It’s Cocktail Party week, and on the Florida side, the Florida-Georgia rivalry has long been defined by quarterback play.

Steve Spurrier won the Heisman Trophy in 1966, but his Gators lost their shot at the school’s first SEC Championship when they fell flat on their face in Jacksonville, losing 27-10. Spurrier threw three interceptions, and he never got over — or forgot– that Georgia cost him that championship.

In 1984, Kerwin Bell helped seal Florida’s first SEC title (later stripped) by hitting Ricky Nattiel in stride for a 96-yard touchdown, sending the Gators to a 27-0 win. Bell’s performance helped him seal SEC Player of the Year honors, but it was the 3rd-and-8 throw to Nattiel from the shadow of his own goalposts folks remember. The Keith Jackson call of that play isn’t as famous as “Run, Lindsay Run,” which helped Georgia survive in 1980, but it lives on in Gator lore nonetheless.

In 1990, Steve Spurrier was coaching at his alma mater for the first time and he knew that turning the tide against Georgia was the key to Florida’s championship ambition as a program.

“If you win a bunch of games but lose to Georgia, there’s a good chance all those other games won’t be enough to win you a trophy. When we got to Gainesville as coaches, we made it clear that the road to winning the SEC went through Jacksonville,” Spurrier told me last summer.

Shane Matthews got the message. Matthews, who like Bell would become the SEC Player of the Year, threw for over 300 yards in a 38-7 Florida victory. The win marked the turning of the tide in a rivalry long-dominated by Georgia and Spurrier lost only once to Georgia in 12 years in Gainesville, a run of dominance so thorough he was dubbed “The Evil Genius” by longtime Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist Mark Bradley. The nickname stuck.

So did Spurrier’s disdain for Georgia.

In 1995, Florida traveled to Athens to play Between the Hedges while Jacksonville’s stadium was being reconstructed for the soon-to-debut Jaguars. Danny Wuerffel threw for 5 touchdowns, staking the Gators to a comfortable lead in the fourth quarter, but Spurrier kept throwing anyway.

His backup quarterback, Eric Kresser (who would go on to win a FCS national championship at Marshall), threw two late touchdowns to give Florida a 52-17 victory.

When asked why he threw down the field up 28 with 1:21 remaining, Spurrier deadpanned: “We heard no one had ever hung half-a-hundred on Georgia in Athens before. We wanted to do that.” Georgia fans would and will never forget, and they’d probably boo Spurrier if he were named Pope.

The stories of great Gator signal callers having defining Florida-Georgia moments goes on.

All-American Rex Grossman broke Georgia’s heart — and spoiled Mark Richt’s best chance at a national championship — by throwing for over 300 yards in a 20-13 upset of Georgia in 2002. Grossman led an 89 yard fourth quarter drive to win the game, all while playing on a sprained knee.

Chris Leak found a way to beat Georgia three times, including a 14-10 win over in 2005, when the Dawgs were ranked No. 4. Leak was hot early and staked the Gators to a two-score lead they never relinquished.

Tim Tebow lost to Georgia in his Heisman campaign in 2007, the famed “Georgia stomp” game where after Georgia scored on its opening drive, the entire Bulldogs team stormed the field and danced in Florida’s end zone. Tebow remembered, terrorizing Georgia his final two seasons, winning by a combined score of 90-27.

Perhaps the best revenge? Tebow broke Herschel Walker’s SEC rushing touchdown record in 2009, barreling through Georgia’s line on this 23-yard touchdown run.

In classic Tebow fashion, the Heisman winner deflected the meaning of his accomplishment after the win, praising Walker: “Obviously the record is special, but to be even mentioned with Herschel Walker, one of the greatest college players ever, is humbling and special,” Tebow said after Florida’s win. Like Walker, Tebow knows plenty about being one of the greatest college players ever, and Florida-Georgia was a key stage.

What do all these stories tell us?

At Florida, this old rivalry is a quarterback’s game, and when Florida is right at the position, they’ve always had a chance.

So, as Florida begins game week preparations for its SEC East defining tilt against rival Georgia Saturday in Jacksonville, all eyes will once again be on the Florida quarterback.

The fact it will be Kyle Trask under center, as opposed to preseason starter Feleipe Franks, is what is both surprising and intriguing.

It’s impossible to know where Florida would be with Franks at this moment. It’s very possible the Gators would be exactly where they are today — a 7-1 team ranked in the top 10, in control of their own SEC and College Football Playoff destiny.

After all, Franks was by no means bad in his three starts this season. Before dislocating his ankle against Kentucky, Franks completed 76% of his passes, tossed 5 TDs, threw for nearly 700 yards and was on pace to have his best season in yards per attempt (9.3) and QB rating (173). Yes, there were still flashes of inconsistency. But the numbers pointed to a junior who was ready to take another leap forward.

An easier question to answer for Gators fans is “Where would they be without Kyle Trask?”

The answer, with all due respect to the very talented Emory Jones, under whom Florida’s future seems secure, is lost.

Trask has been, without question, one of the surprising success stories of not just Florida’s 2019 season, but in all of college football.

The numbers speak for themselves.

Since rallying Florida from a double-digit fourth quarter deficit to defeat Kentucky in relief of Franks, Trask has thrown for 1,391 yards, eclipsing 275 in three games. Franks had only done that twice in his career. Trask has averaged 8.2 yards per completion while playing some of college football’s toughest defenses (LSU, Auburn) and has thrown 14 touchdown passes against only 4 interceptions (2 of which came in his first start, against Tennessee).

Entering Saturday’s games, Trask had also been the SEC’s most accurate passer in the red zone — taking what had been an early season weakness for the Gators and turning it into a strength.

Trask has also stepped into the leadership vacuum after Franks’ injury. It’s no secret Franks was beloved and respected in the Florida locker room. But if there were any doubt as to whether the Gators would rally behind Trask, it was resolved when he limped back onto the field after spraining his MCL against Auburn and played the rest of the game — and won with a significant injury.

His moxie and resolve have impressed Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, who told the media last week that “(Trask) has done a tremendous job of coming and playing well without the Gators skipping a beat. (Mullen) always does a great job with quarterbacks and Kyle has played well without limiting anything Florida wants to do.”

Florida’s ability to continue to run its offense — and in some ways expand it due to Trask’s accuracy advantage over Franks on middle of the field throws (61%-54.3%, per Stats Solutions) — has been central to Trask’s and Florida’s success without Franks. It has allowed the Gators to continue to lean on an elite group of tight ends and receivers that Smart calls “one of the best groups in the country.”

Trask has passed a tough test against an elite Auburn defense and stood toe-to-toe with Heisman frontrunner Joe Burrow in Death Valley at night in the last month. But make no mistake, the pressure and scale of what’s at stake in Jacksonville, plus a salty Georgia defense, make this Trask’s toughest test yet.

Feleipe Franks wilted at last season’s Cocktail Party, committing three costly turnovers that altered the course of the game. He spent a spring and summer fixated on that failure. Will Trask’s fate be different?

If Florida is to win the Cocktail Party on Saturday, they’ll need the well-known unlikely story of Kyle Trask — high school backup quarterback turned sudden starter of a top-10 team facing the teeth of its SEC schedule — to play well.

In other words, there’s room for the Kyle Trask hype to grow into lore and legend Saturday in Jacksonville. Isn’t growing lore and legend what rivalry games like the Cocktail Party are all about?