Florida-Georgia: “It’s time to hit somebody in the mouth”

The quote from junior offensive lineman D.J. Humphries perfectly encapsulates the magnitude of this week’s game.

“It’s Florida-Georgia” he said. “It’s time to hit somebody in the mouth.”

The Georgia Bulldogs (6-1, 5-1 SEC) come into the game against the Florida Gators (3-3, 2-3 SEC) sitting atop the SEC East standings and with a head full of steam following two convincing wins over Missouri and Arkansas.

The Gators limp into this year’s edition of the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party — like they did a season ago — but that doesn’t change the intensity of this rivalry.

“It’s always personal,” sophomore linebacker Jarrad Davis said. “I mean, just from watching it growing up, you can tell it’s personal — how the athletes play in the game, how huge the atmosphere is at that game. It’s just always been a personal matter.”

For lifelong Gator and Bulldog fans they know the intensity and the passion that the game brings. They remember Hershel Walker and “run Lindsay, run.” They remember Kerwin Bell hitting Ricky Nattiel for a 96-yard touchdown in 1984, Steve Spurrier hanging “half-a-hundred” between the hedges, Georgia’s entire team coming on the field to celebrate a touchdown in 2007 and the Gators’ calling late timeouts up 49-10 in 2008.

To some of the players on the roster, like sophomore receiver Ahmad Fulwood, they know the intensity of the rivalry. Fulwood attended Bishop Kenny High School in Jacksonville, just across the river from Ever Bank Field. “I got to look at that stadium every day in high school. It’s amazing now that I get to play in it,” he said.

For others, however, they didn’t grow up in the rivalry. They weren’t born into hating Georgia — but they do take a crash course when they arrive on campus in Gainesville.

“I’m from North Carolina so I kind of just inherited it, this hate,” Humphries said. “I never really understood it, you know what I mean. It’s kind of like Florida State. I never knew anything about Florida-Florida State, but as soon as I got there my freshman year like automatically hate them. It’s just like an aura when you get there. It’s like, ‘We don’t like you at all. Period.’”

Being told about the passion behind the rivalry and the intensity of the game is one thing. Actually coming over the bridge, seeing a sea of orange, blue, red and black, getting out on the field and hearing the fans, absorbing it all is entirely different.

Experiencing it puts everything into perspective.

“When you’re in that stadium, that’s when you figure it out. That’s when you feel it,” said Humphries. “Like when you feel those fans looking at you when you’re coming out of the tunnel, and they’re yelling at you from under the tunnel, that’s when you feel it. That’s a little different than Tennessee or Alabama and everyone else. It’s a little different.”

Florida’s season isn’t dead yet. It’s on life support and in critical condition. Georgia could walk into the stadium this week and pull the plug, mathematically eliminating the Gators from contention in the east but the Gators aren’t going to roll over and take that.

“In this game everybody out there is just turned all the way up. No matter what is going on outside or what’s going on before the game or the week before or the week after. It’s just THIS game,” Davis said. “When this game comes up, it’s all about THIS game from both sides, that’s what it seems like.”

“Throw it out. It’s 0-0, we just started the season, this game. That’s what it feels like.”

A loss this week would give the senior class a 0-4 record against Georgia, something that hasn’t happened to a Florida class since 1983.

Although he is only a sophomore, Davis has felt the pain of coming up on the short end of this rivalry. A Georgia native, Davis and his family have had to hear about the loss for a year now. His mother, Amy, is in constant contact with her son, “She said ‘we want this one so bad,’” Davis said. “It’s my mom, I love her. So when she tells me she wants it that bad, it’s really a big deal.”

The pain of coming close last year but falling short, the magnitude of the rivalry and all the outside distractions and speculation circling the team like a pack of vultures over a rotting carcass, Davis is cognizant of it all. He wasn’t last year.

“I didn’t know the severity of it as a player. But once I stepped on that field then I realized how big this was,” he said. “Now I have that in mind and I’m ready to go again this year.”

“I don’t want to fall to them ever again.”

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC