DRINKING WITH THE ENEMY 2003 The game is still days away, but I've already got that feeling in my gut. Equal parts anxiety, nervousness and anticipation. Games against Florida A&M or Fresno State don't give me the feeling. Neither do games against Vandy or Kentucky. What gives me this damn sensation in my stomach is knowing that in just a few days my Alma Mater, The University of Florida will once again meet the University of Georgia on a football field in Jacksonville. Yes, once again it's time for the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party and like so many others before; this game will have major implications in regards to who will win the Southeastern Conference championship. A lot of Gator fans will tell you that the FSU and Tennessee games are the most important dates on UF's schedule, but not this old Gator. The Georgia game is the crossroad of any Gator season. Win and a chance at the SEC championship lives on. Lose and....hell, I don't even want to think about it. Remember the old Road Runner cartoon? You know the part where Wiley E. Coyote paints a big brick wall to look like a road? The Road Runner comes racing up and runs right through it, and continues on his way. Wiley stands back and scratches his head then he decides to run through it. Of course he goes splat because it's really just a big painted brick wall. Through the years Georgia has been that brick wall for the Gators. But for the past dozen years or so we've been able to turn the table on the Bulldogs and unlike poor Wiley we've been the ones who've dropped an anvil on Georgia instead of ourselves. Unfortunately things are a little different this year. Hell, if Georgia is victorious this weekend they will all but clinch the SEC East. Florida will be eliminated on the first day of November and the Bulldogs will make their second straight appearance in the SEC championship game. Any Gator will tell you that's a nauseating scenario. So how do we stop Georgia this Saturday? Hell if I know. I don't watch Georgia games. I do know that until last year the Dawgs hadn't won an SEC football title since Mork and Mindy was on in primetime. But defeat us this Saturday and they'll have a very real opportunity to own the conference crown once again. That alone should be enough reason for us to want to beat Georgia. So what are the keys for a Gator victory? Easy. One is get ahead early and hope that the Bulldogs continue their anemic offensive ways from the past two weeks. We need for Georgia to turn the ball over early and often. I could get technical and say the Gators need to establish a running game or that we'll need to zone blitz on second and long situations, but blah..blah..blah... The bottom line is, we'll to hold on to the damn ball and hope lady luck is with us this Saturday. I'm always a wreck the week of the Florida/Georgia game. I hate the Bulldogs worse then any team the Gators play. Losing to FSU is a fate worse than death. The thought of getting beat by LSU makes me want to jump out a window. A loss to the Vols? I'd rather leap in front of a train. But a defeat at the hands of the Georgia Bulldogs would make any of these other situations seem like a fun-filled Caribbean vacation. Why do I hate Georgia? Actually there are plenty of reasons, but to list them all would require a book so large, it would make "War and Peace" look like a TV Guide. So I offer just a handful of the many reasons I detest, hate, loathe and despise Georgia: 1. THE JACKSONVILLE BULLDOG CLUB They claim to be the largest Bulldog club outside the state of Georgia. Maybe they are, that's not the reason they get under my skin. It's their logo that irks me. It's the regular UGA logo (the older, uglier one, not the new one that looks like it was drawn by a sixth grader) with a Gator in its mouth. If their intention was to tick off Gators, then they have succeeded. It's one thing to see a drawing like this on a t-shirt or a banner, but this is their official club logo! 2. THE USHERS ARE BIASED Back when Georgia held the upper hand in the series, the Bulldog faithful had no problems with the Gator Bowl's seating arrangement or staff. But a few years ago, after several straight ugly losses to the Gators, the Dog fans started getting upset. They said they didn't like the way the seats were divided between UF and UGA fans (even though it had been set-up this way for years). They griped about price gouging and a few other things, but the one item that really made me chuckle, was they thought too many ushers were wearing Florida hats. I'm not making this up. This was one of their complaints. Personally, I don't care if an usher wears a grass skirt, hi-heels and has a toilet lid around his neck. All I want him to do is show me my seat and not turn me in if he sees me mixing a drink. 3. THE JACKSONVILLE GAME Depending on who you are rooting for, the game is normally called the UF/UGA or the UGA/UF game. I can live with this. It's not a slap in the other school's face. Understandably you want your school's name to come before the other's. Well the University of Georgia likes to take it one step further. They don't want to mention Florida's name at all. In their programs the game is called "The Jacksonville Game". Like once a year Georgia travels to Jacksonville and plays a different opponent everytime. I prefer not to stoop to their level and refer to the contest as the Jacksonville Game. I'd rather call it what it really is: The Florida/Goober game. 4. LINDSAY SCOTT, LINDSAY SCOTT, LINDSAY SCOTT If ever there has ever been a lower moment in Florida football history then the 1980 UF/UGA game, I don't want to know about it. We had this game locked up. If you were to have told me that with under two minutes left, Georgia would be backed up on their own goaline and their only hope was that their "noodle-armed" quarterback, Buck Belue, would pass them down the field. I'd have said "Let's chill the champagne!". Unfortunately, that's what the Gator defense was thinking. If we had won, there would have been no national championship in Athens. Hell, there would've been no SEC championship! To make matters worse, every year during the UF/UGA game this play is shown sometimes during the broadcast. It doesn't matter if we are winning 47-7 with two minutes left, seeing this play makes me want to vomit. I've been addicted to Rolaids ever since Nov 8th, 1980. 5. JEAN SHORTS The Georgia Faithful like to portray the average Gator fan as a jean short wearing, mullet styling, Zima drinking cheeseball. I'll be the first to say that there are Gators out there with mullet hairdos, tank tops and jean shorts. But you know what? UF doesn't have a monopoly on these types of fans. All schools have their share and UGA is no exception. It astounds me that Bulldogs think they're Carey Grant's answer to the Southeastern Conference. I've seen a lot of Carey's movies and not once have I seen him in red and black bib overalls. I don't sport a mullet (to be honest I don't sport much hair at all) and I don't own jean shorts, but if that's how they want to portray me, then fine. Just don't label me a Zima drinker. I'll punch you in the mouth if you do. 6. BARKING AND HUNKERING You know the number of times someone has "barked" at me outside the Jacksonville city limits? Zero. You know the number of times I've been barked at during a typical Florida/Georgia weekend? 1,895,987 times. The only thing worse then hearing a real dog bark is hearing some red polyester clad jackass start yapping. This never fails: It's the Saturday morning of the game. Your head is pounding like a Keith Moon drum solo. You've just pulled in to your parking spot and you're gingerly unloading your tailgate supplies. When all of a sudden one of the "Duke boys" comes screeching up to the spot next to you, barely comes to a stop and jumps out of the "General Lee" and starts barking like Lon Chaney Jr. on a Southern Comfort bender. At 9:00 in the morning, this is the last thing you need. Hunkering is another thing that gets me. "Hunker down Daaawgs!" You hear this cry all weekend as well. During the '82 Auburn/Georgia game, Bulldog radio announcer Larry Munson, repeated this phrase so often, it drove an Auburn fan to toss his bourbon and Coca-Cola into the UGA broadcast booth. I don't think Munson has to worry about anyone tossing a drink into the booth this weekend. Maybe an empty cup, but at "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party", nobody is going to throw away their drink. I have so many memories of Florida/Georgia games. Some fond and some that I'm sure have taken years off my life. Allow me to take a stroll down memory lane and remember some of the "Cocktail Parties" of years past: 1986: My first Florida/Georgia game. My breath was taken away when I saw the inside of the stadium for the first time. I thought to myself, I've died and gone to college football heaven. I also remember talking to some guy outside of the stadium before the game started. He was complaining about the room he stayed in the previous night. I asked him which hotel he was staying. "Hotel?" he answered, "I wasn't in no hotel, I was in the Jacksonville Jail." 1987: The coldest Cocktail party I ever attended. It was also the only time that I sat in the upper deck. I was so far away I felt like I wasn't really a part of the game. And that's just as well. The Gators scored a field goal early to go up 3-0 and scored a TD late. Besides that, there wasn't much else for us that day. I awoke the next morning with a hangover that could've killed a mule. 1988: I'd graduated and moved to Maryland. I had to watch the game via some PBS station probably about 50 miles away. The reception was horrible. It looked like there were six teams on my screen. I'm sure the Gators thought there were six Georgia teams on the field that day as we lost 26-3. 1989: We had Emmitt and little else. Somehow we managed to hold the lead at the half (Even more shockingly, it was a TD pass that put us up). As the second half wore on I could feel things starting to slip away. I turned to my friend and said, "We need a spark. Something has got to happen!" Right then something did happen. The girl two seats over from me threw-up all over herself. That's wasn't the sign from the heavens that I was looking for. I awoke the next morning with a hangover that could've killed a mule. 1990: It was much colder this day than the 1987 game. But I didn't feel a single chill. After three straight losses to the Dawgs, we crushed them 38-7. It was a great day to be a Gator and I'm not exaggerating when I say if we had taken advantage of all of our scoring opportunities, we'd have scored 70. Not only did I not want the game to end, I didn't want to leave. I honestly think I was the last person to leave the Gator Bowl that day. I actually walked around on the field once all the cops and their dogs left. The next day I realized that hangovers hurt less when you win. 1991: Two days before the game a girl I knew asked me out to a concert. Michael Crawford, of Phantom of the Opera fame, was singing at the Kennedy Center that afternoon and she wanted to know if I would come with her. I told her that I didn't care if the Beatles were reuniting and they wanted me to sing all of John's parts, I wasn't going to miss the Florida/Georgia game. I never saw that girl again. I did see UF wallop the Dawgs 45-13. 1992: Maybe my favorite of all-time. Finally we got to deny the Dawgs a chance at the SEC crown. The Georgia faithful came in to the game expecting to gain some revenge on Steve Spurrier and the Gators for the past two year's whippings. When UGA ran 80 yards on their first offensive play, it certainly looked like they would. But UF fought back and with just over five minutes left the Gators led by nine. I was just starting to feel a little comfortable, until the Dawgs drove 70+ yards in only three plays to cut the lead to two. Now Georgia only needed to get the ball back and kick a field goal to win. Here we go again, I thought, but I would be wrong. Somehow the Gators managed to hold on to the ball and kill the remaining 5 minutes off the clock. Speaking of killing, I killed a few brain cells that night. I awoke the next morning with a hangover that could've killed a mule. That still didn't prevent me from getting up early in order to read the sports page. 1993: An emotional rollercoaster. With just seconds left in the game Georgia had just thrown a touchdown pass to draw within one point and were just a two point conversion away from winning. But hold the phone. UF's Anthone Lott had called a timeout just a split second before the play had begun and the Georgia TD was called back. With one last chance the Bulldog's Eric Zeier tossed a pass out of the corner of the endzone and I thought the game was over. But once again, hold the phone , UF was called for pass interference and Georgia had one last shot. By this time, I'm on my knees, praying either for an incompletion or for a 10 ton boulder to come out of the sky, land on me and end my misery. Luckily, the boulder landed on Ray Goff as Zeier's last pass fell harmlessly to the ground. 1994: A friend of mine lives just a few blocks from Florida Field so I parked at his place and we began to have a tailgate party in his front yard. A huge rainstorm forced the party to move in to his garage. We didn't care, we had a music, food and coolers full of beer. A little while later a Georgia fan walked in to the garage and asked if he could buy some of our beer. He was tailgating with his brothers and they'd run out. We gave him three beers and said we didn't want his money, but we did want his rain poncho. He thought for a moment and said, "Give me two more beers and it's yours". We did and off he ran to bring the brew to his siblings. We saw him walking in to the game with his brothers. They had ponchos, he did not, but for a soaking wet guy, he looked pretty happy. Something tells me he woke up the next morning with a hangover that could've killed a mule. 1995: Steve Spurrier became the first coach to score over 50 points against Georgia 'tween the hedges. Our last score still irks the Georgia faithful. They thought that Steve was running up the score when he called for a reverse with under five minutes left that led to our final TD. I was ticked at coach Spurrier following that play as well. I was angry he didn't onside kick on the ensuing kickoff! 1996: The game wasn't on locally in the DC area so I had to go watch it with the local Gator club. The club had arranged to get the satellite feed from CBS. About 15 minutes before the game, the rest of the country was watching scores and hi-lites from the day's games. But since we had a direct satellite feed, we were watching the CBS crew getting ready for the game. Most of the shots they were shooting were of the band or of fans, but they did get a few shots of UGA the bulldog. Normally I wouldn't bother to even tell this story. So they showed a couple of shots of a dog, so what? Well, I've watched a ton of TV in my life, and I've seen a lot things, but I've never seen a dog peeing on a pile of ice and then licking it. 1997: We lost. It had been eight years since I'd felt that terrible feeling a loss to Georgia brings. Only time can heal that hell. To be honest I don't know if heal is the correct word. Time kind of just numbs the pain. 1998: We won. It was Halloween so I set up my portable TV by the door so I could watch the game while I gave out candy to the kiddies. When Doug Johnson caught the TD pass that clinched the win, I screamed so loud the little girl at my door dressed as Snow White began to bawl. 1999: For Georgia fans it was a windy, cold and rainy day in Jacksonville. For Gator fans it was a 30-14 postcard perfect afternoon. 2000: I discover that Georgia has added a new weapon to their arsenal. Sure they still bark and hunker, but now, every waking second leading up to kickoff they play "Who Let the Dogs Out?". Do you think Oregon tailgaters play "Disco Duck" during pregame festivities? Or LSU fans play "Year of the Cat" while tailgating? You know why they don't? Because those are stupid, mindless, insipid, crappy novelty songs. And just like those songs, "Who Let the Dogs Out?" is abrasive and obnoxious (which might explain why Bulldog fans can realte to it). 2001: We won 24-10, but the game was in doubt up until the final 90 seconds. This game answered the age-old question: How many Tums can one man go through in a 3 hour period. The answer: 8,934. 2002: I fully expected a Gator loss in this game. Georgia was undefeated coming in while we'd already lost three games (And we were a blocked chip-shot field goal away from entering the contest with three straight defeats and four overall). At times we tried to give the game to the Bulldogs with turnovers in the red zone as well as fumbles deep in our own territory. But it was Georgia who blew the game. Trailing by a touchdown with less than three minutes remaining, UGA quarterback David Greene launched a bomb to a wide open Terrence Edwards. For some reason the Georgia receiver thought there was a UF defender right behind him (In reality there wasn't a Gator defender within seven yards of him). He leaped and tried to shield his body away from the phantom Gator and in doing so took his eyes off the ball and thus wasn't prepared when the ball hit him squarely in his hands. I don't know what was the more beautiful sight, the ball falling harmlessly to the turf or Edwards lying on the ground holding his head in misery. The "Cocktail Party" is the appropriate term. For any normal Gator game against a good opponent, I'm usually too nervous to drink. I can't tell you the number of times I've brought in a 1/2 pint and never even opened the thing. You'd think for a Georgia game I'd be a nervous wreck (I am), but there's something about it that makes me join the party. The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is a truly unique event and both Gators and Dawgs should feel lucky to be a part of it. It's a mini-bowl game right smack dab in the middle of the season. You can talk all you want about Ohio-State/Michigan, UCLA/USC or Texas/Texas A&M, but they don't compare. There is something special about this game. The neutral site, the history, the view of the sun setting over the St.Johns River from the Landing, the pageantry, the booze, it all adds up to one great big powerhouse of a weekend. It's what college football is all about. Be you either Gator or Dawg, I wish you safe travels this weekend. Gators 30 Bulldogs 28 Go Gators! Jeff "The Stats-man" Brown