At Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla. — better known as The Swamp — an ominous warning is sounded pregame for visitors.

ONLY GATORS GET OUT ALIVE!

It was quite true until just recently. In the 20 years from 1990, Florida posted a 113-13 home record, best in college football for that time period. Hawaii contributed to that gaudy mark, falling 56-10 to the Tim Tebow-led Gators there to start the ’08 season.

Things have changed, and Florida — national champions in 2006 and ’08 — is now 4-7 with one game left, against Florida State.

Let’s put it this way: Things could be worse for Norm Chow, coach of 0-11 Hawaii. He could be Will Muschamp, who is the Gators’ coach but probably not for long.

If Muschamp’s days weren’t numbered before, they are now after Georgia Southern whacked Florida 26-20 on Saturday, dropping UF to 3-3 at home with its first loss to an FCS school.

And it was no fluke. The Eagles won by running it down Florida’s throat with a fourth-quarter drive.

The Gators lost 10 players to season-ending injuries. But that’s no excuse against Georgia Southern, which lost 17 scholarship players while going 7-4 in its last season in the Southern Conference. The Eagles move up to the Sun Belt in 2014.

"We battled through so much adversity this season," tight ends and punters coach Sean Saturnio said. "What a great way to say aloha to the FCS and aloha to the FBS."

Yes, the same Sean Saturnio who played at Hilo High and UH and was the Waipahu High head coach. When former UH assistant Jeff Monken took over at Georgia Southern, Saturnio, 46, ventured to Statesboro as a volunteer coach on sabbatical from the Hawaii DOE. That evolved into a full-time assistant job at the school that also helped develop the coaching careers of former Rainbow Warriors Ken Niumatalolo and Ivin Jasper, now at Navy, and where UH head coach Bob Wagner found his offensive coordinator, Paul Johnson.

Saturnio said Monken has tweaked the flexbone, hence the need for a tight ends coach.

He has brought some island culture to Statesboro, Ga., and "pau" for "done" has become a staple around the football office. But Saturnio’s heart is now in the deep south. He proposed to his girlfriend, Sharon, while being interviewed for a video after a practice in August. They married in October.

"Talk about a whirlwind," he said. "In 2013 I got married to my Georgia Peach and we beat Florida."

Saturnio said the option offense that helped Hawaii to success in the late 1980s was a big reason for Saturday’s win.

"And we went to a lot of no-huddle, so it negated the noise factor," he said. "But it is still a great atmosphere and a tough place to play."

The thing I love most when the underdogs win the so-called bodybag games is they get out of town with a big bag of loot to go with the W … In this case, $550,000 for Georgia Southern (which also put a mild scare into Alabama two years ago, trailing the eventual national champs just 31-21 late in the third quarter).

Saturnio said that money won’t go toward a recruiting trip for him to the islands, at least not yet. His recruiting work for now involves "a lot of long drives on country roads."

"I’m hoping for the future," he said. "The things that are important to people here are the same as in Hawaii. It’s just pine trees instead of palm trees."

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Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.