A little less than two weeks ago, the James Madison Dukes were one of the toasts of the college football world.

The Sun Belt darlings were 7-0, and new head coach Billy Napier looked like he had exorcised all of the demons that plagued him at his previous stop in the Sunshine State.

The Dukes were lighting up the scoreboard, and talks of a College Football Playoff appearance were starting to crop up all around Harrisonburg.

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Since then, the mood has soured considerably in the Shenandoah Valley, thanks to a two-game losing streak that has effectively ended any CFP dreams that purple and gold-clad fans had swirling around in their heads.

But it isn't just the number in the loss column that has JMU fans vexed, it's how those losses happened and who they happened against that is causing all of the consternation.

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Both games were almost identical to one another in terms of how they went, as the Dukes were healthy favorites against both Appalachian State and Troy and raced out to considerable first half leads before stagnating in the second half, losing both games in overtime.

What's even more damning is that the second half swoons have been happening quite a bit this year, with James Madison being outscored in the final 30+ minutes in four of the eight games they've played against FBS competition.

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In other words, this isn't a new development.

If only someone could have warned Dukes fans before they hired a guy like Napier.

Oh wait...

If you read my buddy and fellow Gator fan Zach Dean's latest edition of Nightcaps, you're already aware that there is somewhat of a mea culpa happening on social media between James Madison fans and Florida supporters.

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My Orange and Blue brethren spent all offseason repeatedly cautioning the JMU faithful about Napier's tendencies and pig-headed nature when it came to coaching.

Dukes fans were confident the issues had been fixed, even pointing to the fact that a self-reflective Napier went on a speaking tour talking about how he "looked in the mirror" and took ownership of how things fell apart in Gainesville.

He even hired an offensive coordinator, something he was practically begged to do for four years while coaching at Florida.

The national media got on board, too, wondering if Florida really was just some toxic situation where even the best coaches went to kill their careers.

The media and Dukes fans even doubled down when JMU got off to that aforementioned 7-0 start.

Then it all came crashing down, and the same issues that sank Napier in The Swamp reared their ugly head in the Commonwealth.

Poor clock management, stagnant second half offenses, head-scratching play calls in high-leverage situations.

You can find a handful of Florida games from 2022-25 that resemble the two most recent JMU losses to a T, so much so that many Gator fans were accurately predicting what would happen next.

A tiger can't change its stripes, and although Napier went out and hired an OC and did some reflecting in the offseason, this is who he is.

In his final season at Louisiana as the head coach of the Ragin' Cajuns, Napier uttered the now infamous "scared money don't make money" catchphrase that made him a hot candidate during the 2021 hiring cycle.

Ironically, every coaching moment for Billy after that has been the definition of "scared money."

This latest masterpiece sums it all up perfectly.

Napier coaches with a style that offers the lowest possible margin for error.

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It's why, even in games he was dominating while at Florida, the game would always usually come down to one score in the fourth quarter.

His swan song in The Swamp, a shocking 29-21 upset over then-top-10 Texas, saw the Gators bludgeoning the Longhorns on both lines of scrimmage.

Any coach worth his salt would have put his foot on Texas' throat and put the Longhorns away early, but Napier and company "turtled" in the second half, making a few boneheaded decisions in the process, to allow the Bevo Boys to have a chance to tie the game late in the fourth.

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And perhaps the worst part of it all is who came before Napier at James Madison.

The coaches directly preceding Billy in Harrisonburg were Curt Cignetti and Bob Chesney, two of the most calculated, ruthlessly efficient coaches in the game of college football right now.

Everything they did made sense from an analytics standpoint, and their teams were (and are) well coached and almost never "play with their food."

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I'm sure Dukes fans are experiencing some form of shock having to go from coach Cig and Chesney to Sun Belt Billy, but as I mentioned above, they were warned.

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It's nice to see the JMU faithful finally coming around, but it might be too late to save them at this point.

The Florida Gators are still orange and blue. The Georgia Bulldogs are still red and black.

Other than that? Nothing will be recognizable in today's annual SEC rivalry game. And I mean nothing.

For starters, the game won't be in Jacksonville for the first time in three decades. It won't return to Duval until 2028 due to stadium renovations. Today, it'll be at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in Atlanta. Next year, it'll be in Tampa.

The name of the game itself has also undergone major changes. For years, it was known as "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party." Fans still affectionately call it that even though the NCAA changed it ... for obvious reasons.

This year, arguably the SEC's biggest rivalry game outside of LSU-'Bama will be known as — and I hope you're sitting down for this — the "Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic."

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Rolls right off the tongue!

So, yeah — a lot has changed. None of it is particularly good. Perhaps the most contentious change at the moment? The roof at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which will be closed this afternoon despite glorious weather conditions in Atlanta.

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Fans from both teams — divided on just about everything else — were firmly united in this one.

They hate it:

Neutral site games STINK

I could go on and on. Nobody is happy right now. Again, both these fanbases hate each other, but they've found some real common ground when it comes to this year's game.

I'm with them, by the way. Frankly, I think this game should be in Athens, and I think next year's game should be in Gainesville before it returns to Jacksonville in 2028. That seemed like a no-brainer to me.

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But the schools decided to play it at a neutral site because, I assume, corporate checks hit the bank account a little differently. Those are important in today's NIL world, you know?

Personally, I think neutral site games in college football are just awful. They stink. The best thing college football has going for it is the campus atmosphere. That's why we love it, right? It's what makes College GameDay and Big Noon Kickoff great. It's why the college football playoff is great — at least for the first round.

But over the past decade or so, there's been this shift to neutral site games. You see it all the time in the season-openers. There's just no juice. No spark. It doesn't quite hit the same.

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And don't get me started on the international games. Throw those in the trash can and toss the bag into a landfill. There is nothing worse than an international college football game. Nothing.

Give me a break.

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Anyway, happy Florida-Georgia day to all who celebrate!

No need for sunglasses in Atlanta this afternoon.

ATLANTA - There is obviously a different feel to the annual "World’s Largest Cocktail Party" this year thanks to the showdown between Florida and Georgia being played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, compared to its usual home in Jacksonville.

Between the normal tailgate experiences that take place over the 24 hours to kickoff and the overwhelming feel of tradition for this showdown that happens on a yearly basis, it's actually the fans who are feeling a bit underwhelmed by the game being played in Atlanta this season.

Thanks to ongoing renovations at EverBank Stadium, which is home to the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars, this highly-contested game is calling Atlanta and Tampa home for the next two years.

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Sure, there isn’t much either team can do about its usual venue, with the game scheduled to return in three years along the Florida coast.

But fans of both teams were hoping that the opportunity to play this rivalry game in both Athens and Gainesville over these two years would have been on the table for the first time since the 1994 and 1995 seasons, which was also due to renovations in Jacksonville.

"I don't really understand it, though I know it comes down to money," Andrew, from Ocala, told OutKick. "It would have been pretty cool to make the trip to Athens and experience what it's like to play this game in a home stadium.

"Honestly, I think they fumbled an opportunity to do something different. Where the heck are we supposed to tailgate here in Atlanta? Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for the actual game, but I think we're going to be missing out on the normal tailgate fun that we usually host in Jacksonville."

Money, you say? Yes, it comes down to the almighty dollar.

The Cocktail Party was put up for bids, and money talks...

If you were under the impression that these neutral site games were going away in favor of more home-and-home series in college football, I think you're forgetting about how much each team is paid for these types of games.

When both universities put this showdown up for sale, the offers started pouring in. Sure, it helped that Atlanta is the home of the SEC Championship game (that could be ending this season), but it also came down to how much Falcons owner Arthur Blank was willing to pay each team to play this game inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Arthur M. Blank Sports and Entertainment, which runs multiple venues and events for the city of Atlanta, is paying each school $7.5 million to host the, while the city of Jacksonville is paying $1.5 million each over the next two years for their promised return to Florida.

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Each team also received 29,071 tickets for this game, so it should still look like the annual showdown in Jacksonville. But, obviously that would not have been the case if this was played in Gainesville, with SEC guidelines noting that each visiting school receives around 4500-6000 tickets.

Starting to see why this game was never going on-campus? It should be noted that only the home team would see the revenue generated by this game if it were to have been played in either Gainesville or Athens.

When you factor in the cost of staging a game like this, it makes more financial sense to keep it at a neutral site.

But, that doesn’t take away the frustration from some fans who made the trip to Atlanta.

"I just don't care for another game inside this darn stadium," Thomas, a Georgia fan, told OutKick. "Hell, we should just turn this into our second-home with the SEC Championship game. I guess that's actually a compliment to Kirby Smart and my Dawgs, but it would've been interesting to make a trip to Gainesville, even if I hate the Gators.

"I just hope it has the same feel as Jacksonville does every year. But yeah, I am excited to see us whoop Florida's ass, but it would’ve been nice to do it in their home stadium at least once in my lifetime under these circumstances."

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Now that the CFP is expanding, bowl sites and cities are looking for inventory

And, there will be more neutral site games to come in the future in college football.

A city like Nashville is the perfect example; it already hosted Ole Miss and Louisville to start the season. After agreeing to cancel their home-and-home series, both Georgia and Florida State agreed to play inside the Tennessee Titans' new stadium in 2029, with them preparing to take home a nice payday in the process.

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There will be others as well, as Dallas and even Las Vegas are still in the market for a neutral-site game, and both have already hosted such games in the past.

So, with the CFP on the brink of expanding to 24 teams, there could be openings across what is known as "bowl season."

"It might not be in the next two or three years, but we're already looking at potential options to potentially host games at the beginning of each season," one bowl game executive told OutKick.

"Playing more home games in an expanded playoff means lesser big-brand teams being available for our postseason matchups. We already know that adjustments are going to have to be made in some form, and I don't expect us to just disappear like some want to report. It's all about adjusting with the times, so maybe it could benefit us to open the season with our game, compared to ending it."

Today, Georgia and Florida fans gather for what should be dubbed the "World's Largest Indoor Cocktail Party' in a city well-versed in hosting big games.

There are only about five games remaining for most teams before we start to get into Bowl season and the Conference Championship games. There has been a ton of fluctuation on the Top 25 this season, with very few teams looking like a confident option to make it into the College Football Playoffs. Florida and Georgia play today, and a win here for Florida would go a long way for its case and probably hurt the Bulldogs quite a bit.

The Florida Gators are 5-2 for the season, with both losses coming in SEC games. This has been a hard team to judge this year. The Gators have had some really good games, and then a few ugly ones. Their best game came when they destroyed the Ole Miss Rebels. That was a ranked matchup, at home, and they took down the team with a solid 52-28 victory. Unfortunately for them, their success was rather short-lived.

The next week against Missouri, they lost 45-17, barely even showing up for the game. It didn’t get any better the following week as they lost that game 38-19 to South Carolina. That’s a game they will want back at the end of the year. Two weeks ago, they went into Texas and won that game 27-24. It is a bit confusing how the team could’ve beaten both Ole Miss and Texas, but lost to Missouri and South Carolina. The schedule doesn’t really get easier, either. The Gators have Georgia today, and then they face Kentucky in a couple of weeks. Plus Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, and Florida State are still on the schedule. It does seem like if they lose here but win out, there is still a case to be made for them making the College Football Playoffs, but it would be unlikely.

Georgia is one of the best teams in the country as usual, but the Bulldogs did lose the last game they played. They are 6-1 for the season, with the lone loss coming two weeks ago against Auburn. They had a bye week last week, so they’ve been stewing on it for a few weeks. This is a team that knows how to rebound from losses, but it does feel like the loss never should’ve happened in the first place. This is also the start of three straight games against ranked opponents.

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To start the year, Georgia rocked Tennessee State, then took down Western Kentucky, winning both by more than 50 points. The Bulldogs played Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Vanderbilt in the next three weeks, winning all of them by multiple scores. Against Alabama, in Alabama, the defense did everything it needed to do. The Bulldogs won 20-17 over their rivals, but that may have set up the letdown against Auburn.

Georgia and Florida should put on a good show for us. Both have been off for a week, so they could start a bit slowly. The two of them should have had plenty of time to prepare for this matchup. I don’t see this game being a high-scoring matchup. I feel like each possession will be important. Georgia doesn’t want to lose back-to-back games. Florida can’t really afford to have a third loss on its record. I’m going to take the Gators +12.5, but I do feel like this will be a bit of a nail-biter situation.

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