The year is 1993. The Florida Gators opened the season with a dominant 5-0 start and were the No. 4 team in the country before a heartbreaking 38-35 loss on the road against Auburn.
With Florida’s perfect season ruined, the Gators turned their direction to Jacksonville, to play against hated rivals, the Georgia Bulldogs on Oct. 30, 1993.
Florida had won the previous three meetings between the two teams heading into the matchup and the Bulldogs had mustered an average 4-4 record leading up to the game, but as many know — anything can happen in a rivalry game.
Florida and Georgia battled all game in rainy, muddy conditions. UF’s white jerseys turned to a dark gray by the end of the game.
Former Florida head coach Steve Spurrier remembered it as the rainiest game he’d coached in all 12 years of his UF tenure.
The Bulldogs kept themselves in the game and on the final drive of the game, they gave themselves a chance to tie it down 33-26. The Bulldogs got inside Florida’s 15-yard line before quarterback Eric Zeier spiked it with five seconds left in the game.
Zeier threw the ball 65 times that day and went 6-for-8 for 52 yards on the final drive to get Georgia in a position to tie it and looked to cap off his heroic play with a touchdown.
The ensuing play is where history was made.
Zeier dropped back and found a streaking Jerry Jerman for a touchdown, just one extra point from tying the game — except, that’s not what happened.
Gators cornerback Anthone Lott lined up on the outside, and just before the ball could be snapped, he suddenly called a timeout which negated the play.
“I don’t even know why he called timeout,” Spurrier said. “Maybe we didn’t have enough guys on the field or something.”
Lott, a redshirt freshman at the time and Jacksonville native, became a hometown hero in that moment. The referee ran onto the field signaling UF called a timeout prior to the play — much to the dismay of the Georgia players pointing to the end zone because of the score.
Former UF wide receiver Chris Doering, who had three catches for 43 yards that day, said from where he was on the sideline he didn’t realize his team called timeout.
“I thought they had scored and I thought we were screwed at that point,” Doering said. “It was a shock to me as I'm sure it was to a lot of people that we had actually gotten a timeout and saved ourselves from losing that game.”
Spurrier added how nobody was watching Lott because the teams were lined up at the line of scrimmage when he called the timeout.
“I don’t even know if I saw him call it to tell the truth,” Spurrier said. “It was fast, but it was a smart move on his part.”
While the timeout saved Florida for one more play, the chaos was far from over. Like the Yin and Yang, Lott followed up his heroic play that gave Florida another chance to win with a decision that gifted the Bulldogs a golden opportunity to score.
Zeier dropped back on the ensuing play after the timeout. He chucked the ball up to his receiver in the corner of the endzone. Lott smothered the defender and pushed him out of bounds as he made the catch.
The Jacksonville native thought he had made the game-winning play, but a flag flew onto the field, and the cornerback was called for pass interference. Georgia would have one final play from the 2-yard line.
Zeier fired the ball to Jeff Thomas on a slant, but the pass fell incomplete and the Gators won their fourth straight as they etched another chapter in the storied rivalry.
Florida’s winning against Georgia became a staple in Spurrier’s tenure. The head ball coach went 11-1 against Florida’s rivals from across the border.
However, winning against the Bulldogs was not always common prior to Spurrier. Georgia had Florida’s number and won 15 of the previous 20 meetings before Spurrier’s arrival to Gainesville in 1990.
Doering grew up as a Florida fan and went to Gators games because his parents, who were both UF grads, would always get season tickets, he said. But he added they would never get tickets to the Florida-Georgia game because the Bulldogs had always come away victorious.
“To kind of turn the tide in [the Gator Bowl], particularly winning in the last one before they bulldozed it was really special,” Doering said.
Spurrier remembered he talked to his team before the 1990 season and the message was simple — his team will be ready when they play Georgia.
“They kicked our butts,” Spurrier said when remembering what he told his team. “They talk like they own us. If you’re okay with them owning the Gators, then you better quit, cause they’re not going to own me and hopefully none of you guys.”
To accomplish the team’s goals of winning a division title, a conference championship and a national title, it started with beating the Bulldogs, Doering said. His coach made it a major point of emphasis during his tenure, Doering added.
“The week of Georgia always seemed a little more special,” Doering said. “We always had a little extra motivation playing Georgia and it showed the way we dominated during the 90s.”
Even though Florida beat Georgia 38-7 in his first season at the helm at UF, Spurrier felt his team could have made it 65-7 if it weren’t for turnovers inside the 10-yard line.
“I was a little perturbed that it was only 38-7,” Spurrier said. “That was our attitude toward Georgia for the 12 years I was here.”
Whether it was scoring the most points ever allowed in Georgia’s stadium, Sanford Stadium, or having a young player call a timeout in a one possession game, Spurrier’s Gators found ways to take down their rivals.
In the 1993 game, Florida quickly adapted to the conditions caused by the weather. Florida threw the ball only 21 times, which is the fewest number of pass attempts in the Spurrier’s time as head coach.
The original game plan was to pass the ball often, Doering said, as he had a lot of routes designed to take advantage of Georgia’s secondary in the game. However, as soon as the team saw the weather conditions, they knew the game plan was out the window.
“To wake up and see the rain as bad as it was; it was like nighttime,” Doering said. “It was as dark as night and raining as hard as I’d ever seen and rivers pouring down the stadium steps.”
Running back Errict Rhett became the workhorse on offense in the game. He carried the ball for a school-record 41 times. He amassed 183 yards and two touchdowns as he helped lead UF to the rivalry victory.
The game also granted a second chance to Florida’s quarterback Terry Dean. The fourth-year junior was benched earlier in the season against Kentucky after he threw four interceptions.
The man to replace Dean was Danny Wuerffel. The eventual Heisman winner was only a freshman at the time and struggled against the Bulldogs. He started 3-for-9 with an interception when Spurrier made the move to put Dean in the game.
"I'd hit rock bottom, the low point of my life,” Dean said in a prior interview. “I really didn't think I'd get another chance like this.”
Dean finished the game 8-for-12 for 105 yards. He also threw the touchdown pass that gave Florida a lead in the first half it would never surrender.
“Terry Dean was a very good quarterback,” Spurrier said. “We played two quarterbacks a whole bunch. We didn’t get hung up on exactly who had to play quarterback.”
The Gators would go on to finish the season 11-2. Florida also won the 1993 SEC Championship against Alabama — UF’s first ever SEC Conference Championship game win.
Florida capped off the year with a win in the Sugar Bowl against West Virginia to finish ranked No. 5 in the country.
“I’m thankful that [1993] season worked out and we had three or four games that could have gone the other way,” Spurrier said. “’93 was an exceptional year.”
UF’s current head coach Billy Napier and the 2023 Florida Gators will look to create similar magic that occurred for UF 30 years ago on Oct. 28 when they renew their rivalry with the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs.
Contact Jackson Reyes at jacksonreyes@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter @JacksnReyes.
Jackson Reyes is a UF journalism senior and The Alligator's Fall 2023 Sports Editor. He previously served as Digital Managing Editor and was a reporter and assistant editor on the sports desk. In his free time, he enjoys collecting records, long walks on the beach and watching Bo Nix.
