Puzzling tweet from Friday:
What do you figure makes that so in Kelly’s mind – both teams lost to Alabama in championship games, or revenge for 1981?
Seriously, I’d love a home-and-home, but given ND’s new scheduling deal with the ACC, this doesn’t sound like anything more than cheap talk.
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UPDATE: Mark Richt has lost control of Brian Kelly.
Get The Picture 
My guess is recruiting in Georgia/Atlanta.
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It’s all about recruiting in GA and there’s no way I’d want us to do it unless it is a home & home. None of that come down to the Dome or brand new TaxPayer Burden Stadium and ingratiate yourselves to recruits crap.
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Kinda hard to recruit when you just got your face stomped in by the home team, but I do sorta see your point.
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They can still come down and visit games in the area on Friday night and also spin to recruits, “See, you might even get to play near your family once in a while.”
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“Cheap talk” gets my vote…The college football equivalent of name dropping.
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“Cheap talk” gets my vote. He doesn’t want to play the SEC or he’d find a way…it’s not like ND doesn’t have any influence in these things.
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Looks like I’ve voted twice….and I’m not even a Democrat.
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You gotta get me in on that. Want to show other folks how to do that in another state where the GOP takes their vote away.
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Can they still vote?
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Not for long
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spiders
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Well if you look at our recent track record we haven’t exactly been the best at marquee out of conference games (Boise St. Oklahoma St) so maybe he thinks he can get a win against a top SEC team.
Since they are a pseudo ACC team why couldn’t we play them in the Chick Fil A Kickoff classic one year? I would love to beat the snot out of them.
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Would love to play the game. But knowing Greg McGarity, he would rather play Indiana State than ND. Shocked that he kept the Clemson series.
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You are correct Bob. No possible way McFrugal gets this done. He will not give up a home game and the revenue that a Cupcake State will bring in. I do give Damon Evans credit for understanding the importance of spreading and growing the Georgia brand with high profile OOC games.
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Agree, you can knock Damon for poor judgement away from the office but I loved his approach to scheduling interesting home and homes with decent quality opponents. McFrugal could take lessons.
A ND home and home would be interesting for two reasons, it gets the Northern press to shut up with all the love for ND based on days of old, and it is an interesting road trip. Easy for Kelly to throw this out because he knows it won’t happen. UGA should have gotten in on this earlier when ND had more flexibility and we had an AD with balls.
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Honestly, I’d happily take a home-and-home with Northwestern instead. It’s closer to Chicago.
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I gave to admit, Chicago is one of my favorite US large cities, the only one is the North. Still, would be easy to combine a couple of days in Chicago with a ND home game and get both.
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Thumbs up. It doesn’t even qualify as Yankee, rather as a microcosm of all the cultures representin’ in the US.
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Evans was foolish. He was scheduling our team to spend 6-10 precious, game weekend hours on planes flying to the Mountain and Pacific time zones (Arizona, Oregon, Colorado) to play big games…and then having them turn right around and continue the normal regular season schedule with a game the following weekend. That’s a recipe for burnout – if not at that point in the schedule, then later on as the season progresses.
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+1. Cube, once again you demonstrate that you are one of the very few regular posters on this blog that actually get it.
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Total nonsense. We lost those games because we were not very good. Colorado sucked and we were unlucky. Oklahoma State was decent. Lots of teams play games across country and play well the next week. Simply an excuse and a pretty weak one at that.
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We have a lot of excuse makers in our fan base, on many subjects (playing in Jax, suspending players that misbehave, not recruiting UGA exclusively, etc., but one of the very weakest is travel fatigue. I am not talking about a trip from the Far East on 60 year olds, we are talking well conditioned athletes under 23 years of age being on a plane for 4 hours. Are you really serious guys? I know their is no sarcasm font, but when you make a statement that lame you should try to hide behind something. If that is a weakening factor, we have much more serious issues preventing us from winning football games than travel cramps. (Of course, one of these jokers thinks sleeping in a strange bed for the Cocktail Party, combined with that mind-numbing 45 minute flight to Florida is a legit excuse.)
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I’m not talking about college kids being on a plane for 4 hours. I’m talking about them being on a plane for 6-10 hours (fyi – they have to get home too) during an absolutely packed 13 week regular season with only 1 off week, which already contains an SEC schedule and Georgia Tech, and a possible conference title game waiting at the end.
There’s a reason why NFL teams don’t want to play in London. It screws up their schedule for not just that week but the surrounding weeks as well.
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Excepting Alaska and Hawaii, there isn’t a 6-10 hour flight from the West Coast, the team flies non-stop on a jet with no more than a 3 hour time change. I submit a case could be made the team gets more sleep flying back from the West Coast to Athens than they would if we played a home game. Sorry, don’t buy the theory. If it were a constant travel pattern throughout the season, maybe, but we have only played one game West of Colorado in decades. Once a year is a non-factor, so is the NFL playing in London. A high altitude game could be a factor but I was at the game in Boulder, fatigue wasn’t the reason we lost there, and we won the next week.
The only thing stupid about our scheduling is not playing a quality opponent OOC while forcing lousy home games that are uninteresting to fans. Doesn’t matter what we think, you win, McFrugal is going to play it your way.
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You’re not accounting for the flight back. Playing Oregon means 10 hours on a plane. Playing Arizona State means 8 hours on a plane.
As far as your evaluation of it being a non-factor, I’ll repeat that most NFL coaches and players don’t want to play in London. I trust that they know what they’re talking about. Hell, I’ve heard many of them talk about the toll an opposite coast trip takes on them. And this is their profession. They don’t have to study for unrelated subjects, take tests, get tutoring, and go to class. Not to mention that I’ve also heard Richt talk about not wanting to play games out west.
And as far as the altitude or desert heat goes, it’s just dumb to put yourself in that position to begin with. Damon didn’t know what he was doing with scheduling.
And again, I’m all for having a 2nd quality OOC game on the schedule. I just don’t think we need to travel across the country to do it. What’s wrong with Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, Oklahoma, FSU, and Clemson?
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We could also pay the $$ and get respectable teams to come to Athens without having a return engagement at their place. We did it for years under Joel Eaves and VD.
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“Playing Arizona State means 8 hours on a plane.”
Unless I’m wildly misunderstanding you and you didn’t mean to relate this to UGA at all, well, I hope you’re in charge of my miles next time I fly somewhere. 8 hours from Arizona gets you somewhere in the former Soviet bloc.
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You are wildly misunderstanding Ty. It takes 4 hours to get to Arizona and 4 hours to get back. 8 hours.
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And 8 hours from Arizona would not put you somewhere in the former Soviet bloc. It would put you somewhere in the Atlantic. Getting close to Europe but not quite there.
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I didn’t say that is why we lost those games. I said it was stupid scheduling by the AD.
“Lots of teams play games across country and play well the next week.” First of all, name a few. Second, name how many of those play in the SEC. Third, name how many of those play well in the SEC. Fourth, name how many of those play well in the SEC and compete for national championships. Fifth, name how many of those play well in the SEC and compete for national championships AND already have a permanent out of conference opponent from a BCS conference.
Look, I’m ok with playing a 2nd quality OOC game. I just don’t want to be stupid about it. There are plenty of options that don’t put us on planes for large chunks of the weekend to play in environments we’re not even acclimated to (high altitude – Colorado; dry desert 100 degree heat – AZ State).
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Yes, losing in Stillwater and Boulder really bolstered our brand while Florida was winning National Championships playing home games vs Cupcake State. I mean, playing middle of the road Big 12 teams does so much more for your brand than championships.
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Evans nor Richt, nor you for that matter, could predict a loss to either OSU or CU. Damon did his part in getting the Dawgs to Tempe, Boulder and Stillwater. He deserves for credit for attempting to grow the brand. If you are looking to place blame, you should direct it towards Richt and the staff. Obviously you have no issues with playing North Texas and Buffalo on a routine basis. I would rather roll the dice and play a Notre Dame or Clemson in a home and home rotation. Not only do the Dawgs receive national air time and the hype surrounding such a game, but you also huge credit for a win. I want a national title as much as anyone. We will see if McFrugals methods deliver a crystal football to Athens.
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Holy crap……I actually AGREE with Skeptic Dawg.
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It’s not that those were guaranteed losses, it’s that north Texas is a guaranteed win and a chance to rest starters for the games that matter. That’s the problem. Beating asu didn’t matter when we returned to Athens and got spanked by bama. Winning our sec games is what matters. Get to Atlanta with one loss and it doesn’t matter who you played. The fact that folks can’t understand that is beyond me. We were out of the bcs picture in 2011 because of Boise. Had we played a cupcake and gone to Atlanta at 11-1, we’d have been playing lsu for a shot at all the marbles, and no one would have cares who we had played on labor day weekend.
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+1. Another guy who gets it.
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I would rather see good football week in and week out and live with the consequences to our national championship hopes from time to time than have three games of every precious football season wasted on the Buffalos of this world. At least give me Maryland.
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Amen skeptic, Amen. Some of us are legitimately sick of playing crap teams. And it was not that way until the 90s.
Look at UGA’s National Championship Schedule….we played 6 SEC teams. We played two from the SWC in TCU and A&M; we played an ACC team in Clemson and we played two independents, GT and South Carolina. None of them were called Buffalo or App State or anything remotely close to that stuff.
Now, TCU, A&M and Tech were not particularly good, but that stuff happens. But they were major schools and they were from major conferences. Look at Bama in the 80s…they played USC in LA and won and came home and won the following week. So have LSU and Auburn and Tennnessee.
Enough with the excuse making that favors playing freakin N. Texas State instead of a home and home with Texas or Oklahoma or whatever.
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We didn’t travel west of Louisiana from like the early 70s until 2008. So much for the good ol days.
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Right cube, but we still played West Coast and Texas teams. They came to Athens and played us ‘tween the hedges but we DIDN’T go to their place. Cal, Oregon State, Baylor, TCU, A&M (Herschel’s breakout game in 1980-I was there), UCLA, Brigham Young (Steve Young was their QB–I was at that game,too) and others all came to Athens without a mandatory return engagement. Look it up. But that was before we hired red panties who had no clue about scheduling.
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Look, I’m the last guy to ever defend the Gators but, if you check their 2006 and 2008 national championship schedules, they actually opened those seasons with non-cupcake teams. They opened 2006 with Southern Mississppi and Central Florida, two teams we have played horribly against at home in the last 20 years (1996 and 2003, respectively). In 2008, they opened with Hawaii (who was undefeated in the regular season the previous year) and Miami, FL. (no explanation needed there). Yes, they have played cupcakes in other years but oddly enough, these years they didn’t.
http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/florida/2006-schedule.html
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The Clemson series was only 3 years away when he took over in August of 2010. And Clemson is a short, cheap bus ride away. Not that shocking when you think about it.
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Richt has coached at least one game in each 30 minute increment kickoff timeslot starting with noon and ending with 9 PM except for 2:30 PM. Naturally, we need a home and home with Notre Dame just so Richt can get that timeslot under his belt.
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Bring. It. On.
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Yep. Why didn’t Kelly do that last year?
By the way, who scheduled tOSU if not Mac? Noticed that tOSU backed out (?). Call Kelly’s bluff by paying App St $1M and scheduling ND’s ass in their vacated spot this year. Now that would be great challenge headlines and revert to old days where “Gettin’em between the Hedges” meant something more than a football game.
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Oregon.
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I would love this but we all know that McGarity ain’t gonna sign up for it anytime soon. Not while future conference scheduling is up in the air. That’s half of why the Ohio State series was cancelled (the other half being that Ohio State wanted to cancel too for their own scheduling reasons).
And Notre Dame ain’t gonna sign up for it right now either. Their future scheduling is up in the air as well, due to them (sort of) joining the ACC.
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As long as contracts call for only a $10K dollar cancellation penalty for a multi-million dollar event, who cares? Make all the headlines you want with announcing a highly anticipated event 10 years away, by then it will only equal the cost of a decent golf trip for a foursome that involves flights. Still wish we had played Oregon and kept tosu. The divorce of NCAA divisions cannot get here fast enough.
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Oregon? I kinda wish we’d kept the Louisville series. All. The. Bourbon.
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Kelly is going to claim a victory over the SEC later in the year by saying, “I wanted to play them and they wouldn’t play us.” He has been learning from Wies.
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If I could have a baby for my wife so she could avoid that pain, I would.
Said the guy who knows that will never happen. Same thing here.
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“UPDATE: Mark Richt has lost control of Brian Kelly.”
Gordon Gee* expected to tell McGarity not to broker the match up on a Thursday or a Friday
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Pet Peeve: we didn’t play them in ’81.
It was part of the 1980 season.
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The game was played on Jan. 1, 1981.
Potayto, potahto, man. 😉
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Oh, I know.
Of course with pending bracket creep looming, the 2020 season will likely end in 2022.
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What I take from this: Notre Dame needs a quality SEC team on its schedule more than a quality SEC team needs Notre Dame on its schedule. Or to put it another way: buyer’s remorse after effectively joining the ACC.
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Oh how I wish Vandy would take the offer and beat ’em. Or Ole Miss. Maybe Miss St. Not Mizzou or aTm…they aren’t really SEC yet. And Kentucky…please go sit in the corner until you are told to come out.
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Well, Ole Mss already did a number on the Irish, in 1977. Made me some money betting on that one, based purely on hunch. ND was ranked 3d, I think, and Ole Miss was supposed to get stomped, but won 20-13. ND went on to win the national title, as I recall, and Ole Miss didn’t do much else. They did almost beat us in Athens, tho. I went there thinking we’d easily avenge the Dawgs’ only regular season blemish in ’76. Instead, there we were on our feet as the Dawgs barely pulled it out, 14-13, and I think that’s because they went for 2 and missed. (That ’77 Georgia team has to be one of the most disappointing ever.)
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