It's been a Long Time Coming

It's been so very long. Seven years, in fact. Georgia has played 87 games in between wins against Florida, and the Bulldogs have gone 67-20 in the span. What's happened since Georgia last beat Florida?

Florida? The Gators went 63-25 between losses to the Bulldogs.

The last victory was in on 1997, when Georgia was ranked 14th and Florida sixth, the Bulldogs a solid underdog.

A child born on the day of that last win would now be in second grade.

It was perhaps inevitable that this would be the year for Georgia to break the streak. After all, the Bulldogs' losing deficits have been decreasing, a big change from when Steve Spurrier treated Georgia like an intrasquad opponent.

There were the back-to-back 52-point barrages, and a three-game stretch where Florida won by 113 total points.

But in the last three years, Georgia's lost by 14, 7, and 3.

What else was going on around Nov. 1, 1997?

Bill Clinton was in his second term.

The Florida Marlins nipped Cleveland 4-3 to win the World Series following the first year of interleague play.

Less than five months before the game, Michael Adams was named the 21st president at the University of Georgia.

WorldCom and MCI announced a $37 billion merger.

Timothy McVeigh was found guilt of the Oklahoma City bombing in December of 1997. 

Rapper The Notorious B.I.G. was shot to death in Las Vegas in March.

The Falcons went 7-9 under first-year coach Dan Reeves, and nobody was thinking about the Super Bowl a year later.

Singer John Denver died about three weeks before the game, comedian Chris Farley six weeks after.

Green Bay beat New England 35-21 to win the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Michael Vick was still in high school.

And Georgia tight end Leonard Pope, who caught two touchdown passes in Saturday's Georgia victory, was an eighth-grader in Americus.

All that changed with a 31-24 victory tonight.