The Spooks Are 4-0. Georgia Is Laying 12.5. Isn't That Scary Enough On Halloween?
File photo: Vernell Brown III faces the student section at The Swamp. Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media.
By Buddy Martin
I don't have any good memories of Florida playing Georgia on Halloween.
Turns out my memory is off, which at my age is about as surprising as a Kirby Smart scowl.
According to the record book — and I checked, because the record book is the only thing left in this rivalry without an NIL agent — Halloween has been very, very good to the Gators. In the four Halloween meetings after 1931, Georgia is 0-for-4 against Florida on Oct. 31.
Four and oh, baby. Let's hear it for The Spooks!
The ghosts won 26-24 in 1992, when the Gators held Garrison Hearst, a Heisman Trophy contender, to 41 yards rushing. They won 38-7 in 1998, when Steve Spurrier's team was up 21-0 after one quarter, before half the Georgia people had located their seats or their flasks. They won 41-17 in 2009, the afternoon Tim Tebow ran past Herschel Walker for the SEC career record for rushing touchdowns, which in a just world would have gotten the game renamed after him.
And they won 27-3 in 2015, the last time the Bulldogs showed up in costume, dressed as five turnovers.
Add it up: Florida 132, Georgia 51.
The last and only time Georgia beat Florida on Halloween was Oct. 31, 1931, 33-6 at Florida Field. That was so long ago the losing coach was probably paid in chickens.
You could've fooled me, because I always felt plenty of jitters in Jacksonville around the time of what we used to call the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party — before somebody came up with something so corporately convoluted that I will not dignify it by trying to remember it.
Around here it's still the Florida-Georgia game, and there isn't enough money in the state of Georgia to change that, no matter what moniker they hang on it.
Speaking of the state of Georgia.
This one isn't in Jacksonville. Stadium renovations have shipped the party to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, the first time the series has been played at that stadium. For Gator people, that's a little like holding the family reunion at your ex-wife's house.
It's also indoors. I don't know the rules on ghosts and retractable roofs. I just know we're asking a lot of the spooks to find the right exit off I-75.
Now the bad news
There is always bad news. This is Florida-Georgia. The bad news has been on a five-year contract.
Georgia has won five straight in the series, its longest run since 1978-83. The Gators haven't beaten the Dogs since 44-28 in 2020, back when we were all wearing masks and Kyle Trask was throwing it all over the yard.
Since then the scores read like a dentist's bill: 34-7, 42-20, 43-20, 34-20, 24-20.
Notice the pattern. Florida scores 20. Four years in a row. Like it's in the bylaws.
The bookies noticed, too — Florida's team total for Saturday is set at 20.5. The house is basically daring the Gators to score 21.
And the people in Las Vegas, who don't care about ghosts, tradition or how hard you can do the Chomp, have spoken. Georgia opened as a 10.5-point favorite. It's 11.5 most places and 12.5 at some books, and it's moving in only one direction, like a Bulldog toward a buffet line.
Oddsmakers don't make sentimental bets. Sentimental bets are how they pay for the boats.
Georgia is 6-1 and ranked No. 3, and it arrives primed, rested and ornery. The Dogs got upset at home by Auburn, then had two weeks to stew about it.
Kirby gave his team a lighter open week — real practices Tuesday and Thursday, scripted reps, everybody else go lie down — because, he said, some of his players "needed recovery more than they needed just to get better."
Translation: the Bulldogs went to the spa.
Georgia also leads the SEC in scoring defense, giving up 15.9 points a game. That is not a number that helps a quarterback sleep on Friday night.
Which brings us to the quarterbacks.
Florida, 5-2 and No. 17, is coming off the best afternoon of Jon Sumrall's young tenure: a 27-24 comeback from 17-3 down at No. 7 Texas, with Tramell Jones Jr. making his first career start. Lovely. Grand. Pass the cigars.
Now both of Florida's top two quarterbacks are listed as questionable.
So here's where I come down. Do I believe in ghosts? I'm a sportswriter. I believe in whatever gets me through the fourth quarter. The spooks are 4-0. The bookies say 12.5 and climbing.
Somebody's going home disappointed on Halloween, and history says it's usually the guy who bet with his heart.
I'll take the spooks and the points. I always say that right before I lose money.
Gator notes
— It still sounds a little fishy that both Aaron Philo and Tramell Jones Jr. are listed as "questionable." Philo, who started the first six games, missed Texas with a shoulder injury and is back practicing. Jones, in Sumrall's words, came out of Austin with "a couple fender benders." Sumrall says there won't be "some big formal announcement," which in coach-speak means he knows and you don't.
If neither can go, it's senior Aidan Warner — the former Yale quarterback who walked on, replaced an injured DJ Lagway in the 2024 Georgia game and started the next week at Texas — or true freshman Will Griffin, last year's Gatorade Florida Player of the Year out of Tampa Jesuit.
Also on the availability report: linebacker Jaden Robinson and receiver Bailey Stockton are doubtful, running back Duke Clark (foot) is questionable, and receiver Vernell Brown III, who has missed the last three games with a knee strain, is probable.
— Wow. Myles Graham has been rated the highest-graded tackler in college football this season by Pro Football Focus, at 90.5. Through seven games: 48 tackles, 3.5 sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. The forced fumble was the one that ended Arch Manning's comeback in Austin. He's Earnest Graham's kid. Some things run in the family.
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