Cocktail Party is now Kirby's Party, much like it was Steve Spurrier's before him
It’s Cocktail Party week.
For many Florida and Georgia fans, it’s a week that sets seasons.
The border war on the banks of the St. John’s River is stitched into every red and black and orange and blue color of life for these fan bases, with memories as thick as the salty Jacksonville air.
Knowshon Moreno … meet Brandon Spikes.
A dance party in the end zone.
Rex Grossman breaks Georgia’s heart.
The biggest games are known by a simple phrase, and the most devoted Georgia or Florida fan remember them fondly or fearfully, depending on allegiance.
There aren’t many rivalries in any sport, let alone college football, where a single phrase beckons to a specific moment, frozen and immortalized in time.
There aren’t many rivalries with their own Hall of Fame, either, but the Cocktail Party has a Hall of Fame honoring the game’s greatest participants.
The best coaches in this game are revered and reviled forever, immortalized with nicknames that tend to feature a pejorative or expletive, depending on the bestower.
“That Damn Dooley,” as the Miami Herald dubbed Georgia coach Vince Dooley after his Georgia team manhandled then No. 1 Florida 24-3 in 1985, ending Florida’s brief, maiden trip to the top of the AP Poll.
“The Evil Genius,” as Mark Bradley dubbed Steve Spurrier, who terrorized Georgia for 11 wins in 12 tries at the helm at his alma mater.
And then there’s Kirby Smart, or (EARMUFFS!) Kirby, as Florida fans on a choose your expletive adventure have come to refer to Georgia’s coach during his 8-plus seasons in charge at Georgia.
Smart is 6-2 against the slimy Swamp Lizards, but it might as well be 30-2 the way he seems to relish in slicing the scales off the overmatched reptilians.
Sure, Kirby might not go as far as the Evil Genius and actually admit out loud that the Cocktail Party means more to him than any other non-championship game, but his actions say that loudly enough.
Take 2021, when No. 1 Georgia walloped the Gators 34-7.
The win was a slice of humble pie for Dan Mullen’s Florida program that had bested Smart behind a brilliant Kyle Trask just one year prior.
For Smart, it was a chance to flex.
First, Smart lost his temper on his staff after Florida scored a late touchdown, spoiling Georgia’s chances at shutting out the Gators, who carry the nation’s longest consecutive game streak without being shutout into Saturday’s game at EverBank Stadium — 455 and perhaps counting.
Then Smart went into the postgame press conference and addressed the reason his program was ascending college football’s summit as Mullen coached his final games at Florida.
“You recruit in this sport or you die. You better be recruiting all the time. It’s 25% evaluation, 50% recruiting, and another 25% is going to be coaching, but if you don’t recruit, you’ve got no chance,” Smart said, before setting his sights directly on Mullen, a masterful play-caller and game-planner whose hubris never allowed him to realize he couldn’t simply out-scheme everyone he played.
“There is not a coach in the world who can out-scheme talent all the time. If you believe you can out-scheme talent every Saturday, you won’t win.”
Smart didn’t bury the hatchet from that 2020 loss after 2021, either.
Just last season, after his Georgia team humbled the Gators 43-20 in a game not remotely as close as that lopsided score, Smart teed off on Mullen again.
“I don’t see it or hear it, but I know it’s out there,” Smart said when asked about a prediction by Dan Mullen that the Gators would upset Georgia. “Somebody texted me before the game, all these people predicting we’re not going to win today. Golly, where’s that coming from? Supposed to be my friend. He didn’t like to recruit, though.”
Those comments are just a snapshot of how deeply personal the Cocktail Party is to Smart.
An All-SEC safety at Georgia, Smart was 1-3 against the Gators as a player. One loss, in 1995, was played in Athens and that 52-17 Florida win was the most lopsided defeat for Georgia in Sanford Stadium history. Another loss, a 31-point debacle in a cold Jacksonville rain in 1998, cost Smart a 10-win season as a senior.
“(Smart’s) message for that game was it means so much to everyone at Georgia. But we knew it meant so much to him. He never forgot the way they used to get crushed in that game. It’s personal when you lose,” Georgia’s unanimous All-American, Butkus Award winner and current Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean told SDS. “He told us all our goals are ahead of us if you win that game. But it means more than that to him.”
In that respect, Smart mirrors Spurrier.
Spurrier struggled as a player against Georgia, and nearly 60 years later, he’s still sore about a 27-10 loss to an unranked group of Dawgs in his 1966 Heisman campaign that cost the Gators the SEC Championship.
Spurrier took that vendetta to the sidelines when he became head coach at his alma mater, just as Smart has years later.
The Florida legend used to take jabs at the Dawgs whenever he could, from wondering “what happened to all the 5-star players Georgia gets under Ray Goff once they get to Athens” to claiming he wanted to score “half-a-hundred between the Hedges” in 1995. But Spurrier also understood what Smart does, which is that for Florida or Georgia winning the Cocktail Party is a prerequisite to a championship caliber season in the SEC.
“You have to win the game in Jacksonville if you want a chance to win the game in Atlanta,” Spurrier told SDS of the Cocktail Party last year. “We told our guys that every goal you have runs through that football game. It worked out for us approaching it that way.”
You can make those jokes when you win all the time.
Smart, who has won 6 Cocktail Parties and 60 SEC games in 70 tries, gets to make those jokes and his Georgia teams frequently get to play for championships. Correlation isn’t always causation, but when it comes to the Cocktail Party, the historical evidence is overwhelming that the school (and coach) that controls this rivalry is in the driver’s seat to accomplish SEC and national goals.
How correct are Spurrier and Smart to prioritize this game? How about this reality: Since the SEC Championship game was born in 1992, the loser of the Cocktail Party has won the SEC Championship just twice (2002 and 2005), and Georgia’s loss to Florida in 2002 cost Georgia a shot at the BCS National Championship.
Cocktail Party celebrations beget bigger championship celebrations.
The loser? They make a fatigued and forlorn drive home, stuck waiting another long calendar year for redemption.
Smart isn’t peerless in the college football coaching profession because he dominates the Cocktail Party, but his ownership of it is part of the story of Smart’s and Georgia’s rise to nation’s best coach and program.
On Saturday, another chance to compete in the Cocktail Party presents itself for Florida and Georgia.
Kirby Smart will have Georgia focused and ready.
If Florida wants to become great again, they’ll need to figure out how to answer the bell.
Neil my good man – Great article.
Kirby is no Spurrier. Kirby does less with more. Spurrier would have already won 4 with the same talent and he idolizes Heupel.
Blackmon:
“Sure, Kirby might not go as far as the Evil Genius and actually admit out loud that the Cocktail Party means more to him than any other non-championship game, but his actions say that loudly enough.
…
Take 2021, when No. 1 Georgia walloped the Gators 34-7.
…
First, Smart lost his temper on his staff after Florida scored a late touchdown, spoiling Georgia’s chances at shutting out the Gators…”
TrueGrit…
after piecing what Blackmon has written in this article, I want to vomit…
because Kirby losing his temper on his staff when Georgia was leading Florida 34-0 in a regular season game is more emotion than “Georgia is going to the CFP even if Georgia gets beat by Alabama in the 2021 SEC Championship Game” Kirby showed in an SEC Championship Game…
Kirby didn’t lose his temper in the 2021 SEC Championship Game when his 10-0 lead vaporized into a 17-10 deficit…
Kirby didn’t lose his temper when Alabama scored 21 unanswered points to take a 38-17 lead…
Kirby didn’t lose his temper in the 2021 SEC Championship Game because Kirby knew Georgia’s season wasn’t over if Kirby lost the 2021 SEC Championship Game…
and to read what Blackmon wrote in this article about why and when Kirby lost his temper in the 2021 Florida game…
makes me want to vomit after we witnessed Joe Cool cool Kirby not care one iota about losing the 2021 SEC Championship Game.
Nobody really gives a shhhttt my friend, that 2021 peckergnat done got buried and gone, long live the 2021 peckergnat…Meanwhile let me welcome you to 2024, grttttzzzzzz…what’ya got for us? Any chance any PAC12 teams make the new 12 team playoff? Oh wait, I don’t see but two teams listed, what up with that?
Kirby lost his temper…
in the 2021 Florida game; what’s new P U S S Y C A T, what’s new…
what’s new is Kirby didn’t lose his temper in the 2021 SEC Championship Game. The only game in Kirby’s life he didn’t lose his temper in!!!
His actions in the 2021 SEC Championship Game told us everything we need to know…
Kirby didn’t care one iota if Georgia lost the 2021 SEC Championship Game…
his actions told us so!
That’s nice grrttttzzzz. But back to the present sweetheart, what conspiracies do you have for 2024? PAC2 auto birth in the CFPs?
You two are a regular tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber.
If we lose one more, we are probably out.
It’s not looking good for us.
The Dawgs are already the team that lost to the team that lost to Vandy. Losing to the Gators this Saturday would add insult to that injury.
However, that would be cause for your celebration “Falsdawg.”
It would be disingenuous to believe the brilliant Kirby Smart will be a down and out cast away coach any time soon, his success is a statement to how serious he takes his craft…
but to witness Kirby taking a knee to kiss Saban’s ring in the 2021 SEC Championship Game is an unforgettable offense.
It was Kirby’s submissive demeanor in that game that let us know Sankey’s two-bit hustle was a hustle to get both Alabama and Georgia into the 2021 CFP…
and the “actions” of Sankey’s huckleberry Kirby on that day fully exposed what had been a two decade Ponzi scheme scam that favored coaches and teams of the SEC.
Sankey’s designed Ponzi scheme scam fcked every other Power 5 Conference, fcked every other Power 5 Conference team, and fcked every other Power 5 Conference coach from the day Sankey’s Ponzi scheme scam was born to the day Sankey’s Ponzi scheme scam died.
Thank God what happened in 2021 happened, because that’s when anyone with a brain figured out how corrupt Sankey’s Ponzi scheme scam was.
It was Kirby’s submissive nonchalant “actions” in his 2021 SEC Championship Game defeat that thankfully made others say enough is enough, it’s time for something different.
You and your other brother Daryl idiot-train are absolute f’n morons
As if a team who lost in their conference championship or didn’t go to their championship game at all hasn’t made the playoffs … and then won a natty. Dip$hit extraordinaire
Dip$hit Kirby need some acting lessons…
because it was [Blackmon: his actions say that loudly enough.] huckleberry Kirby’s I don’t give a $hit if I lose this game “actions” that told us he didn’t care if Georgia lost that game.
The game should have been a loser goes home game. What we are talking about here couldn’t have been possible if it had been, but Sankey’s Ponzi scheme scam “selected” loser Kirby’s team over other conference championship teams…
hence, that is the definition of a Ponzi scheme scam…
the other Power 5’s can play in our Ponzi scheme scam, but only the SEC can win our Ponzi scheme scam!
That’s a lotta kussn ggrrrrrtttzzzzz…so unlike you to get so unglued
well thank you, humperrr…
an underhanded compliment is better than no compliment,
or is it not?
You’re giving me a headache, take a handful of Ritalin and call me in the morning…2024 – f o c u s
Billy’s seat is sizzlin’ and he has a new QB!. I speak on behalf of all of the SEC when I say, go gatah.
meanwhile another top100 LB flipped to UGa
ciTrUs
“Kirby is no Spurrier. ”
You’re right. Kirby has 2 national titles to Spurrier’s one.
Gottem
kurby can not carry Spurrier jock stra a safar a s a coach
voltrain does less with more of his mom. I mean with her 400 pounds you think he could handle it.
Keebler is about to see the end of his run as Billy unleashes his full arsenal of gadget plays to overwhelm the Dawgs with variables! The New Gator Empire rises!
The picture says it all. Napier smiling knowing he will lose and he’s OK with that. Kirby smirking like shall,I score 50 or,60 on them this year.
Top of the list of powerful Billy gadget plays to be unleashed on the baffled Dawgs will be his infamously inept jet sweep on fourth and 5 inches. This time, by Jobe, it will work, because Kirby will be caught thinking, “There’s no way he’ll call that stupid play again!”
LOL!
Billy doesn’t believe in rivalry games (Georgia is merely the next team up), therefore losing by 28 on Saturday won’t affect his mental health in too poor a manner.
Unless CBN has winning this game in his five year plan…..
Billy’s done enough the last few games to cool his hot seat. The next four games are against ranked opponents. I believe for him to keep,his job he has to win,one of those four games and not get blown out in the other three and beating FSU is a must with the season their having. If he can do,that he may just keep his job.He can’t do like Mullen did when Mullen started Richardson against UGA and get him hurt. I hope somebody is putting the fear into the OL that they have to play their best game against UGA and not get DJ hurt. If he doesn’t get bowl eligible or is blown out in any of the four ranked games or loses to the Noles he’s good as gone.
Newsflash: Georgia is not as good as they think they are and Florida is not as bad as people think they are. Go gators
DannyVol UGA looked darn good against Texas. I’ll admit Florida has looked better the last few games ,but the teams they have played haven’t been ranked except for UT.yes UF’s defense did play well ,but if that UT offense was clicking they being UF probably gets beat by three touchdowns. Let’s see how they do against UGA before we give them to much credit.
can’t spell
c
U
n
T
s
without UT
Can’t spell Citrus without them either. I believe that was another Spurrier gem that had ‘em rolling in the aisles.
“Georgia is not as good as they think they are”
You clowns never learn.
The number one rule of UGA football is this: NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, PI S S THEM OFF. When you post/say stupid cr ap like that it ONLY fuels UGA football players.
If you put a phallus in front of UGA football players and tell them they suck unless they suck it, they will suck it. They will suck it so hard, eventually they will choke. It happens every year because they are literally that smart.
Speaking of suck it, did you see where a top100 LB flipped to UGa? 37th best LB in the nation. Guess Josh had other recruits on the line at the time
As always Neil, a read worthy article well presented, kudos.
While it was true that usually the GEORGIA-Florida winner had the inside tract to the SEC East spot in ATL, sadly with NO more Divisions that no longer matters. It was fun while it lasted
The Dawgs will find it hard to make the SECC game this season if they lose the Cocktail Party.
PAC12 fans…
“It was fun while it lasted!”
Because of Sankey’s SEC Ponzi scheme scam…
the SEC lost how they get “stacked”…
the PAC12 lost their conference!
Spurrier vs. Smart would have been fun.
Different eras. Spurrier actually helped turn Smart into what he is today.
Obviously Spurrier and Kirby crossed paths; Spurrier was the coach at a rival school and Kirby was a player at said rival school.
But to state “Spurrier actually helped turn Smart into what he is today” is 9th degree p0ppyc0ck, please prove me otherwise.
But, please only give a reasoned answer based only reality. Remember – Kirby’s father was a distinguished HS coach, at UGA Kirby played for Ray Goff and Jim Donnan (HOF coach.) After his playing days were over Kirby coached for Chris Hatcher, Bobby Bowden (HOF coach), Mark Richt (HOF coach) and Nick Saban (GOAT and soon-to-be HOF coach.)
Spurrier’s influence on Kirby is analogous to the being the last ingredient listed on a complicated ingredient list – yeah Spurrier is part of the recipe, like 0.1% of the total 100%.
Didn’t Spurrier offer Kirby as a preferred walk-on? Made the decision to play at UGA easier.
Boy TDOW, did I rub a sore spot there? Sorry bud, didn’t mean to.
Football is a game best played with strong emotions. Part of the package Smart brings to the Cocktail Party, every year, is the bitter hatred he feels for the Gators. That bitter hatred drives him to drive his teams to get extra ready and extra wound up for that particular game.
You saw what extra ready and extra wound up Dawgs can do just last week in Austin. You also saw how they played when they were not as wound up, a month ago in T-Town. No bitter hatred then, just business.
Goff, Donnan and Richt didn’t feel that bitter hatred toward the Gators. So, their teams were easier for the Gators to beat. And beat them they did, most years like rented mules, until Smart came along, with his bitter hatred of all things Gator… and all his other assets.
Well, the Head Ball Coach can take full credit for planting that bitter hatred deep inside Kirby Smart. For Kirby, the Cocktail Party is personal.
There! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Goal 1 – keep DJ healthy and otherwise un-concussed
Goal 2 – DJ leaves the game confidence intact
Goal 3 – keep the scoring streak alive CBN you bonehead
Everything else after that is gravy
Last year for the puppies! We will fire illy billy soon and then the butt whipping start all over again! fire silly billy
Nice article, I’m glad at least someone in SDS can write articles with a unique angle. It’s true that when it’s personal that you usually get a more interesting game. Hoping for a competitive game and a Gator win. Go Gators!!