HOOVER, Ala. - Forget about Florida and Georgia not thinking about each
other until late October, the smack-talking has already begun.

Apparently the bitterness over Georgia's end zone celebration after
their first touchdown in last year's win over Florida is still
lingering. Well, Florida's bitterness lingers.

Florida coach Urban Meyer was quoted on Thursday as saying he's still
angry about the Bulldogs' rushing onto the field in a mass team
celebration after scoring the first touchdown last season. He's also
quoted in a new book as saying he'll handle it when the teams meet this
season.

On Thursday, Georgia coach Mark Richt again tried to explain that what
happened was not a planned celebration, and that the players
misunderstood what he meant by a team celebration. He said it was not a
deliberate shot at Florida, and that he called Urban Meyer the
following day to explain and apologize.

But when told that Meyer was quoted in a book still fuming about the
incident, and asked if the incident had intensified the rivalry, Richt
fired back.

"I don't think there's any doubt it's intensified the rivarly, but what
really intensified the rivalry is that we won, okay? I mean that's the
reality. People want to talk about streaks in that game. The way I see
it, we won last year. We won two out of the last four. And if you want
to start going back to history, you might as well go back to the
beginning of the history of the series and see where Georgia is
there.'' (Georgia leads the overall series).

As for the Nov. 1 game, the Bulldogs expect Florida to have something
up their sleeves. Their attitude? Bring it.
"We know they are going to be gunning for us after the celebration last
year, which we did not plan,'' senior Jeff Owens said. "It wasn't
planned. But we know they are going to have something coming up for
that game. But that's why you play 60 minute football.''