Vandy tops Gators, nets first Florida-Georgia sweep in history

By foxsports
Published

Mark the date, Vanderbilt fans, for Nov. 9, 2013 might stand as the greatest day in Commodores football history.

With Vandy's 34-17 thumping of Florida, it served as the program's first victory in Gainesville since 1945 — and only the Commodores' second-ever road win over the Gators.

But that's not even the grandest historical nugget of the day.

With its Saturday victory, the 2013 squad became the first in school history to knock off both Georgia and Florida in the same season.

Not bad for a Commdores club (4-4, 2-3 in SEC play) that's still one victory away from becoming bowl-eligible for an unprecedented third straight season, program-wise.

(Vandy has remaining games against Kentucky, Tennessee and Wake Forest.)

It's worth noting: Vandy football, a southern staple since 1902, came close to pulling off the Georgia-Florida sweep three times before Saturday:

**1955: Vandy beat Florida ... but lost to UGA, 14-13
**1958: Vandy beat Georgia ... and tied Florida, 6-all
**1961: Vandy beat Georgia ... but lost to Florida, 7-0

The Commodores fostered a white-hot start to their Saturday shocker, converting a Carey Spear field goal (31 yards), Jerron Seymour touchdown run (10 yards) and Patton Robinette scoring scramble into a super-quick 17-0 lead, thus stunning the orange and blue-clad crowd at Ben Griffin Hill Stadium.

Holding a 17-3 advantage at the break, Vandy launched a touchdown drive on its first possession of the second half, with Seymour capping the sequence with a 2-yard TD run.

Seymour then put the game on ice just six seconds into the fourth quarter, posting a 1-yard scoring run — his third touchdown of the day — and extending Vandy's insurmountable lead to 31-10.

For the day, Vanderbilt collected only 13 first downs and 183 total yards.

With its loss, Florida (4-5, 3-4 in SEC play) must now upend either South Carolina (next Saturday) or No. 2 Florida State (Nov. 30) to become bowl-eligible.

On a larger scale, Gators coach Will Muschamp could be in jeopardy of losing his job at the end of the season — if Florida should incur six or more losses, on his watch, for the second time in three years.

Either way, no Vandy player, coach or alum will care about the state of the Gators program, when celebrating the magnitude of taking down Georgia and Florida in the same season.

After all, it took these Commodores 21 days to accomplish something that was apparently a pipe dream over the previous 110 years.