![Florida Gators wide receiver J. Michael Sturdivant (9) tries to convince the referees that his catch was good in the fourth quarter in an NCAA football game, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. Georgia defeated Florida 24-20. [Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_1307,w_3575,h_2010/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01k927hfhwqcj2ny97cq.jpg "Florida Gators wide receiver J. Michael Sturdivant (9) tries to convince the referees that his catch was good in the fourth quarter in an NCAA football game, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. Georgia defeated Florida 24-20. [Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union]")
The City of Jacksonville continues to throw gobs of money at the University of Florida to continue to play its annual game against Georgia on neutral grounds rather than on campus. And because every man has their price, Florida and Georgia continue to accept the money.
But time and time again, the City of Jacksonville can't pull off the basics of giving the two teams a usable playing surface, and it was on full display once again on Saturday.
Playing surface for Florida-Georgia was a problem
Two years ago, the turf in Jacksonville came into view after Shemar James dislocated his knee cap during pregame warm-ups. Last year, it was a point of contention after DJ Lagway slipped and injured his hamstring.
Jacksonville manages the turf, and when the topic came up last year, they were quite defensive over any critiques of the field. Yet once again, on Saturday, players were slipping and sliding, and it looked like a game of U10 hockey rather than a game of football.
At one point, Lagway took his dropback, and his planted foot just slipped out from underneath him, causing him to fumble the ball.
On the controversial non-catch call for J. Michael Sturdivant, he went back to catch the ball but had his footing slip out from underneath him, which made the catch far more difficult than it needed to be.
It's not just a placebo effect when Gator fans watch games all season long and magically every year in Jacksonville, we start to see things that don't happen any other time of the year.
The annual Florida-Georgia matchup will be in Atlanta next year and in Tampa the year after that as EverBank Stadium undergoes renovations.
Hopefully, in the meantime, they can figure out how to get the turf correct so we don't have to come back and do a part four of this series.