Some Things Are Best Not Forgotten. Like That October Day In 2007

By FRANZ BEARD

Some things are best not forgotten. Not now. Not ever.

Flash back to October 27, 2007. The Georgia Bulldogs scored on their first possession of the game against 9th-ranked Florida, a 1-yard run by Knowshon Moreno with 6:00 remaining in the first quarter. The Georgia half of the stadium erupts, particularly when Georgia’s entire team rushes the field. Mark Richt and the Georgia coaching staff stand by idly. No one makes even a token attempt to make it seem as if this is a spontaneous and not well plotted celebration. Coaches are seen through binoculars giggling.

As the Bulldogs rushed the field, numerous players could be seen taunting the Gators who watched incredulously. Fortunately, there was no retaliation, otherwise a full-scale brawl could have erupted. Georgia was flagged for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Georgia went on to win the game, 42-30, and afterward Richt feigned shock. He offered up a flimsy excuse that he had simply told his players during the week that whenever Georgia scored its first touchdown a celebration penalty was called for.

“I told them that if they didn’t get a celebration penalty after our first score all of them would be doing early morning runs,” Richt said.

Celebration could have been spiking the football or 11 Bulldogs doing a touchdown dance. The entire football team rushing the field? That was as choreographed as “One,” the finale to the Broadway production "A Chorus Line."

Perhaps some Georgia fans bought Richt's explanation of spontaneity, but few others did. In the weeks and months afterward, Georgia fans tried to write off how this could have ignited a brawl as nothing more than a conspiration theory that ranked right up there with a second shooter on the grassy knoll in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Urban Meyer never bought Richt’s explanation, not in his post game remarks or the next morning when Richt called offering an apology of sorts. His face was always taut after a loss, but this went beyond anything he had shown before. He was seething. He let it be known that he would examine the situation closely so that if and when it became necessary for payback, the action would be timely and appropriate.

Almost from the moment that Florida’s 2007 season ended with a loss to Michigan in the Citrus Bowl, Meyer’s plan to exact a measure of revenge began unfurling. On the televisions in the weight room and in the locker room, video of the Bulldogs storming the field played several times every hour. Not a day without some reminder of Georgia storming the field.

During the months between January 1 and SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, Urban was asked dozens of times either by the media or at speaking engagements throughout the state if there was a plan for some sort of retaliation. The grin and his stock answer basically said, “Georgia won’t know the time nor the place, but at some point in the future there will be hell to pay.”

On July 24, 2008 at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, Richt took the podium fully aware that he was about to be peppered with questions about the Bulldogs rushing the field back in October. The first question could have been the opening pitch of a slow-pitch softball tournament. It was a setup designed to evoke an answer that was as choreographed as the Bulldogs rushing the field.

Richt answered, “We score the touchdown, then bang, guys start leaving the sideline. I was in shock as much as anybody else. My initial reaction is, ‘Oh heck, you know … what’s going on?”

Oh heck? Your team rushes the field and you nor any of your coaches even fakes it like you’re trying to prevent them from doing something drastic? Numerous players are practically in the face of your fierce and hated rival, taunting and the best you can offer is “Oh heck”?

Compounding matters, Richt was asked if he was remotely aware that a brawl the likes of which we’ve never seen at a Florida-Georgia game could have erupted, one that could have turned very ugly?

His response, “Now I didn’t even think it could have turned into a melee.”

Didn’t think? He knew then and he knows now what could have happened and perhaps would have happened if one Florida player had decided to go after a taunting Georgia player. If it had turned into a brawl, Richt and multiple players could have been tossed from the game.

It didn’t happen because it was all a rehearsed show. Richt said he was desperate to get his team to show some emotions. The one who was desperate was Richt. Georgia fans were on his case for a 9-4 season in 2006 while Meyer and Florida went 13-1, winning the SEC and national championship. Georgia came into the game with two losses, one a 16-12 decision at the hands of old nemesis Steve Spurrier, this time at South Carolina; the other a 35-14 pasting at the hands of the same Tennessee team the Gators had beaten in Knoxville.

Richt needed something outrageous to get the fan base on his side again, so he had his players put on a big show by rushing the field.

Richt has never admitted that rushing the field was planned but earlier in the week at DawgPost, two of his players had the guts to do what Richt has never done himself.

“The week of the Florida game coach Richt brought all the seniors together on Thursday and told us that he wanted to spice things up,” linebacker Marcus Howard said. “He told us that if we scored first that he wanted the entire team to run onto the field. We didn’t think he was serious at first, but he said he wanted to change the momentum of this ballgame and how this series has been going.”

Linebacker Marcus Washington added, “The seniors got together and we decided then that was going to be the plan. Coach Richt wanted us to get so excited out there that the refs had to throw a penalty. The seniors tried to tell the rest of the team what to do, and they weren’t buying it at first until we made it clear it was happening.”

Georgia went on to finish the season 11-2. In Georgia lore, storming the field provided the momentum for the seven-game winning streak that earned the Bulldogs a trip to the Sugar Bowl and a final No. 2 ranking in the Associated Press poll. That season was one of those famous “near national championships” Georgia fans were quick to point out before they won their first one in 41 years back in January.

With Matthew Stafford and Moreno coming back, Georgia fans thought 2008 would be the year they broke through with their first national title since Herschel’s freshman year in 1980.

There was that teensy matter of the Florida Gators and Urban Meyer standing in the way. By the time November 1 rolled around, Georgia was 7-1, the only loss 41-30 at the hands of Alabama in Athens. The Bulldogs were ranked 5th nationally. Florida was also 7-1, its loss to unranked Ole Miss, 31-30, in Gainesville. The Gators were ranked 8th.

The week leading into the game, Meyer was asked nearly every day what he had planned for Georgia. The video of Georgia rushing the field had been playing over and over again on the TV sets in the locker room and weight room. There were rumors that a Georgia G was in every urinal.

Meyer wasn’t about to let anyone in on his plan but he had something cooking.

On the second play of the game, Moreno took a handoff from Stafford and before he could take a second step he met Mr. Spikes. Brandon Spikes hit Moreno hard and clean, driving him backward and into the turf. The impact almost took the breath out of the Georgia faithful. Florida fans erupted.

Florida scored its first touchdown with 20 seconds remaining in the first quarter, a 13-yard run by Percy Harvin that capped a 9-play, 80-yard drive. The Gators didn’t rush the field.

The Gators took a 14-3 lead with 3:52 left in the first half on a 2-yard run by Tim Tebow. Again, nothing from the Florida sideline.

In the third quarter, Florida scored 21 unanswered points to stretch the lead to 35-3. Surely, Meyer was going to do something. Nothing. Nothing at all.

It was 49-3 when Georgia finally scored a touchdown with 3:09 left in the game. By then most of the Georgia fans had already departed the stadium to head back home with plans only to stop at Stuckey’s for gourmet corn dogs and curly fries to help commiserate the humiliating defeat.

Florida fans stuck around but most had resigned themselves to no retaliation from Meyer, but then came the time out. With 44 seconds left after a 14-yard run by Emmanuel Moody, Meyer called time out.

Over on the other sideline, Richt was caught by the CBS cameras looking up at the scoreboard. It read 49-10. Forty-four seconds to go.

Another Moody run. This one for 17 yards. Thirty seconds left. Meyer called time out again. Again, Richt was caught on camera staring at the scoreboard. It still read 49-10. This was Meyer’s form of payback. He was torturing Richt and letting him know that no bad deed goes unpunished.

Florida went on to win the national championship in 2008. Two years later, Meyer retired. In his six seasons at Florida he went 65-15 with two national and two SEC championships. He would stay retired for a year before taking the Ohio State job. He won the 2014 national title at Ohio State and compiled an 83-9 record before retiring again in 2018.

Richt coached at Georgia until 2015 when he was fired. He was 145-51 in his Georgia career with two SEC championships. He won at least 10 games nine times in 15 seasons but that wasn’t good enough.

Much has changed in the years since Meyer and Richt were the coaches but the rivalry remains the same and always will. This is a bitter rivalry with so much history and so many moments, both the magical kind and the type that make us grind our teeth.

Maybe we despise Georgia and of course, they despise Gators. It’s stories like what happened in 2007 and 2008 that make the rivalry what it is and why Florida-Georgia weekend was, is and always will be something special.