Urban Meyer dropped to his knees, a fan base exhaled and the Gators finally smiled after their win against the Bulldogs on Saturday.
Now, everyone should take a giant step back.
Yes, Florida’s victory over Georgia was one of the most exciting in the rivalry’s history, and it popped the immense pressure bubble that came with losing three straight and falling from the top-25 rankings.
Meyer said the game was the biggest of his six-year tenure at UF, and he went a step further Monday with this tongue-in-cheek response: “Greatest win. All time. History of the game.”
But even after their triumph, the Gators are still a middling, unranked team coming off a nail-biting, overtime win against a mediocre opponent.
To their credit, they seem to understand that. Meyer said his players are carrying themselves with the same urgency they had going into the UGA game, and quarterback John Brantley backed up that sentiment.
“We have to concentrate on Vanderbilt and know that, hey, just because we beat Georgia doesn’t mean we’re world-beaters,” Brantley said. “We have to keep going, keep practicing hard like we did this past two weeks with that chip on our shoulder.”
Florida players have taken the one-week-at-a-time, we-can-lose-to-anyone approach in interviews for as long as I can remember, but this year it actually seems true.
It wouldn’t be shocking to see Florida lose to Vanderbilt, especially if it comes out thinking all is right with the world because it isn’t on a losing streak anymore after beating Georgia.
And the truth is, that losing streak could very, very easily have been stretched to four games.
The Gators gave up 21 points in the fourth quarter and 439 yards overall, and their two biggest defensive plays — Will Hill’s two interceptions — came off deflections. Hill said the one in overtime “fell in my lap,” and on the ensuing UF possession, Brantley should have been picked off when he threw to Chris Rainey on a fade route, which is meant for tall people.
Then, after not letting Trey Burton throw the ball down field in more than a month, UF’s coaches chose third down in overtime as the right moment to try it out, and they’re lucky no UGA corner was prepared for his lob pass out into the flat.
A play later, Chas Henry’s game-winning field goal barely got past Georgia stud receiver A.J. Green, whose leap at the line of scrimmage had the height to block it but was about a foot and a half to the left.
“I could feel the wind from the ball,” Green said.
If those bounces and breaks go the other way, the talk around Gainesville would be of the uphill battle for bowl eligibility, not the Southeastern Conference Championship that Florida could still win.
With that said, every game has those moments, and the Gators did show they have a pulse. That’s the most important thing to take away from this game: they’re capable of not being bad.
But they still aren’t good, yet.
