Georgia Florida Week

Is there anything better than this week? Think about it, all year during the off-season we talk football and wonder if the season will ever arrive. Then comes the beginning of Spring practice and we can actually go out and watch the Gators practice. Three weeks later it is time for the Orange and Blue Spring game and we get to see the freshmen perform and a few of the starters. Just as an aside you think we aren't fans? Sixty six thousand came to the Spring game, that is just about double what the University of Miami draws to an actual game. Then comes the long, slow, foot dragging summer that never seems to end. Finally, and I do mean finally, the September weekend rolls around when we kick it off. Usually there is little doubt about the outcome but, it is still Gator football. Following weekends are filled with anticipation of opening Southeastern Conference football, with us, Tennessee is first,(with their lame brained coach.} Afterwards it is game on for the rest of the season. But, there is nothing like Georgia week, especially when you are ranked number one and the hated Dawgs are having a bad year. Does it get any better than this? I don't think so.

The other night I heard someone say that we are going to lose a lot in graduating seniors and they are already worried about next year. Are you kidding me? Next year? What about this year? Man oh man, I want to just enjoy now....you know the present time... Ranked first in the country and seventeen straight wins, the most in school history...how can we be thinking of next year? I never want football season to end, especially this year. In truth I think this is my favorite week of the year. Yep, for me more than Christmas. The kids are gone raising their own children and the holiday present I want is a victory over those folks in silver britches with the red and black jerseys.

Now the down side. We (the Gators) have a lot on the line, the Dogs? Not so much. The Bulldogs would like nothing better than to ruin our season. I am confident that we are the far superior team but I have seen a lot of these games in Jacksonville and not all come out as expected. The older fans, like myself, know that you cannot be certain of the outcome. There is way too much emotion on the line. A stadium evenly divided with forty five thousand football fanatics on each side, teams fired up with memories of past humiliations, it is an electric atmosphere. I can't wait. Just walking through the thousands of fans in RV"s, tents, and smelling the barbecue and hearing the (mostly good-natured) verbal jousting is great fun. With all the rides, flags and team colors, it seems more than a college football game. It is more a combination of a State Fair, October Fest, and a maybe, a medieval jousting match.

Yes indeed, it is Florida Georgia weekend and as Michael Buffer says "LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!"