After more Cocktail Party heartbreak for Florida, Kirby Smart’s evil empire is now the next guy’s problem
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JACKSONVILLE — For the second consecutive season, the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party was decided in the game’s final 10 minutes.
Once again, it was Georgia that dominated in closing time.
A season ago, Florida headed to the fourth quarter down a touchdown, but very much in position to finally fell the hated Bulldogs and perhaps shift the narrative on Billy Napier’s tenure for good. The Gators tied the game in the fourth quarter, but surrendered 2 touchdowns late, losing 34-20.
A year later, on a sun-splashed chamber of commerce November Saturday in Jacksonville, Napier was gone, but the Gators once again headed to the fourth quarter with the Cocktail Party hanging in the balance.
This season, it was tied. This time, Florida wasn’t pinning its hopes on a third-string quarterback who just transferred from Yale.
Instead, Florida entered the final quarter with DJ Lagway, its preseason Heisman candidate, at quarterback, and a defense that had shown flashes of dominance, not simply resilience, throughout the game.
For half of the final quarter, that looked like it would be enough.
Lagway connected with Tre Wilson just before the end of the third quarter to put the Gators in field goal range and after Trey Smack drilled a 54-yard field goal with room to spare, Florida had its first lead in the fourth quarter of a Cocktail Party since 2020, Dan Mullen’s lone win in the series.
Ron Roberts’ defense, which generated double-digit pressures and a turnover against one of the nation’s most efficient offenses on Saturday, forced a second consecutive 3-and-out, giving Lagway the football with a chance to build on their lead.
Lagway led the Gators on a 48-yard march down to the Georgia 18-yard line, eating over 5 minutes of clock in the process.
But with Florida needing just 2 yards on 3rd down, Georgia made the plays it has consistently made to seize control of this rivalry under Kirby Smart.
After a Lagway run came up a yard short on third and 2, interim head coach Billy Gonzales elected to go for it, riding his best player, Jadan Baugh, to get 3 feet.
It wasn’t meant to be.
Baugh was stuffed by Georgia’s Raylen Wilson and Elijah Griffin well short of the line, giving the Bulldogs the football and finally, a needed jolt of momentum.
The decision to go for it — and give the ball to Baugh, made sense.
The play call, an inside run into the belly of an 8-man front, made little.
Florida had generated a nice push off tackle Austin Barber’s side much of the afternoon. Why not run outside? Why not audible to a quick throw, given Georgia had 8 in the box and a safety creeping that direction?
Florida fans will have another year to think of what might have been.
After Georgia made the stop, the outcome, at least if you’ve watched Florida play Georgia over the bulk of the last decade, felt like fait accompli.
Gunner Stockton helped Georgia convert on 3rd-and-8 with a dart to Zachariah Branch, and just 4 plays later, Georgia freshman Chauncey Bowens, a former Florida commitment, made a stupendous cut in traffic and galloped 36 yards to the house to score what proved to be the winning touchdown.
Lagway had one more chance, of course, and once again, Florida nearly had the football game in their reptilian grasp.
On third and 4, with Lagway flushed to his left, J. Michael Sturdivant broke free behind the Georgia defense.
A good throw would have been a Florida touchdown.
Unfortunately for the Gators, Lagway underthrew the ball, forcing Sturdivant to stop and lunge towards the football. Sturdivant appeared to make a spectacular catch, but referee James Carter’s crew called the pass incomplete on the field. Multiple video replays appeared to clearly demonstrate Sturdivant got his hands under the ball and made the catch, but Carter was unconvinced on review. The call on the field was upheld. Lagway nearly threw a pick-6 a play later, and Georgia took over on downs.
For SEC conspiracy theorists, Georgia winning yet another rivalry game shrouded in referee controversy will clearly be related to its status as a College Football Playoff contender. First there was touchdown and timeout-gate against Auburn. Now the Dawgs beat the Gators on a catch that wasn’t ruled a catch. Throw in an overturned Gunner Stockton fumble late in the first half (the right call, in my view, but that’s a debate I don’t want to have on social media) that helped Georgia grab a tying field goal, and there’s plenty for the “it has to be rigged” crowd to talk about on Bill King, Paul Finebaum, and Chuck Oliver this week.
Alternatively, you could just give a little credit to Georgia, who keeps finding ways to win, no matter how ugly or unlikely it seems for long swaths of SEC Saturdays this season.
“They did a good job on defense,” Gonzales said of Georgia after the game. “They threw some different pressures (at Lagway). They mixed coverages. Played some 2 high, played some 1 high, showed some different zone under looks with man behind it. They did a good job.”
They did. Kirby Smart’s teams almost always do.
But for the Gators, it was the latest in a rivalry of “almost” and frustration.
Florida needed to win 1 of essentially 4 critical plays and the game may have ended differently.
Georgia won all of those plays.
The Bulldogs so often do under Smart, whose vise grip on the Cocktail Party makes his annual lamentations about why the game shouldn’t be played in Jacksonville feel sillier with each passing autumn.
Why move a game you constantly win? Why end the Cocktail Party, one of the few precious things in the ever-changing world of college football that still feels authentic and sacred?
The game will be moved, by necessity, in 2026 (Atlanta) and 2027 (Tampa), before returning to its rightful home in Jacksonville in 2028.
Where they play probably won’t matter much, as long as Kirby’s coaching in this game.
At least that’s how it must feel to Florida fans who trudged out into the crisp north Florida night wondering when they’ll leave a Cocktail Party without a Sunday hangover and a season-long broken heart again.
If Steve Spurrier was the “Evil Genius” to Georgia fans, Kirby Smart’s Georgia has become the Evil Empire to Florida.
Resistance seems futile.
The mean machine in red and black marches on.
With Napier gone and Gonzales only an interim, Kirby’s imperial death star, and Florida’s white whale, is now the next guy’s problem, whoever the next guy is.
Scott Stricklin has to find someone who can fight back. Florida’s football fortunes won’t change until he does.
Neil Blackmon covers SEC football and basketball for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
