Florida Gators vs Georgia Bulldogs: 10 key stats and notes

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs will meet at 3:30 on CBS for possibly the last time this Saturday. For the 91st time, the game will be held on the bank of the St. Johns River at EverBank Stadium.

Here are 10 notes and stats to keep in mind heading into the game.

10 key stats for the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs

1904?

College football rivalries are special. They’re also petty. Nothing epitomizes that quite like the Florida-Georgia rivalry. You can’t get a consensus from the fanbases on what to call the series Florida-Georgia or Georgia-Florida, even if F comes before G in the alphabet. The schools can’t even agree on how many times they have played.

Georgia believes that this will be the 102nd meeting between the teams, while Florida claims that this will be the 101st meeting. It all stems from a game between the University of Georgia and the Florida Agricultural College, which was located in Lake City, Florida. The University of Florida, as we know it, wasn’t established until the Buckman Act of 1905 and Florida’s Athletic Association doesn’t recognize having a football team until 1906, which calls into question who exactly Georgia beat in 1904 and why they include that in their series history.

24

Georgia is on a school-record 24-game winning streak that began with a 34-11 win over Michigan in the 2021 CFP semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl.

No. 1

Georgia has had 13 defensive players selected in the NFL Draft over the last two seasons but they have reloaded. Georgia leads the SEC in the following stats.

SCORING DEFENSE: 14
RUSHING DEFENSE: 91.43
PASSING DEFENSE: 171.1
TOTAL DEFENSE: 171.1
Opp. 3^rd down: 23.6% (leads the nation)
Least amount of 10-plus yard plays given up
Least amount of 20-plus yard plays given up
Least amount of 30-plus yard plays given up

Third down difference

The Gators will come into the game Saturday with the 10th-best third-down defense in the country. That’s a remarkable turnaround from 2022 when they finished with the 129th-ranked third-down defense in the country.

Graham Mertz

The Gators’ quarterback has been better than expected this season. Mertz leads the SEC with a 76.2% completion percentage. He’s 239 yards away from setting a new career-high in passing yards for a season with five games left. Mertz is protecting the football and operating Florida’s offense at a high level.

He’s also coming off of a game career-high passing game and proved he can win a game with his arm leading two scoring drives on the road at South Carolina.

No Brock Bowers

This week Florida head coach Billy Napier called Brock Bowers “one of the best players of all time.” Georgia will be without their All-American, Mackey Award-winning tight end this week after Bowers underwent a tight rope surgery on his left ankle. Bowers led the Bulldogs in 2022 in receiving in 2022 and leads the team this season.

We know what Bowers can do as a pass catcher, but how much will his absence hurt Florida’s running game? Bowers is an underrated blocker and is always a threat to catch a pass. When Georgia goes into 12 personnel (two tight ends) opposing defenses couldn’t add an extra linebacker to be ready for a run because Bowers is such a receiving threat. Can Georgia still run the ball as effectively with

23

Georgia has won 23 regular season SEC games in a row dating to a 31-24 win over Mississippi State on Nov. 21, 2020. This matches the school record for consecutive SEC wins, which was also done during a stretch from 1980 to 1983. The Gators are the last SEC team to beat Georgia, a 44-28 win for Florida.

3:30 CBS

This will, for the foreseeable future, be the final time the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs play as the SEC Game of the Week on CBS. You have to go back to 2002 to find the last time the Gators and Bulldogs didn’t play at 3:30 on the last weekend in October. That game featured an unranked (Associated Press) Florida vs No. 5 Georgia in a game the Gators won 20-13.

Time of Possession

Florida went away from the running game on the road in South Carolina, throwing its way to a comeback win. Is it a new identity for the Gators? Perhaps, but their bread and butter has been running the ball and controlling the clock. Georgia’s offense does the same.

Florida leads the SEC averaging 34:00.57 time of possession but the Bulldogs are right on their heels at 33:37.00, second-best in the league.

The Head Ball Coach

Georgia’s coaching staff is filled with former players to whom this game and rivalry is deeply personal. The game is also deeply personal to Steve Spurrier. Spurrier was 1-2 against Georgia in his career. But he would tell you he was 2-2. When Spurrier was in college freshmen were prohibited from playing varsity sports. Florida had a freshmen team, the “Baby Gators”, who scheduled four scrimmages against other schools. Spurrier led the Baby Gators to a 45-12 win over Georgia’s freshman team in 1963.

This week Billy Napier had the Head Ball Coach come and speak with the team. The teams Spurrier coached dominated Georgia. Spurrier was 11-1 against Georgia while at Florida and 17-9 against the Bulldogs overall.