Why I hate Georgia... (Posted on 10/24/12 at 2:00 p.m.)

This is written by former Gator sports writer Franz Beard back in 2009. I hope it is OK to post here. Good stuff.

I do this every year so if you’re reading along and thinking this is very similar to something I write every year, move to the head of the class. This is Florida-Georgia week, time for my annual reminder to the Gator Nation why I despise the University of Georgia and why you should, too.

I have gone on record as saying that I despise Georgia with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. I take that back. That’s not even close. I would cheer for a team quarterbacked by Osama Bin-Laden to stomp Georgia unmercifully. And it doesn’t matter the sport, I pull for Georgia to lose by an embarrassingly large margin. I never wish for injuries, just seriously wounded pride and a lasting feeling of shame for ever putting on that red and black uniform.

Some people tell me they always pull for SEC teams when they are playing out of conference. I do with one exception and that’s Georgia. As far as I am concerned there is only one reason to ever pull for Georgia in anything and that is if a Georgia win helps the Florida Gators win a championship. Otherwise, I see no reason to wish anything but the worst.

And before I go any further, Gators do not refer to the Georgia Bulldogs as “Dawgs.” We are Gators who actually went to college, not a bunch of functioning illiterate rednecks who can’t spell a simple four-letter word.

The reasons to despise Georgia are many and they go well beyond the 2007 storm the field incident, one of the dumbest decisions ever made by a head coach. Mark Richt might have gotten his team motivated to win the 2007 game against the Gators, but he endangered everyone on the field; lied about it for an entire year afterward; and never took into consideration that in showing up Urban Meyer he created an enemy for life. Trust me on this one folks --- Urban Meyer NEVER forgets.

Meyer’s way of getting even was to call time out twice in the final minute of last year’s 49-10 blowout win by the Gators. Both times, Richt and all the Georgia players looked up at the scoreboard to see the score and the few remaining seconds on the clock, a grim reminder that they were getting hosed.

It’s laughable that Georgia fans and players talk about how Urban Meyer disrespected them. All they do when they open their mouths is remind Meyer of what happened in 2007 and give him reason to throw another 40-gallon can of gas on the fire.

“The Incident” didn’t cause Florida to lose the 2007 game. A lack of blocking and failure to take care of the football turned a game the Gators could have easily won into a loss they’ll never forget and that is the silver lining to this dark cloud. Urban Meyer will never let the Gators forget.

I’ll give you a few other reasons.

REASON NUMBER ONE: My dad was a 16-year-old freshman at the University of Florida in 1942, biding his time until he was 18 when he could sign up to join the Navy to fight the Germans and the Japanese. On most of the college campuses across the nation, the physically able athletes had already signed up to fight for their country in the weeks immediately after Pearl Harbor. Florida had gone 4-6 in 1941 but expectations were high that 1942 would be different thanks to season-closing wins over Miami and Georgia Tech and a close loss to UCLA. Those hopes and dreams went out the window with the unilateral declaration of war against Germany and Japan.

The most able bodied of Coach Thomas Lieb’s football team were already in the military when the 1942 season arrived. Most of Florida’s team was made up of young guys waiting their eighteenth birthdays or who couldn’t pass the physical.

That wasn’t the case at Georgia, which had one of the two or three best ROTC programs in the country. Georgia was already loaded when the war broke out. By the time the 1942 season began, Coach Wally Butts had a roster full of stars who were enrolled in the ROTC program, including All-Americans like Flatfoot Frankie Sinkwich (he won the Heisman that year), George Poschner and Charlie Trippi, who would go on to become one of the greatest college football players in history.

When Georgia and Florida squared off in Jacksonville on November 7, the game was over by the first quarter and by halftime, it was total carnage. Butts could have called it off any time he wanted, but he kept pouring it on. Late in the fourth quarter Sinkwich and Trippi were still in the game pouring it on.
The final score was 75-0. Georgia went on to win a national championship. Florida went 3-7 with wins over Randolph-Macon, Auburn and Villanova.

REASON NUMBER TWO: Florida had been picked to win the SEC and finish in the top five in the nation in 1968 but problems on and off the field torpedoed those dreams. Florida’s bubble burst in Chapel Hill on a rainy Saturday in October when the Gators lost seven fumbles and fell to the Tar Heels, 22-7. From there the season was a downward spiral and by the Georgia game on November 7, the Gators were 4-2-1.

The Gators were a team divided by a quarterback controversy as half the team supported Jackie Eckdahl and the other half Larry Rentz. Defensive players thought they were doing their part and they were angered by the Eckdahl-Rentz controversy.

The week before the game Florida offensive genius Fred Pancoast, was hospitalized for an appendectomy. In his absence, Ray Graves decided to shake up the team by swapping coordinators --- Ed Kensler went to the defense and Gene Ellenson went to the defense. Graves figured things couldn’t get worse but they did.

On a cold, rainy, miserable day in Jacksonville (those of us who were there will NEVER forget how miserable that day was) ninth-ranked Georgia hammered the out of sorts Gators from the opening whistle. It was 42-0 and over by halftime but with seconds remaining in the fourth quarter Dooley called time out and let his center, who hadn’t kicked since high school, kick a field goal to make the final score, 51-0.

For those of you who never understood Steve Spurrier’s obsession with running it up on Georgia, now you know. Coach Ellenson, who was Spurrier’s close friend, called Spurrier in San Francisco (Spurrier was with the 49ers then) that night and told him what had happened. Those who know Spurrier know that he has a VERY long memory. He never forgot how Dooley called time out to run up the score. He never felt any reason to show a moment of sympathy.

This post was edited on 10/24 at 2:01 pm