The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Smart gives Dogs dose of Gator reality
Forget who’s favored, who’s ranked — this is Florida they’re playing.
ATHENS — Kirby Smart stood before his Georgia football team, as he usually does at team meetings, and took a poll: Everyone in here who has beaten Florida, Smart asked them, please stand up.
There were a few awkward moments.
Nobody stood.
“It was sobering,” senior tight end Jeb Blazevich said. “With so much praise going on, on the outside, it’s like, guys, this is where we’re at. Nobody has beaten these guys.”
Technically, a few Georgia players were on the last Bulldogs team to beat Florida, but that was back in 2013, and the only holdovers
were redshirting and didn’t take the field. Since then it’s been all Florida.
This year it’s expected to be all Georgia: The Bulldogs are two-touchdown favorites, unbeaten and ranked No. 3 in the country, while the Gators (3-3) are reeling on and off the field. So to counteract that potential “rat poison,” Smart and his staff have gone about reminding their players about the recent history of this game.
Signs have been posted around the football offices and meeting rooms featuring the scores of the past few Florida games, and pictures from those games.
“Things we don’t want to see,” junior center Lamont Gaillard said.
There’s also been an effort to bolster this year’s Florida team, which is three points
away from being 5-1, as Georgia senior nose tackle John Atkins pointed out. (The Gators’ past two games were
a one-point loss to LSU and a two-point loss to Texas A&M, both at home.)
That conveniently overlooks
that the other loss, by 16, was to a Michigan team that has now fallen out of the AP poll, and that the Gators barely beat struggling Tennessee at home and squeaked past Kentucky by one.
But three years ago Georgia was also expected to cruise. Georgia was 6-1 and ranked No. 11 in the nation. Florida was 3-3 and unranked. Georgia was favored by nearly two touchdowns. The result: Florida rolled to a 38-20 win, the Bulldogs needing a touchdown with three seconds left to make the score seem closer than it was.
“I just remember them running for a lot of yards,” Georgia senior cornerback Aaron Davis said. “They ran for 400-something that game.”
Atkins recalled Florida’s fake field goal for a touchdown near the end of the first half.
“It was a crazy game,” Atkins said. “They really imposed their will on us.”
The next year saw Georgia, desperate for an offensive spark, vault former thirdstring quarterback Faton Bauta for his one and only start. He was picked off four times and Georgia lost 27-3. (Georgia entered that game unranked while Florida was No. 11.)
Last year, Florida also held serve, winning a convincing 24-10 game. That made it three in a row, equaling the three-game win streak that Georgia had going before that 2014 upset.
“Shoot, that was forever ago it feels like; it wasn’t that far ago,” Blazevich said. “We just try to keep it consistent, nothing in the past should affect how we prepare. Whether we won that game and the two after it, that shouldn’t affect how I practice and prepare. Coach Smart says it doesn’t matter who’s the better team or the favored team, it just matters who plays best on that day. We need to make sure that’s us.”