The latest Junkyard Mail includes a fan unhappy about plans for the Florida series.
He’s not alone. Read on …
Hey Bill, why is the UGA Athletic Association so hellbent on keeping the Georgia-Florida game out of Sanford Stadium? With stadium construction forcing the game to relocate in 2026 and 2027, it’s the perfect opportunity to reward the home crowd with a rare chance to see the Dawgs and Gators play Between the Hedges. And this time it would be on a much more even basis than 1995, when Steve Spurrier was Florida’s coach and they last visited Athens during a down time in UGA football known as the Ray Goff era. The fans in Athens sit through too many crappy games against the likes of Tennessee Tech, and when a chance comes along to reward them with a really good game, they’re talking neutral sites! It’s bad enough we have to go to Charlotte or Atlanta to see Georgia play Clemson. Why can’t they just throw us a bone and make Georgia-Florida home-and-home for those two years?
— Jack Spencer
I couldn’t agree with you more, Jack, but it appears to be all about the money. I mean, it always has been, but indications are that the schools are concerned about making up the upcoming player compensation settlement that will cost them $20 million a year in revenue sharing.
And since both Georgia and Florida reportedly make about $3 million a year more from playing at the “neutral” site of Jacksonville than they do playing games in their home stadiums, both schools appear to be anxious to offer the game up to other neutral sites in those two years that Jacksonville will be renovating its stadium and putting a roof on it.
DawgNation reported recently that sources close to the situation say neutral-site games in Atlanta and Orlando are much more likely than home-and-home in 2026 and 2027, because the neutral-site options bring a bigger payday.
As I’ve said before, I hate the fact that UGA fans, especially the season ticket holders (including me for 51 years as of the coming season), don’t get to see one of the Dawgs’ best rivalries played in Athens.
At this point, it feels like UGA is bending over backward to keep the game at neutral sites and out of Athens, just to get a paycheck, while Bama, LSU, Ohio State, Michigan and other big programs manage to balance the books and compete without their biggest rivalry game being played at a neutral site.
A DawgNation poll showed 80.4 percent of fans responding preferred a home-and-home series over Atlanta and Orlando as the sites of the 2026-2027 games. And head coach Kirby Smart agrees! Smart has advocated for the series to move home-and-home permanently, in order for UGA to have a marquee recruiting weekend every other year. “I don’t know that people understand the value of that, they don’t respect it,” Smart said in 2022.
Meanwhile, Gator god Spurrier is in favor of playing the games in Orlando and Atlanta those two years — which is one more reason for Dawgs fans to be opposed to that idea.
Yes, Atlanta might be an easy trip for many UGA fans, but that misses the point that folks who pay for Bulldog season tickets should get to see a game like this in Athens and not have to compete for seats at Mercedes-Benz.
And Georgia already plays enough at neutral sites — frequently during the regular season, such as the Clemson game this year, as well as in the SEC Championship, plus playoff games.
As for Jacksonville, I’m not against the game continuing there after the stadium renovation. I recognize it is a tradition beloved by many fans. But playing the game those two years in Atlanta and Orlando is more about preserving a paycheck than preserving tradition.
(After the construction is done, I’d actually prefer a future plan that alternated the game between Athens, Gainesville and Jacksonville.)
Also, if the additional money really is needed that badly, they could go with some sort of “dynamic” pricing (to borrow a term from Ticketmonster) and make it a premium home game in Athens with a higher ticket price.
I wouldn’t love that idea, since season tickets (and the donation needed to get them) are pricey enough already, but at least we’d get to see the Dawgs and Gators Between the Hedges.
Bill, let me say up front that I consider Sanford Stadium to be a wonderful stadium, probably the best in the country. But I was surprised to see it listed by EA Sports as the fifth most difficult place for opponents to play. Do you think it’s really more intimidating for visiting teams than Neyland or Jordan-Hare or Michigan Stadium?
— Perry Randolph
When the opponent is a worthy one, Sanford certainly can be that intimidating. Granted, that hasn’t always been the case. I do remember times in the past where it mainly was the student section that made the noise.
However, that started to improve during the Mark Richt era (with the decibel level getting pretty intense during big games against LSU, South Carolina and Auburn).
And since Smart took over, playing as the visitors in Sanford really has become more of a challenge, with the noise so great that opposing teams frequently have difficulty hearing or changing signals and have to burn timeouts.
In recent years, the big games against Notre Dame and Tennessee saw the crowd become a definite factor in the game, as noted by Smart. And since the “red-out” fourth-quarter light show was introduced, night games have become particularly raucous.
EA released various rankings this week to promote its College Football 25 video game’s July 19 release. In picking the most difficult places to play, the company said it factored in home winning percentage, home game attendance, active home winning streaks, team prestige and more.
In a discussion of the EA rankings at The Athletic, Max Olson, who covers national college football for the site, noted that Smart has a 44-4 record in home games and has won 13 consecutive games against ranked opponents at Sanford Stadium.
“His teams are obviously extremely intimidating to play on any field, and Sanford’s game day experience has certainly been elevated in recent years,” he said, though he granted that “I’m sure there are several fan bases — Penn State, Florida State and Florida, especially — who’d argue they deserve the Bulldogs’ spot in the top five.”
On the other hand, Pete Sampson, a staff writer for The Athletic who covers Notre Dame football, said: “From personal experience, nothing tops Sanford Stadium in Athens. Georgia got on the light show trend early and knows how to keep a party going all day and all night. And good luck snapping the ball. At Georgia, no one can hear you yell ‘hike.’ It’s a perfect marriage of fan culture and five-star talent.”
By the way, according to other EA Sports rankings released this past week, Georgia also has the best offense, the second-best defense (behind Ohio State) and was ranked the best team overall, followed by Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama and Texas.
Hey Bill, with the conferences realigning this year as the SEC, Big 10 and ACC all expand, I’m looking ahead to what I figure is the inevitable next expansion and thinking about who the SEC should add. With Clemson and FSU suing the ACC to try to get out of that conference, I figure they’d be the two natural additions, but if the conference were to decide to go to an even 20 members, who should they add besides Clemson and FSU?
— Leo Bearne
I actually addressed the subject of future superconferences in the Blawg two years ago. As I said then, I’m not a big fan of the idea, but if there was another round of expansion, there’s not much of interest for the SEC left in the Big 12.
So, any new members likely will come from the ACC, assuming some court strikes down the grant-of-rights deal the conference has its members locked into through 2036.
Most people assume the first two additions would be Clemson and FSU, since both have similar program expectations and comparable fan bases to the SEC’s existing programs and would add competitive value to the conference.
Beyond those two schools, the other ACC members that I think would bring some value to the SEC are North Carolina and Virginia.
The Tar Heels are the flagship school in a state that the SEC would like to enter. Also, UNC is competitive in football, if not exactly elite, and its addition to the conference would kick SEC basketball up a big notch. On top of that, UNC is a member of the Association of American Universities, a prestigious group of research schools, which would add some academic prestige, an area where the SEC might want to burnish its reputation a bit.
I also could see UNC, once one of UGA’s nearly annual foes in football, becoming another rival for the Bulldogs.
As for my other choice from the ACC, I originally was thinking Duke, because it would be neat to bring their storied basketball rivalry with UNC to the SEC, and the SEC presidents might like adding another academically prestigious school. But while Duke is prized for its basketball and academics, its football program isn’t built to compete in any superconference. And, in addition to not fielding very good teams, the Blue Devils suffer from low attendance and their fan base is lukewarm about football.
UVA, on the other hand, also brings a strong academic rep, has a fairly recent basketball national championship, and can squint and see the infrastructure for a decent football program. Plus, it would bring the SEC closer to the DC television market.
If Virginia didn’t pan out, North Carolina State would be a decent choice.
I don’t think Miami would be a particularly good fit for the SEC in terms of athletic culture; the Canes haven’t been nationally relevant in football in more than 20 years, and they’re known for having a meh fan base.
So, if you add Clemson, FSU, North Carolina and Virginia to an SEC that already has added Texas and Oklahoma, you’d end up with a 20-team conference that still had a geographic identity and also covered some of the most talent-rich areas of the country for college athletics recruiting.
I chatted recently with a couple of other fans about this idea. Retired Atlanta sportscaster Bill Hartman said he doesn’t think UNC, N.C. State or Virginia could keep pace in the SEC when it comes to filling big stadiums and having big donors. He could see them joining the SEC, he said, “but they would be bottom-feeders.”
He added: “Other than Clemson and FSU, I can’t think of anyone else who could really compete.”
However, my buddy Scott Peacocke (godfather of the Junkyard Blawg, who came up with its name) thought the first choices for the SEC should be UNC and Virginia, over Clemson and FSU, because the latter two “don’t add anything to the overall mix of the conference. Clearly, they are good football programs, but the SEC already has 10 of those. Going to 12 doesn’t move the needle significantly.
“And the SEC already has an imprint in Florida and South Carolina. Virginia and North Carolina are true expansions. Plus, they raise the bar on basketball and women’s sports. And, laugh if you will, but the SEC presidents would love to add academic heft to the conference. Regular fans don’t care, but academic administrators pay attention to that stuff.”
Scott also wondered whether Georgia really would be all that happy about Clemson and FSU joining the SEC, since Smart’s program recruits directly against both of them.
As usual, time will tell.
UGA baseball is still on my mind a bit after the great run they had this spring and into early summer. This team was very much a product of the times we are now in with college sports. Last year’s squad was mediocre. The coach was fired and Wes Johnson came aboard. He completely rebuilt the team with 28 new faces, resulting in a deep postseason run, coming just one game short of a trip to Omaha. College teams now have the ability to completely overhaul a roster in one year and become instant contenders. UGA proved It can happen in baseball. Basketball is even more prolific (Auburn, for example, is now a Top 20 program). Ole Miss might be one step away in football. Do you think this ability to transform a team into instant relevance will become more and more of the norm in college sports as the years go on?
— Don White
I think the remaking of teams from one year to the next via the transfer portal is now a fact of life in college sports — baseball and basketball, in particular.
I think such a one-year makeover is much harder to pull off in football. The so-called Coach Prime basically has whiffed trying to do it at Colorado.
It’ll be interesting to see this season how successful Ohio State and Ole Miss are, since both made major portal additions. While the Buckeyes have added a handful of key players, Lane Kiffin has hit the portal in a much more extensive remake of Ole Miss, especially on the defensive side. If he pulls it off, I expect a lot of coaches will start hitting the portal more and more in college football.
With the new format, I believe NOT playing in SEC championship game, yet still qualifying for the post-season, is preferred. One less game to risk injury and a week to rest. Just like a bye week that the SEC champion earns, [only] without the risk. And making the SEC championship game, but losing, means risk and no bye.
— Joey Terrell
You may be right, Joey, though I doubt Smart and his staff would see it that way. They not only want the SEC championship rings, but they also want that first-round bye in the College Football Playoff that comes with the conference title. To extend your own line of thinking, having to play an additional playoff game would mean another chance for injuries, and that essentially would cancel out the benefit of not playing in the conference title game.
I know it’s near football season, but I’m also a UGA basketball fan. Both UGA football and basketball are 1a and 1b to me. It’s exciting to see UGA basketball do good in recruiting. Which incoming freshman or transfers (not named Asa Newell) are you excited to see? The reason I’m not letting you pick Asa Newell, is because that’s probably everyone’s No. 1 answer.
— Cole McCannon
Good question, Cole. Georgia is considered to have a Top 10 signing class for 2024-25, with four high school prospects and five transfers, and this is exactly the sort of one-season makeover referred to by a previous letter writer. Just based on what I’ve read about the players that Mike White is bringing to Athens, I’d say the two players who appear (on paper) to be promising additions are Savo Drezgic and Tyrin Lawrence.
Drezgic, a guard, is a consensus four-star prospect originally from Belgrade, Serbia, who played for DME Academy in Daytona Beach, Fla., during the 2023-24 high school season. Among point guards, he is ranked No. 5 by On3.com, No. 10 by 247Sports.com and No. 20 by rivals.com.
And grad transfer Lawrence, also a guard, scored 1,000 points during his career at Vanderbilt and averaged a team-high 14.6 points per game in SEC play for the Commodores last season.
