old coaches, old jokes, and whatever happened the last time they felt good about themselves (might take them a minute or two on that one). We can bring up the scoreboard. We can bring up the streak. We can bring up the series record. We can bring up 4-3 in national championships.
Then we can turn the grill up another notch and crack open the bottle of sauce.
This is not Florida’s rivalry to crow about right now. This is Georgia’s rivalry to defend, and the Bulldogs have been doing a perfectly respectable job of it. So yes, I want Florida crushed when the final whistle sounds. But I also want Georgia fans to continue enjoying the view from the top of this particular hill.
We have earned a little chest pounding. Just keep it tasteful, which means no more than absolutely necessary.
In other words, pretty much anything goes.
Florida Week makes a fool out of me, and I keep showing up
Every rivalry brings out some combination of pride, joy, anxiety, and behavior you would struggle to explain at work on Monday.
Florida Week gets an especially unpleasant mixture out of me. A witch's brew of superstition and defensiveness.
I can spend all week explaining the logical and statistical reasons why Georgia should win, then spend Saturday convinced that sitting in the wrong chair might cost us a touchdown. I have literal written rules for friends and loved ones for this game that, if broken, can lead to being reassigned from ‘loved one’ to ‘person I used to know' or an immediate review of their place in my will.
There is a particular toxicity to this one. A Georgia loss is bad enough on its own. A loss to Florida comes with the knowledge that Florida fans are enjoying it.
I find that excessive.
I want Gator fans despondent at the final whistle. I want the Gator Chomp to be a gesture they started in the first quarter and quietly retired in exchange for Surrender Cobras in the third. I want their walk back to the car to include a lengthy discussion about what needs to change... and some serious soul-searching.
I have had that walk. I have participated in that discussion. They can continue with their own walk of shame.
And yes, there is a boundary. A football rivalry is no excuse to mistreat somebody. The Florida fan beside you is entitled to enjoy the game, get home safely, and to live a full and happy life. I would simply prefer that the Cocktail Party portion of that life go poorly.
For three-plus hours on Saturday, I reserve the right to be petty about this. The rest of the week contains enough bills, responsibilities, and reasons to act my age. On Saturday, I want Georgia to beat Florida until Joe Tessitore and Jesse Palmer start looking for something else to warble about.
Then I want to enjoy the final score and a top shelf whiskey for an unreasonable amount of time.
I love college football. I love the Georgia Bulldogs. And part of my inheritance in this fandom is a completely unreasonable inability to wish the Florida Gators well. I see no reason to mess with a family tradition.
Gators eat boogers.
Go Dawgs.
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