Good Day, UGA: The ‘Florida gambled! Florida gambled!’ edition

Jacob Eason will be looking to buck the trend of Georgia QBs losing their first start against Florida.

Brant Sanderlin/AJC

Posted 4 years ago

Good day, UGA. Welcome to your one-stop shop for all the relevant UGA football news and takes every Monday through Friday. Today, we look at the woes of UGA QBs in their first starts against Florida and relive “Fourth-and-dumb.”

The folks at the Paul Finebaum Show dug up this interesting tidbit about Georgia quarterbacks in their first starts against Florida:

Jacob Eason will try to do something this weekend that a Georgia QB hasn't done since 1989 #UFvsUGA pic.twitter.com/fqDCNI8HPr

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) October 25, 2016

This isn’t surprising, considering Florida’s dominance of the Dawgs in the ’90s. But since there was some talk about Eason righting this ship for UGA QBs in their first Florida start, I went back and looked at their stats in those games to see if it all these losses were because of the QB or in spite of him. Unsurprisingly, it’s a mixed bag. But more often than not, Georgia’s demise in these games doesn’t lay at the feet of the QB. At least not entirely.

(Note: I couldn’t find stats for Eric Zeier or Mike Bobo, and D.J. Shockley never started against the Gators.)

Hines Ward, 1995 — 20 of 33, 226 yards, 1 TD

Ward famously moved to QB for a few games during the 1995 season. Unfortunately, one of those games was the “Half-Hundred in Athens.” With the way the defense played that day, there wasn’t much Ward could have done to prevent the 53-17 outcome.

Quincy Carter, 1998 — 33 of 49, 368 yards, 2 INTs

Carter put up some big numbers in this game, but that was mostly in garbage time. Florida scored three touchdowns in the first quarter to get out to a 21-0 lead and never looked back.

David Greene, 2001 — 25 of 42, 258 yards, 1 INT

Greene was solid in his freshman effort in Jacksonville, and made quite the connection with Fred Gibson, who hauled in 7 catches for 131 yards. But Earnest Graham’s 131 yards on the ground kept Florida in control on its way to a 24-10 win.

Joe Tereshinski, 2005 — 8 of 21, 100 yards, 1 INT

Poor ol’ Joe T. can hardly be blamed for the 14-10 loss in 2005. It was the first start of his college career, filling in for the injured Shockley. He barely hit the 100-yard mark, but he did catch a touchdown on a pass from tailback Thomas Brown.

Matt Stafford, 2006 — 13 of 33, 160 yards, 2 INTS

Stafford is the most analogous QB to Eason. Both were superstar prospects from out of state with cannons for arms and expected to start, and win, in their freshman seasons. If Eason’s first Florida outing is anything like Stafford’s, Georgia is in for a long afternoon Saturday. The Gators won 21-14 on their way to the national championship.

Joe Cox, 2009 — 11 of 20, 165 yards, 2 TDs, 3 INTs

Here’s another in this late-aughts string of bad performances from games you want to forget. Tim Tebow was the height of his power and Tebow-ness, and the Gators won 41-17 on the way to another national championship.

Aaron Murray, 2010 — 18 of 37, 313 yards, 3 TDs, 3 INTs

Murray’s first start against the Gators was a mixed bag, as the Dawgs lost in a 34-31 thriller. If he had finished the game with 3 TDs and 2 INTs, we probably wouldn’t even be making this list. Will Hill’s interception of Murray in overtime negated UGA’s chance to score and allowed Florida to kick a field goal to win.

Huston Mason, 2014 — 26 of 41, 319 yards, 1 TD

Sometimes I forget how effective Mason was in his one season as Georgia’s starter. And he looked dang good in this game. Unfortunately, this also was the one game Will Muschamp’s offense actually worked, and the Gators ran for more than 400 yards to win 38-20.

Faton Bauta, 2015 — 15 of 33, 154 yards, 2 TDs

I’m still convinced the only reason Mark Richt played Bauta was to shut up complaining fans — including this one — who wanted Bauta to start over Greyson Lambert and Brice Ramsey.

ICYMI

Florida series even more important to Kirby Smart now (Chip Towers, Dawg Nation)
Practice update: Bulldogs deep into scout work on Florida (Chip Towers, Dawg Nation)
DC Tucker and QB Del Rio head back to Jacksonville for their first UGA-Florida game (Marc Weiszer, Athens Banner-Herald)
Georgia’s rushing attack in for a challenge against Florida (Jordan D. Hill, Macon Telegraph)
Blankenship’s improvement coming at a good time for Bulldogs (Jason Butt, Macon Telegraph)
Faster is better for the suddenly excellent Matt Stafford (Dom Consentino, Deadspin)

Great moments in Gator-hatin’: ‘Fourth-and-dumb’

Florida was still without its first SEC title in 1976, but a win over Georgia would secure it. At halftime of the ’76 game, it looked it would finally happen. The Gators led 27-13 and held all the momentum heading into the second half.

But Georgia scored to make in 27-20 early in the second half, seizing that momentum back. The Gators could see their first SEC title possibly slipping away, so, in a bid to keep Georgia from gaining steam, Florida coach Doug Dickey elected to go for it on fourth-and-1 from his own 29 in the fourth quarter. Take it away, Larry:

Georgia scored on the short field to tie the game and never looked back. The Bulldogs won, 41-27.

“We were not outplayed,” Dickey said after the loss. “We were outcoached. I made some dumb calls.”

And thus, fourth-and-dumb was born.

Earliest SEC sellout in UGA basketball history

Georgia basketball looks primed for a big season, and fans are already buying in. But if you didn’t act early to get tickets to the biggest home game of the season, you’re out of luck. The Feb. 18 home game against Kentucky has sold out, the earliest sellout for a Georgia SEC home game.

#UGA basketball has already sold out of its Feb. 18 home game vs. Kentucky. Earliest sellout ever for an SEC game. That's a Saturday.

— AJC UGA (@ChipTowersAJC) October 25, 2016

Richard LeSuplex III

There’s video making the rounds of 5-star UGA commit Richard LeCounte III doing some unconventional tackling in his game last weekend. And by unconventional tackling I mean straight up suplexing fools on the gridiron. The only video I’ve found of it isn’t embeddable (you can see it here), but this GIF should give you a good idea of what the blue chip safety will bring to Athens next season.