Cheap Shots? That's Just The Way Georgia and Florida Play Football

There's been a lot of debate about Brandon Spikes' cat scratch fever on Washaun Ealey, but there's one point on which everyone seems to agree. Both Georgia and Florida play extremely dirty football and that's the way they like it.

Ealey himself came out yesterday and said that Spikes did not deserve to be suspended (an entire half!) for reaching under Ealey's helmet to gouge him in the face. After all, Ealey had his eyes closed! What could possibly have gone wrong? Besides, according to both Florida coach Urban Meyer and Georgia coach Mark Richt, Spikes himself had been the victim of a cheap shot earlier in the game. So he was just taking an eye for an eye, so to speak.

Meyer said he believed Spikes retaliated after getting his helmet ripped off and eye poked earlier in the game.

Georgia coach Mark Richt said Spikes' "helmet went flying off ... and there was one time he got hit with his helmet off."

"It was totally unintentional," Richt said. "They were totally just playing ball. That might have got him bent out of shape. I don't know about all of that."

It also seems that there were other dastardly villains afoot on Saturday. Another video that mysterious did not get passed around as much as the Spikes gouge—it has even been pulled from YouTube—is one of Georgia linebacker Nick Williams leveling the one and only Tim Tebow well after a handoff. Perhaps that's why Tebow himself defended Spikes with a "these things happen" shrug of his world-bearing shoulders. As Gary Danielson aptly put it, "That type of stuff will come back later in the game."

Emotional game ... violence ... just playing football out there ... no love lost, etc. No one seems to care that these guys want to injure someone on every play, so if the SEC lets them rip each others' heads off then who are we to complain? That's what the fans would do to one another if their hands weren't covered in barbecue sauce..

Georgia running back Washaun Ealey says Florida linebacker Brandon Spikes shouldn't be suspended [ESPN] In addition to Spikes, a Georgia player had a questionable hit on Tebow [USA Today] Florida Turns Blind Eye to Eye-Gouge [Fanhouse] [Photo: Getty]