ATHENS, Ga. -- A pair of Florida players made headlines earlier this week with a little smack talk directed at Georgia. Cornerback Chauncey Gardner commented that Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm had been completing simple passes, throws that anyone could execute.

Sophomore wideout Joshua Hammond, a UGA target during his recruitment, added that while the Bulldogs are 7-0 this season, they "can't beat Florida."

Those comments may have caught fans by surprise, but Georgia's players told reporters on Tuesday that they expect that sort of thing from Florida.

“That’s Florida," sophomore safety J.R. Reed said. "That’s what you expect from some teams. Some teams you don’t expect it. But it doesn’t bother me that much.”

That may be because of what Florida defensive back Jalen Tabor, now with the Detroit Lions, had to say about Tennessee last off season. He said that the Gators would make it 12 in a row against the Volunteers in 2016 and that close, referencing Tennessee's games against Florida in recent years, only counted in horse shoes.

Tabor even had a comment about how Peyton Manning finished his career in Knoxville without a win over the Gators. The Volunteers would go on to defeat Tabor and company 38-28 that season but the Gators got the last laugh when they represented the Eastern Division in the SEC Championship game in December.

If you think about it, a little smack talk at Georgia is something Florida has earned as this point. The Gators have won three straight in the rivalry, all by 14 points or more. UGA has its sights set on representing the division in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in at the end of the regular season and snapping a three-game losing streak to the Gators will go a long way toward making that happen. Blocking out the noise, even the trash talk, is a major part of that plan.

After all, they hear much worse after the whistle during games and what more would you expect in a rivalry game once termed the Worlds Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

“Yeah, definitely. It’s a rivalry," senior outside linebacker Lorenzo Carter said when asked if he's come to expect that kind of talk from Florida. "You don’t expect anything less. There’s going to be a lot of trash-talking out there on the field too. But as long as we go out there and keep playing football, the way we’ve been playing, physical and fast, all that stuff is going to take care of itself.”

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