GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida coach Urban Meyer has suspended Brandon Spikes for the first half of Saturday's game against Vanderbilt after the All-American linebacker attempted to gouge the eyes of Georgia running back Washaun Ealey in a 41-17 victory.
Spikes was retaliating after getting his eye poked earlier in the game, Meyer said Monday. The Southeastern Conference said it will look at replays of the incident later in the day.
Spikes is fourth on the team with 42 tackles and has three sacks.
He decided to return for his senior season instead of entering the NFL draft. The team's defensive captain has missed most of two games this season with an injured groin.
I hadn't heard about the eye gouge until Monday but I wasn't the least bit surprised it happened. Not because Brandon Spikes is a dirty player, but because the Georgia/Florida rivalry has become so heated and much of that heat is Bulldog generated. Two years ago Georgia needed to make a statement against Florida. The Dawgs had to punch the defending champs in the mouth and show they weren't scared. They did that with a team wide celebration after a 1st quarter TD. It drew a 15-yard penalty but it also caught Florida off guard. The Gators stewed for a year, came back and beat up on UGA in '08.
This season Georgia had little to brag about. They should have tried to come in under the radar and sneak past a UF team that found itself obsessing about things like Lane Kiffin, the BCS, offensive struggles and their QB's fledgling Heisman campaign. Instead the Dawgs had another team wide celebration after an early TD. This time it had the opposite result. The Dawgs had whipped themselves into a frenzy for Florida and maybe they shouldn't have.
Players seemed to get a little extra oomph early Saturday when coach Mark Richt surprised them in the locker room with black pants and black helmets, a different look for a team that usually wears white jerseys, silver pants and red helmets on the road. The Bulldogs had never worn black helmets.
It didn't make much difference.
"New helmets and black pants ain't going to make you win the game," said linebacker Ryan Stamper, who had one of Florida's four interceptions.
Stamper and his teammates were even less impressed by Georgia's team-wide celebration following Joe Cox's 26-yard TD pass to Aron White that cut Florida's lead to 14-10 in the second quarter. In 2007, the Bulldogs used a similar celebration -- an end-zone stomp that drew flags and Florida's ire -- to propel them to a rare victory in the series.
"That's a bunch of fake juice, coaches trying to get their players going because it was a pretty close game," Stamper said.
After that Tim Tebow ran wild. The senior QB had four TDs against the Dawgs. And now in the misguided motivation category we have to replace Lane Kiffin with Mark Richt. Kiffin may have shot his mouth off in the spring but he's had his team ready to play against the teams he disparaged. Richt, meanwhile, was foolish for trying to pump up what has become a one-sided rivalry.
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