100 Days, 100 Reasons G6 Football Matters

Georgia Southern players and coaches trickled back onto Florida Field long after the game ended. They had cellphones in hand, ready to snap pictures of a lifeless stadium.

About an hour earlier, they had emptied the Swamp.

The Eagles ran for 429 yards, attempted three passes, completed none and beat Florida 26-20 on Nov. 23, 2013 — the first time an FCS team had ever beaten the Gators. Georgia Southern became the first team to fail to complete a pass against Florida since 1976.

It didn’t matter.

“I do think it confirms we should never throw a pass,” Georgia Southern coach Jeff Monken told the Macon Telegraph.

Four Losses and a Plane Ticket

Georgia Southern entered the game 6-4. The Eagles had lost to Wofford, Samford, Appalachian State and Furman — four FCS opponents. Three weeks before Gainesville, they lost at home to Furman 16-14.

They were four-touchdown underdogs.

Florida had won its previous seven games against FCS opponents by an average of 45 points. The Gators ranked second nationally in rush defense through their first five games and had allowed only 166 total rushing yards across their first three games.

None of that mattered either.

The Option

Jerick McKinnon rushed for 125 yards on a sprained ankle. It was his final college game, played on the same field where he had watched his first — his older brother, Lester Norwood, was a defensive back for Florida.

Kevin Ellison added 118 yards and scored on runs of 45 and 1. Fullback William Banks gashed the middle for 94 yards. His 53-yard burst on third-and-2 set up the winning touchdown.

Georgia Southern trailed 10-7 at halftime. On the opening drive of the second half, the Eagles marched 75 yards in five plays. Ellison scored to make it 14-10. The Eagles never trailed again.

Florida tied it at 20 with 5:41 left. McKinnon answered with a 14-yard touchdown run with 2:57 remaining.

The Gators reached the Georgia Southern 17 in the final seconds. Skyler Mornhinweg had Quinton Dunbar open in the corner of the end zone on third down, but the pass floated high. On the last play, two defenders broke up his throw to Solomon Patton.

“We’re the Florida Gators,” Mornhinweg told the Orlando Sentinel. “We’re supposed to win every game.”

The Wreckage

The loss was Florida’s sixth in a row. It ended a 22-year bowl streak. It ended a 33-year winning-season streak. The Gators hadn’t lost to a non-BCS team at home since Memphis in 1988. They hadn’t lost to a team currently in the FCS since Villanova in 1946.

“It’s shocking,” Florida guard Jon Halapio told the Orlando Sentinel. “The morale of this team is at an all-time low.”

Halapio was more direct about what happened on the field.

“They came out here and played their tails off,” he said. “This was their bowl game, and they had nothing to lose. We took them lightly and we got out-worked, outplayed... out-physicaled. You call it, you name it, that’s what happened.”

Will Muschamp called it “an embarrassment.”

The Record

Georgia Southern’s 429 rushing yards were the fourth-most ever allowed by Florida and the most in a regular-season game since Bear Bryant’s Alabama team ran for 453 against the Gators in 1979.

The Eagles overcame two fumbles and a bad snap on a punt. Valdon Cooper blocked a field goal. Georgia Southern didn’t play a clean game. They just played a dominant one.

“We didn’t play an absolutely perfect football game,” Monken told the Macon Telegraph. “We made some errors. We put ourselves in some bad situations. We made some blunders, but we were still able to win a football game.”

Monken put the win in context.

“Is this the biggest win ever for us? There have been a lot of big wins at Georgia Southern. We’ve got a flag pole with six national championship flags on it. I don’t know if any win tops a national championship.”

The Goodbye — and the Beginning

The Florida game was Georgia Southern’s last as an FCS program. The next season, they moved to the FBS and the Sun Belt Conference.

The win in the Swamp proved to be a springboard. In 2014, Georgia Southern went 9-3 and won the Sun Belt championship outright in its first season in the league.

McKinnon’s brother hugged him after the game. “He told me he was proud of me,” McKinnon told the Macon Telegraph. “That means a lot because he was my hero growing up.”

The Eagles went back onto the field with their phones. The Swamp was empty. They had earned the pictures.

They told you it didn’t matter. Here are 100 reasons it does.