World's Largest Outdoor Playoff

Officially, at least, they no longer call it the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, which is a shame, because what the name promotes in a social-responsibility-by-Amy Winehouse kind of way, it more than makes up for in deep-fried catchiness.

But when the Georgia Bulldogs and Florida Gators meet in Jacksonville, Fla., there's no mistaking this game's unique brand of Mixed Martial Football, no matter what you call it.

Each year, two of the SEC's most storied teams meet in the football equivalent of smashing chairs over heads and shoving broken bottles in faces, while the fans guzzle enough booze to pickle Paul Bunyan's liver. If it can't be "Cocktail," then call the intersection of alcohol and the octagon the Georgia-Florida game if you like, or the Florida-Georgia game if your stripes run orange and blue, or, if you're John Daly, just call it another Sunday afternoon in Hooters.

But if you want to be precise, call it a national championship eliminator.

Welcome to the playoffs.No. 1 Texas' Lone Star showdown with No. 6 Texas Tech will as likely dominate the Sunday morning headlines as it will earn the scoreboard operator a raise, while No. 4 Oklahoma has a must-win game against Nebraska and, as strange as it sounds, Minnesota could be facing its toughest hurdle on the way to a possible Rose Bowl bid against Northwestern.

But nothing will mean as much as Saturday's contest-formerly-known-as-Cocktail tilt.

For Georgia and Florida, the path to the BCS title from here might take a little help from teams above or, possibly in the case of Penn State, some amount of lingering anti-Big Ten sentiment, but the course is easy enough to plot. Both teams will be heavily favored after this game until the SEC title matchup – the only game against a ranked team for either of these should be the Gators' matchup with No. 16 Florida State. Beat a possibly undefeated and likely still wobbly Alabama team for the SEC title and the winner will have two wins over teams like to finish the season in the top-10.

Whether a one-loss SEC champion would deserve inclusion over an undefeated Nittany Lions team is an challenge for another month, but what's certain is that only one team will walk out of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium Saturday with anything resembling an argument.

One team will run to the title. One team's fans will run to the exits.

And In typical backstreet brawl fashion, one team's recent resurgence will be left for dead, even after the each so artfully put the pieces back together following Sept. 27 losses.

A season ago, the Bulldogs beat the Gators for just the third time in 18 seasons, as then-freshman running back Knowshon Moreno turning the game into his own personal highlight reel, complete with a chorus line celebration after the Bulldogs' first touchdown.

Moreno might be able to make Saturday a sequel worth seeing, but that will likely depend on Georgia's rebuilt offensive line. Since the Alabama humbling in late September, coach Mark Richt has tinkered with the unit, which now features three freshmen and is on its fourth left tackle. In the three games since losing to the Tide, the Dawgs are averaging 191 rushing yards per game and quarterback Matt Stafford has only been sacked twice. Florida's rush defense, meanwhile, is at least statistically -- and likely only statistically -- is not that different from last year's unit that Moreno cut into deli-thin slices. A year ago, Florida finished the season allowing 103 yards per game. This year, they're just under 103 yards. While Florida's rush defense limited LSU's Charles Scott to 33 yards , it allowed 133 to Michael Smith and 141 to Kentucky, which ranks ninth in the SEC in rushing, albeit 56 of those yards came in the less-contested fourth quarter.

Florida, meanwhile, has turned its season around on the backs of its smallest players. While quarterback-slash-battering ram Tim Tebow has played better in every game since the Ole Miss loss Sept. 27, it's undersized biggest-men-on-campus Jeffrey Demps and Chris Rainey that have put the jumper cables to Florida's offense.

The true freshman Demps and the redshirt freshman Rainey wouldn't stand six feet if they were wearing stiletto heels, but the elusive backs have transformed the Gators into a team that bears more resemblance to Jesse Owens than Jesse Palmer.

Demps, who ran a 10.01 100-meters while still in high school, may be the fastest player in college football. Whether he's faster than Rainey, who runs on Florida's 4X100 relay track team, remains a closely guarded secret between the brothers of blaze.

But the damage these two have done to opposing defenses is plenty clear. Through the first four games of the season, Florida averaged 154 rushing yards per game. Since the duo took over as the primary ball carriers against Arkansas, they're averaging 163 yards by themselves -- Rainey at 7.32 yards per carry, Demps at 11.75 per pop. And both are home run threats – Demps' average touchdown length over the last three games, including one reception, is 47 yards. Rainey's lone touchdown in that span came on a 75-yard blast.

Whether these faster-than-TiVo backs can scramble against a defense that held Tebow to negative-15 yards in this bareknuckle brawl last year remains to be seen.

If you think they can, call it a Florida edge. If you think the Bulldogs' offensive line will hold, call it a Georgia edge. Or just call it a pick 'em 12-round brawl and hope you're sitting far enough away to keep the blood spatter off your shoes.

Either way, call this what it rightfully deserves to be -- World's Largest Outdoor College Playoff ... and Cocktail Party.