The Evil Genius returns: Will he bedevil Georgia again?

ATHENS, Ga. - He's not the Ol' Ball Coach in these parts. To Georgia fans, Steve Spurrier has always gone by a more nefarious name - Evil Genius.

During his dominating reign at Florida, Spurrier spent a dozen years treating the Bulldogs with disdain. From poking fun at "Ray Goof" to running up the score Between the Hedges, he never missed a chance to bedevil the red and black.

Now, with Spurrier returning to the Southeastern Conference at less-imposing South Carolina, the Bulldog faithful are eager for revenge. No. 9 Georgia (1-0) hosts the Gamecocks (1-0) on Saturday.

"He's got a way of irritating fans," former Georgia coach and athletic director Vince Dooley said Tuesday.

The Spurrier-coached Gators beat the Bulldogs an astonishing 11 out of 12 years, and most of those games weren't even close. The average score was roughly Florida 36, Georgia 16.

But that's ancient history to Mark Richt, who lost his only meeting against Spurrier as a head coach but was part of eight wins and one tie in 13 games as a Florida State assistant.

"I don't think he's a villain," said Richt, in his fifth year as Georgia's coach. "I like him."

But Richt got a sampling of what Bulldog fans think of Spurrier on a call-in radio show Monday night. They made it clear that settling an old score was a top priority.

"I have to tell them that victories are very, very precious in the SEC," Richt said. "I'm not fibbing a bit when I say I'd be thrilled to have a one-point victory. Even if it was 3-2, I could probably swallow that."

Florida's most memorable win over Georgia - or the low point, from the Bulldogs' point of view - came in 1995.

While the teams normally play every year at the neutral site of Jacksonville, Fla. - a.k.a "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" - they went home-and-home for two seasons while the Gator Bowl was being rebuilt for the city's new NFL team.

In 1994, Florida blew out the Bulldogs 52-14 at The Swamp. The following year, they romped to a 52-17 victory at Sanford Stadium. But winning at Georgia by a laughable margin wasn't enough for Spurrier, who called a pass play with just over a minute remaining that resulted in Eric Kresser's 8-yard touchdown to Travis McGriff.

Afterward, Spurrier giddily explained how he was told before the game that no opposing team had ever scored 50 points Between the Hedges. He wanted the Gators to be the first.

A decade later, Spurrier still pokes fun at Georgia with that trademark wit. Asked about that '95 game, he said this week, "They didn't seem to be mad about it. They only had about 5,000 left in the stadium."

Any dislike of Spurrier starts "first with the winning," Dooley said. "Not only that, on other occasions he might make comments. He might score more points here in Athens. Instead of trying to slow the scoring down, it seems like he never tried to slow the scoring down. That really rubs (people the wrong way). So it's a combination - the winning and the other things."

While Spurrier left for the NFL before most of Georgia's players even got to college, they've had no trouble grasping what this game means to those in the stands.

"I lot of people are more concerned with beating Spurrier than they are with beating South Carolina," senior quarterback D.J. Shockley said. "It wouldn't matter who he's coaching for. They want to beat him."

In his second visit to Athens, Spurrier will face a program that is vastly improved from its position 10 years ago.

Then-Georgia coach Ray Goff - reportedly referred to as "Ray Goof" by Spurrier - was wrapping up seven mostly disappointing years as Dooley's successor, an era that coincided with the Gators' rise to prominence in the SEC (six championships in 12 years for a school that never won a league title prior to 1990).

Under current coach Mark Richt, Georgia has won 35 of its last 41 games, including an SEC championship in '02, and finished in the Top 10 three years in a row. Last week, the Bulldogs looked very impressive in a 48-13 rout of Boise State, moving up four spots in The Associated Press poll released Tuesday.

"The time I went there, they weren't near the team they are now," Spurrier said Tuesday. "A different environment, completely different. A different team. A different head coach. The fans, probably their enthusiasm is about 10 times greater than it was that day."

The Georgia players insist they have bigger goals in mind than getting even with an old rival.

"Everybody says it's Spurrier vs. Georgia," safety Greg Blue said. "It's South Carolina vs. Georgia. We've got to play THEM. They've got a lot of great players. I'm not focused on what coach Spurrier is going to do."