Todd Gurley reflects on Georgia-Florida rivalry memories
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Todd Gurley played in two Georgia-Florida games, carrying the Bulldogs to victory in 2012 and ’13, notching 100-plus yards on the ground in each outing. So it’s not surprising that he was happy to talk about his Cocktail Party memories on “The Paul Finebaum Show” Friday via a phone interview.
“Every time we used to just drive over that bridge and you’d see all the tailgates, I would literally just get chills every time just looking at the crowd going into Jacksonville’s stadium,” Gurley said. “It’s like no other. It’s different. It’s literally split 50-50 orange with the Gators fans and then you have the Dawgs fans. It’s like a once in a lifetime opportunity. I wish I was able to play at The Swamp.”
Florida last hosted Georgia in The Swamp in 1994 when Jacksonville was renovating the “Gator Bowl” stadium for the Jacksonville Jaguars. There has been a lot of talk about moving away from playing the game in Jacksonville and working in more home campus meetings, but Finebaum did not ask Gurley to further weigh in. While the rivalry can be as bitter as it gets between fans and players, Gurley revealed that in the NFL he’s become close to Los Angeles Rams teammate Dante Fowler Jr., a former Gator.
“We always talk about (the rivalry) now. We used to hate each other in college — for no reason at all. We didn’t even know each other. Now, we’re the best of friends, but that’s just that college rivalry — that Georgia-Florida — and you literally just hate each other for no reason, but that’s the college feeling.”
Fowler was in the college for the same three seasons (2012-14) as Gurley.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
