1928 When
Charlie Bachman became the
1928 Gators' new head coach, he inherited a team loaded with talent recruited by his predecessor,
Harold Sebring. However, he also inherited a program which had never come close to beating the Georgia Bulldogs, their
Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association rival. Georgia was 6–0 against Florida with five shutouts and an overall scoring advantage of 190–9. The teams met again in
Savannah, Georgia on November 10, and Bachman's Gators finally beat the Bulldogs through the efforts of Florida's "Phantom Four" backfield of
Dale Van Sickle,
Carl Brumbaugh,
Rainey Cawthon,
Clyde Crabtree and
Royce Goodbread. With Florida holding a commanding lead in fourth quarter, jubilant Gator fans prematurely rushed the field to tear down the goal posts, resulting in fist fights breaking out between supporters of the two schools. Order was restored, the game was completed, and Florida earned its first victory in the series by the score of 26–6.
1941 Georgia's All-American back
Frank Sinkwich had broken his jaw in a game earlier in the season, but that didn't keep him off the field. Wearing a custom-made chinstrap attached to his helmet, Sinkwich ran 31 times for 142 yards and two touchdowns and kicked Georgia's first field goal since 1924 in the Bulldogs' 19–3 victory over the Gators. When speaking about the loss after the game, Florida coach
Tom Lieb simply said "Too much Sinkwich."
1942 Having lost most upper-class players and several members of the coaching staff to service in
World War II, the
1942 Florida Gators brought an inexperienced 3–4 squad into Jacksonville for the 1942 contest with Georgia. The
Bulldogs, on the other hand, still had the services of many key contributors thanks to
draft deferments issued to players enrolled in the University of Georgia's
ROTC program, and brought a 7–0 record and No. 1 ranking to Jacksonville. The Bulldogs finished the regular season 10–1, won the Southeastern Conference championship, defeated the
UCLA Bruins 9–0 in the
Rose Bowl, and were named national champions by multiple polls and ratings services. Meanwhile, the depleted Gators would not win another game on the season, and when even more students and staff joined the war effort, the school did not field a football team at all in 1943.
1949 The post–World War II 1940s were unsuccessful years for the Florida Gators. Coached by
Raymond Wolf, the Gators' collection of recent high school graduates and returning war veterans played four consecutive losing seasons, a record low point in the history of the Gators football program, ironically remembered by the close-knit players as the "Golden Era." Despite being considered by media to be underdogs against
Wally Butts'
Georgia Bulldogs in Jacksonville, Kynes coached his two-way linemen to what was considered their best performance of the season, stopping the Bulldogs' running game on defense, and blocking for Hunsinger on offense. Hunsinger rushed eighteen times for 174 yards and three touchdowns, and the Gators won 28–7, breaking a seven-game Georgia winning streak. Led by All-American lineman
Charlie LaPradd on defense and Casares on offense and special teams (he was also the team's
place-kicker), the Gators dominated the
Bulldogs 30–0 in Jacksonville, which would remain the Gators' largest victory over the Bulldogs for almost forty years and was the first shutout over the Bulldogs since 1937. Casares ran for 108 yards and two touchdowns and kicked three extra points and a field goal, while halfback
Buford Long ran for 116 yards on 10 carries. Florida finished the season 8–3 and were invited to their first major bowl game, the
1953 Gator Bowl. Georgia finished 7–4 and went on to suffer through several sub-par seasons in the 1950s, helping Florida earn a winning decade over their border rivals for first time in the series.
1964 While Georgia still held an overall advantage in the series, Florida enjoyed a 10–2 streak from 1952 to 1963 under head coaches
Bob Woodruff and
Ray Graves. With the game tied at 7–7 in the fourth quarter, Bulldogs placekicker
Bob Etter lined up for a potential game-winning field goal. The Gators' senior quarterback,
Steve Spurrier, had just locked up the Heisman trophy the previous week with a stellar performance versus the
Auburn Tigers. The Florida–Georgia game turned out very differently, however, as the
Bulldogs defense dominated the game, and Spurrier threw three interceptions in the 27–10 Georgia victory. All-American defensive tackle Bill Stanfill would later reference Spurrier in recounting his experiences growing up on a farm in southwest Georgia before the advent of weightlifting: "Holding pigs for my dad to castrate was quite a challenge. I can't say that helped prepare me for football, but it sure did remind me an awful lot of sacking Steve Spurrier." Spurrier returned to Gainesville as the Gators' head coach in 1990 and, with the sting of the 1966 loss in mind, emphasized the annual Florida–Georgia contest as the "biggest of the year." Under his tenure, the Gators were 11–1 against their bitter rivals.
1970 The
1970 Florida Gators featured
All-American defensive end Jack Youngblood, and he pulled off one of the most remarkable plays in Florida football history. With
Bulldogs leading 17–10 and in possession of the ball at the Gators' two-yard line, Youngblood stood up Georgia back Ricky Lake short of the goal, forced a fumble and fell on the football. "They ran a lead play to my side, and I cut it off", Youngblood said. "I'm standing there holding the ballcarrier and I take the ball away from him, and gave it back to our offense." Gators quarterback
John Reaves and wide receiver
Carlos Alvarez then connected for two touchdown passes in the final 5:13 to rally the Florida Gators to a 24–17 victory.
1975 The
1975 Florida Gators came into the game with a 6–1 record and No. 7 ranking, while the
Georgia Bulldogs were 5–2 and ranked No. 19. The Gators' offense was led by running back
Tony Green, who ran an early one-yard touchdown to put the Gators ahead 7–0. The Gators led 7–3 as time was winding down in the fourth quarter. Georgia's "Junkyard Dawgs" defense allowed yards between the 20-yard-lines, but ceded little ground in the red zone. The Bulldogs set up at their own 20-yard-line with 3:10 remaining, and head coach
Vince Dooley did something he rarely did: he called a trick play. Tight end Richard Appleby accepted the handoff on a reverse to the right, but instead of running downfield, he threw the ball to wide receiver Gene Washington for an improbable 80-yard touchdown play. Florida mounted a drive in the closing minutes but a bad snap foiled the Gators' game-tying field goal attempt, and Georgia held on for a 10–7 victory. Sports writers seized on Dickey's
mea culpa, and in subsequent months and years popularized the phrase "fourth and dumb" to refer to both Dickey's failed fourth down attempt and the game itself.
1980 Trailing the underdog
1980 Florida Gators with their perfect season and their No. 2 ranking in jeopardy, the
Bulldogs executed one of the most famous plays in college football history. Georgia trailed 21–20 with less than a minute to play and faced third and long from their own 7-yard-line. Bulldog quarterback
Buck Belue dropped back to pass and was forced to scramble around in his own endzone to avoid the Gator pass rush before finding wide receiver
Lindsay Scott open in the middle of the field near the Georgia 25-yard-line. Scott caught the pass facing his own endzone, turned and darted diagonally through Florida's secondary, and outran everyone down the sideline to score the game-winning touchdown with only seconds left on the game clock. Long-time Georgia radio announcer
Larry Munson's legendary call of the play gave the game its nickname:
Florida in a stand-up five, they may or may not blitz. Buck back, third down on the eight. In trouble, he got a block behind him. Gotta throw on the run. Complete to the 25. To the 30, Lindsay Scott 35, 40, Lindsay Scott 45, 50, 45, 40 . . . Run Lindsay, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott! The improbable 93-yard pass play sealed the Bulldogs' 26–21 victory, and kept Georgia's national championship hopes alive. The Bulldogs moved to No. 1 in the next round of polls and would go on to win the
1980 consensus
national championship.
1981 Much like the previous year, the favored Georgia Bulldogs trailed the Florida Gators in the fourth quarter 21–20. Backed up on their own five yard line with eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs methodically marched 95 yards on 17 plays, mostly on the ground. The drive culminated in three straight hand-offs to running back
Herschel Walker in which he attempted to jump over the line into the endzone, finally succeeding on third down. Florida still had two minutes to score but turned over the ball on downs near midfield, and Georgia won 26–21 for the second year in a row.
1984 After suffering several defeats to the Bulldogs with a conference championship at stake, coach
Galen Hall's
1984 Florida Gators entered the contest undefeated in the SEC. The Gators dominated early, building a 17–0 lead by early in the second half. But the
Bulldogs seemed to come alive in the third quarter, mounting a long drive; however, Georgia's drive died in the shadow of the Gators' goal line when they were stuffed on fourth down, checking the Bulldogs momentarily but pinning the Gators deep in their own territory. On the third play following the change of possession, Gators quarterback
Kerwin Bell dropped back into his own end zone and lofted a long pass to streaking receiver
Ricky Nattiel, who went 96 yards for a touchdown. The Bulldog momentum was snuffed out and the Gators went on to a convincing 27–0 victory, inspiring jubilant Florida fans to storm the field and tear down the goalposts after the final whistle.
1985 The
1985 Florida Gators entered the contest on a roll: coming off an emotional win over the
Auburn Tigers, undefeated, and ranked No. 1 in the nation for the first time in school history. This would not be a repeat of the 1984 game, however. As they had done so many times in the past, the
Bulldogs spoiled Florida's season, defeating the Gators 24–3 with freshmen running backs
Keith Henderson and
Tim Worley both rushing for over 100 yards. After the game, jubilant Georgia fans stormed the field and tore down the goalposts.
1993 In constant rain, the usually prolific passing game of coach Steve Spurrier's
1993 Florida Gators was stymied. Instead, the Gators relied on tailback
Errict Rhett to amass 183 yards and two touchdowns to build a 33–26 fourth-quarter lead. However, Gators cornerback Anthone Lott had called a timeout just before the ball was snapped, forcing the Bulldogs to play the down again.
1995 In the mid-1990s, the old Gator Bowl Stadium was rebuilt as
Jacksonville Municipal Stadium for the expansion
Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL, temporarily moving the Florida-Georgia game to on-campus sites for the first time in over six decades Gators starting quarterback
Danny Wuerffel threw for 242 yards and five touchdowns before leaving the game in the third quarter with Florida leading 38-17. Backup quarterback
Eric Kresser threw for two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter, including one with 1:21 remaining, to make the final score 52–17. Spurrier continued to defend his playcalling in later years; in a 2023 interview, he said, "We threw a touchdown with one or two minutes left in the game with all the backups in there. So if they wanted to get mad about that, that’s OK." The Gators' 52 points remains the record for most scored against the Bulldogs on their home field.
2002 The
2002 Bulldogs brought a perfect 8–0 record and No. 4 ranking to the annual grudge match in Jacksonville. Under new head coach
Ron Zook, the
Gators limped into the game with a 5–3 record and were unranked for the first time in over a decade. In a reversal of many Florida-Georgia games over the years, it was the underdog Gators who would ruin the Bulldogs' season. Trailing 7–6, the Gators took the lead with a key play on defense. Upon entering the contest in the second quarter, Bulldogs quarterback
DJ Shockley was intercepted by Gators
safety Guss Scott, who returned it for a touchdown, giving his team a 12–7 lead after a failed
two-point conversion attempt. The Bulldogs moved the ball but could not punch it into the endzone, settling for two field goals to take a halftime 13–12 lead. The defenses continued to dominate in the second half, until an early fourth-quarter Gator drive ended with a touchdown pass from quarterback
Rex Grossman and gave Florida a 20–13 advantage. The Georgia offense failed to score again and failed to convert a third-down in thirteen attempts as Florida held on for the upset. This turned out to be Georgia's only loss of the season. They went 13–1 and won the SEC Championship and Sugar Bowl.
2007 – 2008 2007 The 2007 game is remembered for the "Gator Stomp", a first-quarter mass celebration of the entire Georgia team in the Gators' endzone after Georgia running back
Knowshon Moreno scored the game's first touchdown early in the contest. Georgia coach
Mark Richt later acknowledged that he had encouraged his players to draw an excessive celebration penalty after their first touchdown, but intended that only the eleven players on the field celebrate, not the entire team. Georgia received two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for the celebration, moving the ensuing kickoff to their own 8-yard line, and Florida scored a touchdown on their next possession to tie the game at seven. Still, the early celebration seemed to fire up the underdog Bulldogs. Moreno ran for 188 yards and Georgia's defense sacked Gators quarterback
Tim Tebow six times, holding him to the lowest rushing total (−15 net yards) of his Heisman Trophy-winning season in the Bulldogs' 42–30 victory. The high-scoring game was the first in series history in which both teams scored thirty or more points. However, in his authorized biography published soon after the 2007 season, Meyer wrote: "That wasn't right. It was a bad deal. . . . We'll handle it, and it's going to be a big deal." The
Bulldogs and
Gators were both ranked in the top 10, and the winner would have the inside track in the SEC Eastern Division race and a possible shot at a national title. Some commentators went so far as to call it the biggest match-up in the series history, or at least the previous 20 years. Both offenses moved the ball with some effectiveness in the first half, but while the Gators scored two touchdowns, the Bulldogs were held to three field goal attempts and missed two of them. Georgia coach
Mark Richt also called an unsuccessful
onside kick after his team's made field goal, further blunting their momentum, and Florida held a 14–3 halftime lead. The Bulldogs turned the ball over four times in the second half and the Gators took advantage, pulling away for a 49–10 win in what was the Bulldogs' second worst loss in series history. In an apparent response to the Bulldogs' endzone celebration of the previous year, Meyer used both of his remaining timeouts with less than a minute to play, giving his team and fans more time to celebrate the sure victory. Florida went on to win the SEC Championship Game and the
BCS National Championship that season.
2012 The rivals came into their 2012 matchup with only one loss between them – Florida had a 7–0 record and a No. 2 ranking in the AP poll while Georgia was 6–1 and ranked No. 12 – once again making the game in Jacksonville a pivotal one for the teams' conference and national championship prospects, as South Carolina, the only other SEC East contender, already had 2 conference losses to LSU and Florida and was thus eliminated from SEC East contention. Both teams featured strong defenses and ball control offenses, so it was not a surprise that the contest was a low scoring one. Georgia running back
Todd Gurley scored to cap the Bulldog's first possession and give his team an early 7–0 lead, but that would be the only touchdown for much of the game. With the defenses dominating and the offenses committing nine total turnovers between them, the rivals could only muster field goals for the next 40 minutes of game time, and Florida kicker
Caleb Sturgis booted his third of the contest to cut Georgia's lead to 10–9 early in the 4th quarter. Georgia's offense finally broke through with a 45-yard touchdown pass from
Aaron Murray to
Malcolm Mitchell, putting them up 17–9 midway through the final period. Florida's offense also found a rhythm with the game on the line, and quarterback
Jeff Driskel led the Gators on a potential tying drive deep into Georgia territory. With just over two minutes remaining, he threw a strike over the middle to
tight end Jordan Reed, who appeared to be headed for a touchdown before Bulldog outside line-backer
Jarvis Jones punched the ball out of his hands. Georgia recovered in the back of the endzone for a touchback, and Florida's sixth turnover of the game allowed Georgia to hold on for the win. The teams finished the regular season tied for first in the SEC East with identical 7–1 records in conference play, but by virtue of their head-to-head victory over the Gators, the Bulldogs advanced to the
SEC Championship game, where they lost to eventual BCS national champion Alabama. == Game results ==