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10 rounds: Some numerology and some history to toast this year’s Cocktail Party
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It is the headline game of the week in the SEC, and one of the biggest games of the season in the conference.
The Cocktail Party.
The Florida-Georgia game.
When you have a rivalry that is this long and storied, there’s a trove of statistical nuggets. Here are 10 we’ve dug up:
Georgia put up a monster number in 1942
In 1942, the Bulldogs shut out the Gators to win for the 17th time in 21 meetings of this rivalry. But the story of the game was the final score: 75-0.
Not only does this remain the most points by either team in the series, but it is one of 15 times Georgia has shut out Florida. The Gators, meanwhile, have posted just six shutouts of the Bulldogs, and only one in the last 60 years (1984).
Gators went for 50+ twice
The two highest-scoring games by Florida in the rivalry occurred in back-to-back seasons.
In 1994, after a loss to Auburn in the Gators’ previous game, a top-five Florida team took it out on Georgia, handing the Bulldogs a 52-14 loss.
The next season, the Gators, again ranked in the top five (No. 3), again put 52 points on the scoreboard, defeating the Bulldogs 52-17.
Seven is the magic number
Each team’s longest win streak over the other is seven straight games. Florida’s seven-game streak occurred from 1990-96. (Following a Georgia win in 1997, Florida proceeded to win the next six meetings, making it a run of 13 out of 14 for the Gators.)
Georgia has had two seven-game win streaks over Florida. The Bulldogs won the first seven meetings in the rivalry (1904-1927), outscoring the Gators 233-9. Then in the 1940s, Georgia again had a seven-game win streak.
Georgia’s star was quite a Trip(pi)
College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Charley Trippi has one of the greatest resumes of achievement in SEC history. The former Maxwell Award winner and Heisman Trophy runner-up in 1946, Trippi rushed for a then-SEC record 239 yards in the 1945 Georgia-Florida game.
While his SEC single-game rushing record has since been topped, his 239 yards in the ’45 game remains the record for this rivalry. Not even the great Herschel Walker rushed for more than Trippi’s 239 yards in three tries in the Cocktail Party.
Walker ran wild on Gators
Speaking of Herschel Walker, while he does not have the single-game record for rushing yards in this rivalry, he can boast three incredible rushing performances against the Gators. In his three meetings vs. Florida from 1980-82, Walker rushed for 238, 192 and 219 yards.
That comes out to 649 yards, or 216.3 per game. Not surprisingly, Georgia won all three of those meetings.
For whom the Bell tolls
In 1985, Kerwin Bell, the SEC Player of the Year in 1984, took his No. 1-ranked Gators to Jacksonville to take on No. 17 Georgia. Bell put his name in the annals of the Florida-Georgia rivalry forever by throwing for 408 yards, the most ever by player in a Florida-Georgia game.
The only problem: Georgia upset No. 1 Florida, 24-3, in what would be the only loss of the season for the Gators in 1985 (9-1-1).
No blowout in 2017 game?
Who knows which team will win this year’s Cocktail Party. But history tells us not to expect another blowout win by Florida.
The Gators have dominated the last three meetings, beating the Bulldogs by at least 14 points in each game. However, the last time any team in this rivalry won four straight meetings by at least 14 points each, it was Georgia back in the 1940s.
As mentioned earlier, the Bulldogs won seven straight over the Gators, with the first six wins coming by at least 16 points.
Expect points from Georgia
The Bulldogs have been held to 10 or fewer points in the last two meetings with the Gators, something that hadn’t happened to Georgia since 1983-84.
However, if you want to find the last time Georgia was held to 10 points or less in three consecutive Cocktail Party games, you have to go back to 1956-58. Over those three games, the Bulldogs were shut out twice and scored six points in the other.
Florida below .500?
Currently 3-3, the Gators would actually fall under .500 with a loss Saturday.
It would definitely be a rarity for Florida to have a losing record this late in the season. In fact, the last time the Gators were under .500 following the Georgia game was 1979, when they finished 0-10-1 in Charley Pell’s first season as head coach.
Since that 1979 season, the Gators have entered the Georgia game with a .500 record three times, including this season. The other two occurred in 1986 (4-4) and 2014 (3-3).
Florida pulled off the upset each time.
In a rush to win this game
Anyone looking for a trend to figure out how to pick a winner in this game can turn to this pretty significant statistic.
Since 2006, the team with the most rushing yards has gone on to win each game. That’s 11 straight years of the rushing leader also winning the game.
The last time the team with the most rushing yards lost in the Cocktail Party was in 2005, when Georgia — undefeated and ranked in the top 5 (sound familiar?) — outgained Florida 177-153 but lost 14-10.
Michael covers SEC football for Saturday Down South.
