the Friday Misery wants a Standing O!!

Prelude

"Just consider it an ice cold purse Babe. You're
doing great. Go Gators!"

While they mix their vodka and Monster energy drinks, we’ll be pouring some bourbon comfortably over ice. They’ll chase their Four Lokos with Pepsi...or vice versa, I have no idea and does it really matter anyway? They’ll make their girlfriends carry their beer. They’ll be in orange clapping as if their entire arms are encased in cement. We’ll be in red and black, ready for a handshake and a pat on the back. In the immortal words of the Greatest Bulldog ever, Coach Magill, “They are the Florida Philistines.” They are a perfect unnatural blend of rudeness, crassness, and base immorality. They will tailgate at crosswalks, Burger King bags in each hand. Meanwhile, we’ll raise a tent, sit a spell, and commence to sharing stories, such as what our barber said during the off week haircut about Jake Fromm, or what our neighbor heard from a friend of a cousin’s tennis partner that is in the Mary Beth Smart carpool rotation. They’ll dump ice into the cardboard Miller Lite case because a styrofoam cooler is a whole $4.99 at the gas n’ sip where they bought their Skoal bandits and pork rinds. Nearby, your lovely wife will adorn her newest bloody mary with a Phickles Pickles pickled okie.

Despite the overt disparities, everything will seem normal. Relaxed even. As Grizzard quoted a local after the 1980 win, “It’s the annual celebration of the repeal of Prohibition!” Yes, it’ll be good to be back in Jacksonville, our annual Fall, midseason retreat.

Then suddenly, it happens...

Under an overpass, average florida fan in awkwardly short jorts and a Tebow jersey with the sleeves cut off strolls up to a young Georgia fan waiting with his dad to cross the street - “Welcome to florida bitches! Hope you like the taste of our ass later this afternoon! Go gators!!”

The young boy turns to look up at Average Gator Fan Man and responds, “Thank you sir, my dad and I are both sorry that you have to live here in this awful swamp of humidity and bad life choices you call a state. And we hope that one day you’ll manage to save up the $56 so you can finally finish that GED course. Enjoy the game!”

The dad smiles at the jorted one as they cross the street. Meanwhile the florida fan stands stupefied momentarily, then turns to his sister and asks, “What the hell’s a GED?”

Hate is not a strong enough sentiment.

The word itself has too few letters to sufficiently explain the eternal fire that burns inside of us, fueled by years of having to share a stadium with those knuckle dragging, mouth breathing, dim-witted cretins. They are pathological losers, especially when their team wins the game. They are sociological anomalies. Centuries from now anthropologists will be dumbfounded by the gator fan’s lack of class, unwillingness to learn simple tasks (such as grooming or eating with utensils), inability to adapt, ineffectiveness at contributing anything positive to its community, and their otherwise pervasive ability to offend those around them.

A gator fan is what you get when you introduce a WalMart clothing clearance rack with a meth-addled brain. It is sexless. It is devoid of any redeeming value. It is lacking any single quality that would make an ordinary person want to interact with it. It is insolence personified. It is a magnet for immoral behavior thought patterns. The gator fan isn’t the person your mother warned you about because your mother is too nice of a person to even think that such a vile, degenerate douchebag like the gator fan could possibly exist.

I would complain about this gator fan's behavior in front of the young
boy perched on dad's shoulders, but obviously the dad has no qualms.

Cases in point

Exhibit A: Normal person takes their toddler for a photo session after dressing the boy in his Sunday best. Gator fan doesn’t bother to wipe the oreo crumbs from the kid’s mouth, but makes sure the miniature Tebow jersey is straight and the kid’s middle fingers are raised before the photographer snaps the pic.

Exhibit B: Normal person eventually develops past the third grade mentality of teasing everyone about everything. Gator fan sees an elderly lady drop a cantaloupe in the produce section and commences to shouting irreverent and disgusting names at her then grabbing his genitals aggressively and chanting “Go Gator!”

Exhibit C: Normal person needs money for a new laptop so he saves up until he has enough. Gator felon swipes bank cards like they’re apples on a tree and heads to the student union for a spending spree. (Hey Corrinne Brown, that rhymed! Go Gatuh!)

We owe it to our children to prevent the spread of this classless race of sub-humans. Be a good parent, a good neighbor, a good citizen that wants to see advancement and happiness in the community. Don’t let children become gator fans. Again, especially your daughters.

Kirby’s STAND in Jax

Kirby, dude, I’ve bought in. I hear you coach and see you coach and I believe. I’m following your orders. I’m not into national narratives and I don’t give a shit about college football playoff scenarios.

The CFBOMG!! Playoffs are in January. Today is the 27th of October. Tomorrow we have Georgia-Florida, the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party by God! That’s the only thing on my mind. I don’t care how Notre Dame is doing because I haven’t thought about them since I woke up on September 10th.

You wanted it louder in Sanford and I gave my voice. You wanted a work week and I haven’t pressed snooze once. The focus is one day, one rep, one play, one drill at a time. You want to accomplish a goal it must be earned through preparation and dedication.

The next step towards that end is to beat the Florida Gators. The fog that envelops this game for Georgia is heavy. There’s always something - dropped passes, weird cold fronts, missed tackles, bad bounces. For the better part of the last three decades in Jacksonville, success has been few and far between. Netflix could devote an entire season of Stranger Things to Georgia’s experiences in Jacksonville Florida.

It needs to end Kirby. It needs to end tomorrow.

The sporadic victories that we had in the Donnan and Richt eras weren’t big enough to change the tide of the series. 1997 was sweet, sweet revenge for years of taking Spurrier’s jabs. But 1998 just reminded us that our cocktail is rarely shaken nor stirred. 2005 should’ve been Urban’s first taste of defeat in the series, but propped up by crutches, Shockley could only watch his team lose a heartbreaker. As incredible as 2007 was, 2008 was a complete kick in the crotch, followed by an endless chorus of “F--- YOU GEORGIA!!” as we rode the escalators down...down...down.

Famed fraternity mediator Ron Zook left Florida with a 2-1 record in the WLOCP. Famed shark humper Jim McIlwain is 2-0 thus far. A 10 point underdog in 2014, famed sideline Hulk impressionist William Muschamp started a freshman at quarterback and the gators racked up 428 yards on the ground in route to a 38-20 upset.

DickSamIV...crusher of gator will to compete

Kirby, I say all that to illustrate how tired we are of playing second fiddle down there. What is your stamp on this series going to be? Are we one day away from putting an epic beat down on these swamp lizards, or just another chance at coming up with more excuses as to why we can’t win this game more often.

Your team has plowed through the likes of Tennessee, Vanderbilt, and Missouri. Hell, you probably put the nail in the coffins that are the Jones and Odom tenures experiements at their respective schools. McIlwain needs to spend the fourth quarter scratching his head. We need to walk into Everbank tomorrow with the better prepared team, the one that is more focused and determined. They spent the week talking the talk. We need to walk out of there having walked the walk.

We need this win tomorrow. Not just for you. Not just for me. Not just for this season or the next. We need it for mankind. And when you ask those guys in the post-game locker room to stand up if they’ve beaten florida, we want a STANDING OVATION!

Now, please bow your heads...dear Lord Baby Jesus, please clear all lane closures on I-95 so we can zip down there and zip right back out after Wynn raises Chubb in the air after his 7th touchdown. And please don’t let those lizards slip no roofies in our cocktail. In the name of Nat Hudson, Lindsey Scott, Robert Edwards, and of course Lewis Grizzard and his ol’ pal Dorsey Hill, Amen!

Go Dawgs!