Florida football: Florida-Georgia won’t leave Jacksonville anytime soon

The Florida football rivalry game with Georgia has been played in Jacksonville, Florida since 1933, but there have been recent rumblings about the series becoming a home-and-home.

My favorite part about Florida-Georgia is that the two schools don’t agree on the series record.

The real series record is 51-43-2 in favor of Georgia over 96 meetings, but Georgia claims the series stands at 52-43-2. The Bulldogs claimed a win in 1904 … 2 years before Florida fielded its first football team.

Allow that to sink in before considering the latest posturing out of Georgia regarding the future of the Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville.

I’ve attended college and pro football games for over 25 years: home/road environments for big college games, various levels of bowl games, a national title game, and NFL games including each round of the playoffs and a Super Bowl, but nothing compares to what I’ve experienced in Jacksonville for Florida-Georgia.

It’s a special environment.

Unlike other neutral site games, Florida-Georgia annually features a 50/50 crowd. Half of the stadium cheers after every play and there are few things more satisfying as a fan than watching the other side clear out early.

Oklahoma-Texas also plays in front of a 50/50 crowd, but the 89-year-old Cotton Bowl is no match for the NFL stadium in Jacksonville. Jaguars owner Shad Khan and the city of Jacksonville have poured money into the stadium in recent years. Major upgrades include state-of-the-art scoreboards that are larger than the well-known scoreboards at Cowboys Stadium.

The Florida-Georgia contract with the city of Jacksonville runs through 2021. The city estimated that the game brought roughly 140,000 tourists to town in 2015 and created $35 million in spending.

There is money to be made and Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart stirring the conversation around the game’s location should be seen as nothing more than a negotiation tactic.

When asked about moving the game back on campus at SEC Media Days, Smart replied, “Every time you miss to have a kid at your home [in reference to Georgia’s facilities] is an [missed] opportunity to get better.”

A quick look at the Bulldogs’ recruiting rankings (according to Rivals) since Smart was hired before the 2016 season reveals the devastating effects of missing out on a single home game with the Gators every other year:

• 2016 – 9th overall in the nation
• 2017 – 3rd overall in the nation
• 2018 – 1st overall in the nation
• 2019 – 1st overall in the nation

The only other school to appear in the Top 10 of Rivals Recruiting Rankings last four seasons is Alabama.

Georgia, the same program that cited “recruiting” as a major reason to take Florida-Georgia back on campus due to their interest in doing, “what is best for our student-athletes and what is best for the university,” has recently agreed to play three nonconference neutral site games:

• 2020 – Virginia at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta
• 2022 – Oregon at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta
• 2024 – Clemson at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta

If Smart was serious about moving Florida-Georgia back on campus, he’d take a different angle. Much like the Bulldogs’ 1904 victory, Georgia’s recruiting woes stemming from a neutral site game with Florida football do not exist.

The Florida football rivalry game with Georgia isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.