A Hundred and Four Games, Give or Take One
Written by Jarvis Prime on October 25, 2026
GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Sunday, October 25, 2026
Georgia and Florida take the Cocktail Party to Atlanta for the first time, and they still can't agree on who has won how many.
ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk
Georgia and Florida have been playing football against each other long enough to have lost count, which is the only explanation for what the Florida Times-Union reported this morning. Georgia says the series stands at 58 wins, 44 losses and two ties. Florida says 57, 44 and 2. That is a one-game disagreement that neither side has shown the slightest interest in settling, and I suspect neither ever will. A Georgia man counts a win the way he counts his own children. A Florida man counts it the way he counts somebody else's. Both of them will tell you the other fellow can't add.
The argument moves to Atlanta on Saturday, and the Times-Union notes it is the first time these two have ever met there. It is the first game outside Jacksonville since 1995, with EverBank Stadium under renovation. Georgia fans will tell you Mercedes-Benz Stadium sits about 72 miles from campus, which is close to the 75 or so to Jacksonville, so the drive is a wash. What is not a wash is the history. Georgia is 57-43-6 all-time in Atlanta. Florida is 7-7. The model calls the site neutral and gives nobody a home edge. The model has never tried to buy a drink downtown in a red shirt.
A Georgia man counts a win the way he counts his own children; a Florida man counts it the way he counts somebody else's.
It will not be the Cocktail Party anybody remembers. The Times-Union reports the universities' direct ticket sales are sold out, upper-deck seats were spot-checked under 250 dollars on the secondary market, and the tailgating lots are far scarcer than in Jacksonville. A domed stadium with a retractable roof means no weather, and a downtown parking deck means no place to set up the smoker. On Friday the College Football Hall of Fame hosts a luncheon inducting Emmitt Smith and Maurkice Pouncey for Florida and Andre Hastings and Brandon Boykin for Georgia. Tampa gets the game in 2027. Jacksonville gets it back in 2028, coolers and all.
Georgia has won nine of the last ten and is after a sixth straight. The bookmakers have it at Georgia by 12 and a half with a total of 53 and a half, and our Moneyball machine says Georgia 30, Florida 21, winning seven times in ten but covering that number in only 41.7 percent of its runs. Roundtable Sports calls Florida a team of high highs and very low lows, meaning they lost at home to Missouri and South Carolina and then beat Texas with a backup quarterback. Fox Sports reports Jon Sumrall says receiver Vernell Brown the Third is not yet ready for game action.
About that Texas team. The Longhorns Florida beat two Saturdays ago turned around yesterday and beat No. 7 Ole Miss, 34 to 27, with Arch Manning running for the go-ahead score and Jelani McDonald intercepting Trinidad Chambliss in the end zone on the final play. Manning turned the ball over three times and won anyway, which is a trick Gunner Stockton would like to learn. That makes Florida's trip to Austin look a little better, and it makes the Gators who show up in Atlanta a little harder to dismiss. A team that sacked Manning five times is not a team that got lucky.
It was that kind of Saturday all over. Second-ranked BYU lost at UCF in double overtime, eighth-ranked Texas Tech lost at Cincinnati, and Tennessee lost at South Carolina on a walk-off field goal after having three touchdowns wiped out by penalties. DawgNation reported that Kirby Smart, speaking during the bye week, said he expected more upsets around the sport. He was right, and for once none of them belonged to him. Now comes Florida, in a building new to them both, with a ledger they can't agree on. By Saturday night each side will add a line and go right on disagreeing.
The Notebook
- COUNTDOWN: Six days. Georgia and Florida, Saturday, October 31, 3:30 Eastern on ABC, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta. Georgia is the designated home team.
- WEIRDEST ENDING: UCF 39, No. 2 BYU 31 in double overtime, the highest-ranked win in Knights history, helped along by a disputed roughing-the-kicker call. Scott Frost called it the weirdest end of a game he's ever seen.
- FIRST SINCE 2006: Cincinnati 37, No. 8 Texas Tech 24. JC French the Fourth threw four touchdown passes and Cole Tabb ran for 173 yards in the Bearcats' first home win over a top-10 team in twenty years.
Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946–1994.
Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.
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