To Florida, It’s the Pose of a Winner : Southeastern: Gators beat Georgia, 26-24, and then show the Bulldogs’ Hearst what a Heisman Trophy looks like.

Florida shut down Garrison Hearst and denied seventh-ranked Georgia the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division title.

Then the Gators turned on the Georgia fans.

Saturday’s 26-24 victory was the third in a row in the neutral-site series for the No. 20 Gators, and it left a bitter taste in the mouth of Hearst for reasons other than Florida’s holding him to 41 yards rushing.

Several Florida players taunted Georgia fans who made up about half the Gator Bowl crowd of 82,429 by striking Heisman Trophy poses in the end zone after the game.

Some fans threw cups and ice toward the field, and police eventually intervened to keep the incident from escalating.

Hearst didn’t have any comments on what his second-lowest rushing total of the season (Mississippi held him to 40 yards) might do to his chances of winning college football’s top award, but he did respond to the Gators’ behavior.

“That shows they have no class at all,” the junior tailback said. “Coach (Ray) Goff always tell us, ‘Win or lose, have some class about yourselves and don’t do things to try to taunt the fans or the other team.’

“Florida definitely doesn’t have any class doing stuff like that. It just typifies what Florida is.”

The victory was the fourth in a row for Florida, 5-2 overall and 4-2 in the SEC, which is back in the driver’s seat in the SEC East after losing two of its first three games.

Georgia, with help from Tennessee’s 24-23 loss earlier in the day, would have wrapped up the division title with a victory. It finds itself tied with Florida in the loss column with one conference game remaining.

Florida, which built an early 16-point lead and then ran out the clock after Georgia pulled to within two points, has two SEC games left. If the Gators and Bulldogs finish with the same league record, Florida would win the division title and a berth in the first SEC championship game.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” said Florida defensive back Monty Grow. “Florida’s never knocked Georgia out of the SEC, but they’ve done it to us. Now we’re even. It’s beautiful.”

Shane Matthews threw touchdown passes of nine yards to Jack Jackson and 14 yards to Willie Jackson, and completed 28 of 45 attempts to finish with the 13th 300-yard game of his career. In three games against Georgia, he has passed for 948 yards and nine touchdowns with no interceptions.

“The greatest thing about Shane Matthews is he’s a senior and we don’t have to see him again,” said Goff, who is 0-3 against Florida.

“We just made too many mistakes,” the coach added.