This weekend will mark the 75th meeting between UF and Georgia in Jacksonville.
That's about 75 times too many.
Holding the game in Jacksonville may be a fun yearly pilgrimage for some fans or a chance to catch up with old friends, but it holds little benefit beyond that.
As a Jacksonville native, I loved having a major college football game in town each year, but the atmosphere is slowly killing a once-heated rivalry.
The neutral site just doesn't provide much of a spark to the game.
The stadium gets loud before kickoffs or when it is announced that another Southeastern Conference foe has lost, and big plays are met with a dull roar from one side.
In a conference chock-full of loud stadiums and hostile environments, this game lives up to its name and not much else - a cocktail party.
The rivalry has also become much more civil because of the location.
"I think it's more of a friendly rivalry," freshman defensive lineman Duke Lemmens said. "Just hearing about it, the way it's split down half and half. I know the fans are rowdy, but I think of it more as a friendly rivalry."
Not that friendliness is a bad thing, but it takes away from the magnitude of the game and the rivalry.
I witnessed just how hostile fans can be during this year's trip to LSU. Tigers' fans - young and old - don't hold back threats, liquids or cans from passers by.
They certainly aren't model human beings - maybe the worst group of people I've ever seen - but a little hostility goes a long way inside the stadium and can impact a game.
UF fans and players who made the trip will certainly remember how they were received in Baton Rouge, and bad memories provide fuel for a rivalry.
Playing the game in Gainesville and Athens would lead to that wild environment.
Jacksonville Municipal Stadium holds about 10,000 less people for the game than either The Swamp or Georgia's Sanford Stadium could - even with expanded seating.
One of the SEC's greatest rivalries, the Iron Bowl between Auburn and Alabama, moved from a yearly meeting in Birmingham to a home-and-home series after both schools' stadiums exceeded the capacity of Legion Field.
A new attendance record was set at Alabama when they hosted the game in 2000 for the first time in nearly 100 years.
Can you imagine the environment in Gainesville or Athens if the game was moved?
For now, the game is unique, but it's a dying rivalry.
The only way to revive it is by changing it from its current bowl-like atmosphere to what it should be, a major SEC rivalry game.
The contract to play in Jacksonville will expire in 2010, and hopefully by then the schools will come to their senses.
The finances would likely work out better as well.
UF will be paid a management fee for hosting the game this year, and other proceeds will be divided among the two schools.
While this ensures that each school gets some money from the game every year, the benefits would be far greater in a home-and-home series.
There would be more tickets to sell and more concessions bought, not to mention the economic impact on the two towns.
Revenue is generated for Gainesville with each Gators home game. Money is spent on hotels, food and other goods that are related to the game, and that's money lost with the game in Jacksonville.
I don't have a problem with my hometown making money off of the backs of UF and Georgia fans, but I do have a problem with watching the game and wishing it was somewhere else.
