It’s finally here.

Like a child waiting on Christmas, Georgia and Florida fans wait on the Cocktail Party, which is now so close you can almost taste the brisket. (Fat side up, of course.) And the cocktails, of course.

Georgia-Florida week is more than just a game; it’s a way of life for fans of the 2 schools, the type of weekend you plan much of an autumn around and a place to reunite with old friends, shake hands, sip a small batch bourbon, break bread, and, if you’re lucky, watch your team beat the heck out of its rival.

Georgia arrives in Jacksonville for this year’s edition — the 101st, at least according to the Bulldogs — ranked No. 1 in the country for the 2nd consecutive season. That’s the 1st time the same program has been No. 1 at the Cocktail Party 2 seasons in a row. In fact, as great as the tradition is at both these schools, Saturday will be only the 6th time a team is ranked No. 1 at gametime. Those teams are 4-1, with the lone loss coming when No. 17 Georgia upset the top-ranked Gators 24-3 in 1985. Georgia is also a historic favorite, with Vegas setting the spread at 22.5, the largest in the history of the rivalry.

The Gators arrive in Jacksonville for the 100th Cocktail Party — at least according to them — at 4-3 and unranked in Year 1 under Billy Napier. Florida has been competitive all season, but it suffered home losses to a ranked Kentucky team and a now-ranked LSU team and a close loss to No. 3 Tennessee in Knoxville. Little is expected from Florida on Saturday afternoon, but that’s common for a coach laying a Year 1 foundation. Kirby Smart lost his first Cocktail Party as a head coach, 24-10, but his team was competitive and had a chance in the 2nd half. The idea for Napier is the same. Napier will hope to have his team play well and have a chance to win in the 4th quarter. In the meantime, when the Gators look across the sideline at Georgia, they will get an up-close look at the type of program they hope to build in Gainesville.

Can Florida pull off the upset? Can the behemoth Smart has built in Athens be slowed? We’ll find out more on the banks of the St. John’s River at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on CBS.

Here are 3 matchups that will define the Cocktail Party, along with a prediction.

The Mismatch: Brock Bowers (and Darnell Washington) vs. Florida’s coverage of the tight end

Florida struggles to cover the tight end.

This isn’t breaking news. Instead, it’s a carryover from the Todd Grantham era, when in a nearly 4-year stretch the Gators gave up more yards per target to tight ends (8.3) than any school in the SEC. Napier and his staff are recruiting in a way that ought to address the problem, but for now, the Gators have to do it with the personnel they have, and that hasn’t gone well in 2022. Florida beat then-No. 7 Utah, but the Utes eviscerated the Gators with tight end passing concepts, completing 11 of 14 targets for 134 yards and 1 touchdown. Even when Utah’s All-Pac-12 tight ends Dalton Kincaid and Brant Kuithe weren’t the intended targets, Florida let them slip free and compounded the issue by failing to tackle.

The Gators were also miserable against the tight end in their loss to LSU. Kole Taylor’s 2 receptions for 33 yards doesn’t sound bad until you realize he was targeted just twice, and both his catches and runs came on long down and distance and resulted in 1st downs. When the Tigers needed or wanted to use the tight end, they could do so at will.

Enter Georgia.

With 2 of the Power 5’s top 20 rated tight ends (1 and 2 in the SEC) per PFF, Bowers and Washington have to be salivating at the thought of going full slobbery Dawg on the Gators defense. Todd Monken does a great job of moving Bowers — who SDS believes is the best tight end in the country — around, too. So on the off chance Florida can stay with him in traditional seam or middle-of-the-field concepts, Georiga can just move him around and get him the ball on a simple pass in space.

Bowers is even a threat in the running game, where he has carried the ball 3 times this year and scored — you probably guessed it — 3 touchdowns.

Bowers against Florida’s defense is the game’s biggest mismatch. And remember that even if Florida slows Bowers, Washington — who is basically an NBA forward playing college football — is Georgia’s 3rd-leading receiver with 16 receptions and is averaging 17.8 yards per catch. If you are a prop better, set the over/under on Georgia tight end touchdowns at 1.5 and know that if the over hits, it’s probably a comfortable Bulldogs win.

Evenly Matched: The Florida run game vs. Georgia’s front

The biggest impediment to a Florida upset, in the view of this writer at least, is that the Georgia defense is equipped to slow what the Gators do best: run the football downhill. Kentucky did that, and while Anthony Richardson played the 2nd-worst game of his career (see Georgia, 2021, for the worst) and all but handed the Wildcats 14 points in a 10-point Florida loss, it was the Gators’ inability to consistently run the football that haunted their attempts to extend the lead they built in the opening half. Florida ran for just 136 yards against Kentucky on 30 attempts, averaging a season-low 4.5 yards per carry and finishing with a season low in success rate (40 percent!!) on the ground as well.

Kentucky, like Georgia, has a splendid front 7. That neutralized the Florida power run game, which thrives on off-tackle concepts and — thanks to sensational pulling center and guard play — counter concepts to impose its well. The Gators also have tremendous running backs, with 3 different guys capable of hitting chunk plays if they get to the 2nd level, like Montrell Johnson Jr. does with 1 cut here.

Florida’s most successful concept this season, at least from a success rate standpoint, has been counter. The Gators succeed on a whopping 62 percent of these plays, part of the reason they have the No. 5 rushing offense in college football from a success rate standpoint.

As that play demonstrates, Florida can pull center Kingsley Eguakun as well as their talented guards, which is a wrinkle that, along with eye candy motion, makes a presnap read on a counter design tough on an opposing linebacker.

At their best, the Gators are very explosive in the run game. They lead the nation in yards per attempt (6.4), and they have hit 37 explosive run plays (10-plus yards) this season. This is as formidable a run game as Georgia has faced and, as a Bulldogs defensive assistant told me last week, “by far the best offensive line we’ve played as long as the (O’Cyrus) Torrence kid is healthy.” Torrence is healthy, which means Georgia knows what is coming.

The good or bad news, depending on your allegiance, is that the Dawgs are equipped to slow Florida’s run game. Georgia has the nation’s top-rated Power 5 linebacker in Jamon Dumas-Johnson and a free safety who the same Georgia assistant told me “reads the offense better than anyone I’ve ever coached” in Christopher Smith. And the Bulldogs rank 3rd in the SEC in tackling percentage this year (after Kentucky and Missouri), per Stats Solutions, meaning they don’t miss tackles often. Georgia is also exceptional on the interior of the defensive line, even without Jordan Davis. It gives up a stingy 37 percent success rate on between-the-tackle run plays, and that’s a big reason why the Dawgs have the SEC’s best rushing defense statistically.

This is a classic “strength on strength” matchup. And while Florida will win some battles, the path to an upset would be much clearer if this was a distinct disadvantage to Georgia. It is not.

The Mystery: Richardson vs. Smart, Round 2

Round 1 went to Kirby (and Dan Lanning) in decisive, Ali-Liston-type fashion. 

Round 2? That’s what it’s all about in the Cocktail Party, which is full of stories of quarterbacks that redeem themselves, from David Greene to Tim Tebow to Matthew Stafford to Aaron Murray to Kyle Trask to the Mailman, Stetson Bennett IV himself. Of course, sometimes quarterbacks in this game fail, too. Steve Spurrier won a Heisman but never beat Georgia, at least as a player. He never forgot that, either. Eric Zeier was an All-SEC quarterback, but a Florida win eluded him. One of the nicest human beings you’ll ever meet, Zeier still snarls if you mention the Gators. Richardson, seen as a 1st-round NFL talent, will likely return next season, but there’s still a world where this is his last chance to beat Georgia.

A season ago, Richardson led Florida into Georgia territory 3 times in the 1st half but was 0-for-5 passing in Bulldogs territory, and the Gators couldn’t score. Then, Smart and Lanning fired up exotic pressures, Richardson fumbled once and threw 2 interceptions — including this mystifying pass to Nakobe Dean — and a tight 3-0 game swelled to 24-0.

Richardson has been up and down in his 1st year as a starter. There have been excruciating lows, like the aforementioned Kentucky game or the USF game that followed, where Richardson was so erratic Florida needed the Bulls to miss a late field goal to escape without overtime.

But there have been flashes of brilliance as well. The Utah game saw Richardson dazzle the world with a highlight-reel 2-point conversion while also accounting for 3 touchdowns and 274 total yards in a big Florida win. And then there’s Richardson’s finest hour — dueling Hendon Hooker in the Tennessee autumn sun for 4 hours and, while coming up short, generating more than 500 yards of offense and 4 touchdowns, with his lone interception coming on a desperation heave late.

There also isn’t any football field where Richardson isn’t one of the best athletes …

And there’s no football field where he can’t make every throw he is required to make. In fact, he is the SEC’s most accurate passer this season on throws of 20 yards or more, per SEC Stat Cat — a bit of a statistical rebuttal to the idea that he “can’t pass.”

Richardson’s 92.8 QB rating off play-action, the best such rating in the Power 5, is why Florida needs the run game to work Saturday. When the Gators run the ball effectively, Richardson is really, really good. When they don’t — see Kentucky — he isn’t. He’s just at that natural stage of his development where he needs everyone around him to do his job. He hasn’t yet won a game himself, but he is capable, eventually, of doing so. Which Richardson shows up is the wild card for Saturday’s game.

Georgia knows what it will get from Bennett, the field general and yes, playmaker who simply doesn’t make the types of mistakes that lose games. In Bennett’s past 3 games against ranked opponents, for example, he has thrown for 8 touchdowns against 0 interceptions. It’s almost comical how clinical he is without ever truly being considered a weapon. Bennett will play well on Saturday. Will Richardson?

Prediction: Georgia 37, Florida 20

The Gators will hang around for a half, we think, thanks to some explosives in the run game and a crafty play or 2 from Richardson. But Georgia is too good, and the Bulldogs will adjust defensively in the 2nd half and make life tough on the Gators while continuing to exploit a Florida defense that just isn’t good enough to win this type of game. Napier has work to do in Gainesville, but the long-term prognosis under Napier is very good, as Smart himself said this week. Most of what happens Saturday will be about how good Georgia is. And while the Dawgs won’t cover, they’ll leave Jacksonville with another win over the hated Gators and a perfect record as they ready for “Game of the Year” hype and a visit from Tennessee.