As we all know, and as we’re constantly reminded by several commenters here, Georgia is on a three-game losing streak against Florida. So here’s my question for those of you who continue to point the finger at the venue as an underlying cause for underachievement in the series: what would Georgia’s record in those three games be had the series been played on a home-and-home basis?
Let’s assume that Gainesville would have hosted the 2014 and 2016 meetings and Athens would have been the site for the 2015 game. (After all, that fits in with another narrative about how playing the Gators home and home would make for a better schedule in odd-numbered seasons.) If playing away is bad news for the Dawgs, it would seem logical to assume two out-of-state losses right off the bat, which leaves me wondering if starting Bauta in between the hedges would have made any difference in the other game.
In other words, I think we’d still be staring at an 0-3 record in a home-and-home scenario. What am I missing here?
Get The Picture 
I’m an old fart. Been to JAX 35+ times. We used to own the booger eaters. In ’87 I married a booger eater followed shortly by Florida hiring Spurrier. My friends claim it’s my fault but the real culprit is coaching. Outside of inexplicable losses to Zook (although that’s part of the Richt losing games he shouldn’t theory) it’s been about coaching.
I did my part and divorced said booger eater. In fact my wedding ring is buried on the goal line where Edwards scored winning touchdown to break one of those streaks.
Now it’s up to Kirby. Has nothing to do with location.
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Mixed marriages can be tough. 😉
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I did manage to get two great boys who are both solidly Bulldogs!
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Senator..I’m here to tell you.. everything Athens Dog says is true. I’m one of his friends. But enough of my problems..:)
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You know that the home-and-home idea would actually take a dead neutral situation and turn it into a FU advantage, Senator. Why stir up the small group of fanatics who don’t see that? Or have you been bought off by the only group of UGA folks who would benefit from the change, Athens merchants who could gouge fans another weekend every other year? Insanity, I tells ya.
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Of all the things to be accused of…
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Porsche repairs and tuneups are not cheap.
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That’s why I have a day job, Mac.
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Athens merchants do what every suceesful business does. It’s called capitalism. When the demand decreases, so will the prices. Hasn’t happened yet.
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What happened to Bulldawg Sporting Goods on Baxter? Retirement?
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Changes in retail. And yes he retired
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“You know that the home-and-home idea would actually take a dead neutral situation and turn it into a FU advantage, Senator”
How’s that, exactly?
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Neutral field speaks for itself. The unequal part of home and home comes from something that is admittedly subjective, I don’t think Sanford is as strong an advantage for UGA as the Swamp is for Florida. Some may not agree with the second point, but I feel the majority would agree with that. So, in my opinion you take a level playing field and tilt it to FU.
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I tend to think Sanford for a Florida game would be more like the atmosphere for the 2013 LSU game and less like the quiet, pensive, stress picnic atmosphere of last year’s Nichols State, Vandy, or even Tech games, which were all not exactly “lit.” I think it would be pretty rowdy and loud. Not sure anyone else on our home rotation regularly brings out that level of intensity to Athens.
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WHAT!!! That is absolutely the most asinine argument ever made on this blog!! I get that you LOVE having the game in JAX (for reasons I still can’t fathom because apparently you don’t even go to the WLOCP game) but to say that UGA’s home field advantage isn’t as great as FU’s is completely disingenuous. Historically UGA wins games in Sandford Stadium at one of the highest rates in CFB. If you look at Georgia’s win rate in JAX over the last 26 years (about 26%) versus Georgia’s historical win rate ‘Tween the Hedges (over 70%) it’s a no brainer! Only you could look at that and conclude that moving the WLOCP out of JAX to home and home would benefit the Gators. Whatever credibility you had (if you ever had any) on this issue it totally gone now. Sheesh!!
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Agree that Mac’s argument is off base. There is nothing “neutral” about Jax, especially for UGA fans. You may love it, want it, cherish it, etc. but stick to those reasons rather than selling the “neutral” bs. If it’s so neutral, then let’s bring it to the new Atlanta stadium, at least in rotation, and see how the gators react.
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I know the Mayor is off his rocker on this issue, so no use having a conversation on this with him. I don’t understand your statement at all. Love it or hate it, but there is not one thing about the game that isn’t neutral. For all the hysteria surrounding the (limited) argument about the current arrangement, not one person has raised a single legit example of either team having an edge.in this game. None, nada. No one has to “sell” neutrality, because there really isn’t a debate about that aspect of the discussion. Sorry, get an issue where it is just subjective and express your opinion….everyone is equal in the opinion area.
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“Everyone is equal in the opinion area.” No, Mac. They are not. Some people know what they are talking about. Others just make shit up to support their own flawed views. You fall into the latter category. Your post above proves it.
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Well some of that 70% are tasty cupcakes so I wouldn’t count them at all. The team and coaches have, since SOS bought us and owned us, historically crapped their pants. It’s truly a head case now and I’m not sure Kirby can change it. I live down here and all you read is that UF’s players are fired up that UGA is picked to win the East. If SOS was still there the game would be over at the kick off. I’ll never forget the game the year after Donnan’s 97 team finally beat them. SOS humiliated us, he was running Emory and Henry and we had no defense for it. I’m one long suffering Dawg fan that wants it kept in JAX so we can at least have that to blame.
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Georgia’s historical winning percentage in the Gator Bowl is 52%. It was 65% before Spurrier.
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The location has not been cause for our losing, but I think many would just rather do a home and home for other reasons. There are many.
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That is, there are many reasons.
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Yes, Dude. There are many reasons. Among those are that the UGA home schedule is putrid. Adding a home game against the Gators every other year would certainly help.
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I don’t recall many complaints about Jax when we were kicking their butts before Spurrier. The only advantage to going home & home would be to improve our unappealing home schedule, as you alluded to. I think the almighty dollar will keep the game below the state line for a long time.
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0-3.
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Location has zero to do with the outcome of the series. Spurrier vs. Goff/Donnan. Dropped TD passes and pick 6s. Better players for most of that stretch. Inexplicable coaching decisions by CMR. Officials hell bent on paying us back for the Celebration. Corch vs. The Preacher Man. Shock’s knee injury. Gurley’s failed reinstatement. The bye week imbalance for years.
Bottom line – they have been better coached, generally have had better players, and have had almost every break go their way for the last 26 years.
Dammit, Dawgs, it’s time to change all of that.
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http://floridagators.com/news/2016/8/30/chris-harry-hacks-look-back-spurrier-arrival-gators-revival.aspx Read Robbie Andreu’s column 3rd one down. That explains exactly how we got into this mess with the game in Jacksonville. To change the culture we are going to have to move the game. Period.
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I would suggest Florida’s loss of Auburn as an opponent the week before playing us (while we had a bye) is as much the reason for the change as anything. Florida would be beaten up before they played us. We would be beaten up before we played Auburn. The sociology majors would be beaten up before playing Alabama. The Auburn-Florida-Georgia round-robin was a meat grinder back in the day.
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I think that is legit as a major reason EE, combine it with coaching/talent edges in the 90s and you have the temporary blip. I expect we regain traction again and continue the series double digit lead for a while.
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TEMPORARY BLIP??!!! 28 years of losing is a temporary blip? You have lost you mind (if you ever had one).
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Well stated ee. The Terrance Edwards drop in 2002 still haunts me to this very day.
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We’d still be 0-3. That game could have been played in McGs living room and we’d have lost.
Turning the page.
This is a new dawn of dawg domination. We are about to go on a run on these bastards. This BS ends this year and the beatings will commence. Go Dawgs!
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Hope springs eternal.
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Totally disagree. I think the Gayturds were a better team last season so, yes, they should have won that game. But in 2014 Georgia had a much better team and should have won. In 2015 CMR self-destructed by playing Nauta, a running QB, without changing the offense to catch the Gators off-guard like Meyer did to us in 2005. That was a direct result of the Gators being in the head of CMR (and really the whole team) and that culture of losing mentality is as a direct result of where the game is bing played. See the Robbie Andreu column linked above.
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Location means very little, especially when the stadium is half/half. We’d actually regained some mojo when Boom was there, but then squandered it away. Time to reclaim it.
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UGA’s team also flies out of Athens while the Gators take the bus which could be argued as advantage UGA.
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Yes, huge. A 30 minute flight for 20 year old, well conditioned athletes is draining. Amazing how few recognize that.
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Since ’92 UGA has 6 wins over the Crocs, Tenn. has 5.
Yes UT had rebuilding, UGA had Goff and Donnan. UGA did not show up to play in multiple for whatever reason just as they didn’t for 2 Bama games in Athens among others.
I don’t see the WLOCP as a disadvantage. As much as I loathe anything that does the Gator chomp, they have had some very good teams since ’92.
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LSU has 10 win over UF since ’92
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Otto, I have said this many times but need to say it again in light of your comment above: If Georgia had consistently beaten Florida instead of the other way around, Georgia would be the team that you and other people would be saying “had some very good teams…” If Georgia had beaten Florida consistently Georgia would have won all those SEC Championships and natties instead of the Gators. Go back and look at the year by year records.
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You aren’t missing anything. It isn’t the venue, it’s never been the venue. Much of the 90’s Florida had significantly better teams and a much better coach. When Richt took over in ’01 and Spurrier left for the NFL the worm should have turned. Enter Urban Meyer and a stocked roster recruited by Zook and a generational player in Tebow.
The losing psychology took over after the 3-17 stretch and I thought we had broken out of it with the 3 game winning streak during the Murray/Gurley years.
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That modest winning streak was more a reflection of Murray/Gurley (with a little bit of Jarvis Jones tossed in) than a change in the overall team psychology, I’m afraid.
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Agreed, my opinion is, it isn’t just Jax but a team culture. UGA hasn’t won the big games very often in comparison to the rivals we want to beat, and Florida is in the top 3 winning teams since the SEC splits, and our most disliked rival whom we used own, which gives it all the more attention
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Don’t you at least think we ought to TRY playing the game home and home to break the culture that the Senator referenced above? Isn’t trying something different better than just accepting our fate year after year? Hell, we can always go back to JAX after a few years if it doesn’t work.
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No
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I thought you were guaranteeing it would work, Mayor.
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I definitely think it will. I am just trying to make moving the game more attractive to all you naysayers. Try it–if it doesn’t work we can still go back to JAX (but it WILL work). What have we got to lose?
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IMO, the people that want the game changed to home and home, have never been to Jacksonville or St Simons for the WLOCP. One of my favorite weekends of the year, esp when the Dawgs take care of business.
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Agreed. I was in Athens for the home and made several in Jax.
Also make it a game the team designated as the home team can host recruits. For those that say it would be bad for the program when the UGA fans file out, would fans filing out in Athens be any better?
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Brandon, this is EXACTLY what is wrong. You and others of your ilk love your fall trip to the beach and would rather lose the game on a regular basis and have a fun time at cocktail parties than do what it takes to win the game. You want to know why Georgia loses that game in JAX every year? Go look in the mirror–the answer is right there looking back at you.
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Damn it, Brandon… if only you hadn’t dropped that pass Mason threw… er, no… if only you’d blocked better for Chubb… no, that’s not it… if only you’d come up with a better game plan than the 2015 one… no, that’s not it, either. I’m sure it’ll come to me.
I blame Brandon.
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Nice, I’m sure if I post only positive Comments, UGA would have every 5 star UGA offered.
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That is essentially the gist of this whole argument. Pre-Spurrier the Dawgs beat the Turds like a rented mule. Didn’t matter the records or who had the better team.
The 90’s roll around and there is a huge talent discrepancy and an even bigger coaching discrepancy. The bye week for them and not for us had a lot to do with things as well. The 2003 game comes to mind where they basically revamped their entire offense during the bye week and put in the bubble screens we couldn’t defend.
The difference is that UF goes into the game now expecting to win and does whatever necessary to make it happen. The Dawgs go in hoping not to lose and play tight.
It wouldn’t matter if the game was on the moon, If the mentality around this game doesn’t change.
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Everyone that was anyone beat Florida like a rented mule prior to ’92.
They didn’t have 1 SEC title.
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Actually, FU had a lot of good teams prior to 1992 but just couldn’t get past Georgia. That is why they didn’t win any SEC titles. When they started beating Georgia is when they started winning SEC titles.
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They scored 16 points in that game. Georgia’s losses to Florida in the early Richt years were mostly the result of inept offense, 20-13 in 2002, 16-13 in 2003 and 14-10 in 2005. Hell, you could argue the defense played over its head in 2001 by holding that Florida offense to only 24 points.
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I feel like our whole tone towards this series would be different, even today, if it weren’t for the inexplicable losses of 2002 and 2003. 2014 was a pretty bad gut punch as well, but still, the losses of 02′ and 03′ were what put the lunatics in our head…….as Pink Floyd says.
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Sure am sorry guys. I’ll try not to lose my voice from my seats on the 20 this year so early in the game, so that maybe my scream can be the one that drowns out the 4th quarter audible and causes a miscommunication resulting in a UGA pick six to win the game.
And Mayor… I get that a lot of people feel the same way you do about the location. But I believe that is nothing but an excuse or cop out. We’ve been out played, out manned, or out coached for the majority of the last 27 years there. I don’t give a damn if the game was played in Australia, I don’t think our record would be different based on that fact alone.
And by the way – It SUCKS going down there and losing. But I was lucky enough to have gone in ’11, ’12, and ’13, and believe me when I tell you, there is no such thing as a better weekend than partying in Jax while getting to witness the Dawgs pull out 3 in a row over the Gayturds. (I take that back – it would’ve been better beating them by a combined score of 156-0 over those 3 years, but I digress).
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Beating them in Athens would be more fun and a better party IMHO.
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If you don’t attend the Cocktail Party, how would you know?
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I don’t think the venue has a thing to do with the outcomes. We’d still be 0-3 in those last three games. They were a bad matchup for us in the trenches and certain battles like their CBs vs. our QBs. Folks who think it’s a major disadvantage to play there maybe haven’t been there. It’s 50-50 crowd, 80 degrees and sunny.
But, I do think the game will need to move. As a season ticket holder, having your biggest rival and game be played 6 hours away and having to pay extra for that ticket is not going to be sustainable as demand appears to be softening for home games. If I was UT season ticket holder (lord help me if I was), I’d be guaranteed to see Fla, UGA, Bama, and another SEC West team over any two-year period at home. At UGA right now, I’m guaranteed to have to drive to JAX to see our biggest rival ever. And every other year, the home schedule is liable to be junk.
I don’t pin JAX for any of our woes in the series. I just think season ticket demand (or lack thereof) will eventually bring this home and that wouldn’t be an awful thing.
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^This is another damn good reason for moving the game to home and home. It doesn’t get much traction with the Senator and the other “favored few” who have tickets to that game every year and can skip several days of work to go down there.
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Or the Dawg fans in South Georgia who get the short drive once a year.
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I’m in favor of going to a home and home mostly because it would make our home schedule suck less and by extension make our scheduling possibilities a little more flexible. (aka if you want to schedule a marquee non conference game you’re not potentially looking at only 5 games in Sanford stadium).
that being said the lopsided recent record has nothing to do with venue, a little to do with the fact that Florida has had better teams but mostly to do with attitude and mentality. Florida and Georgia both walk into Everbank stadium expecting the same things:
Georgia will lose the turnover battle, esp points off turnovers.
if a Florida has an awful Qb he’ll string together a decent performance and if they have a good Qb he’ll have an awesome day
even if they have had an awful season Florida will somehow manage to make some plays and Georgia even if they are the better team will find some way to shoot themselves in the foot. If Florida comes in with a better team to that point in the season it’s almost an automatic W, only recent exception would be 1997, maybe 2007 and 2012 but the last two are debateable as Georgia seemed to turn the corner in the season from those two games.
Shorter: we’ve become to Florida what Auburn is to us, aka the only way we win is by bringing our best, championship level teams and even then its close or a potential upset. If we’re even or inferior it’s a loss, usually a blowout. In order to change that we’re going to have to stop believing that bad things are going to happen in that game and by extension win enough so that the gators stop thinking they always have shot even if they entered 0-6,7 which is a hell of a lot easier said than done.
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Bauta doesn’t start a home game in Athens. Home crowd alone would have been the juice Richt was looking for. Not saying we would have won, but would have liked our chances better.
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Starting Bauta but not modifying the offense to use his talent was the only time during Mark tenure that I thought he had lost his mind. After that I felt he had been here too long. I think he is a great man and good coach and wish him well but that game was it for me.
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Because?
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Because what goes TDY stays TDY. In other words…you don’t pull dumb ass stunts in front of your friends and family. 😉
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Re: the impact on the home schedule, this is why the UGA AD should be leading the charge on dropping “permanent” divisions and moving to the 3-5 scheduling format. There is no team in the league whose home schedule would be enhanced more than UGA’s under this format. I emphasize the word “permanent” because the best version of that 3-5 format has “divisions” for purposes of determining the participants in the SEC Championship game. It’s just that for UGA, we would have 4 new teams in our “division” every year. Maintaining a manufactured divisional structure still reduces the chance for redundancy alluded to in the Big 12 title game article, despite us never being able to play a full round robin.
Move to that format and you’ve eliminated, or greatly reduced, the most objective reason for moving GA-FLA out of Jacksonville.
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In other words, our problem isn’t Florida in Jacksonville…….It’s Vandy and Kentucky in Athens at a rate 10x that of Alabama and LSU.
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If that were the problem Florida would be struggling.
The problem is the Georgia Way.
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Don’t understand what you’re saying.
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If the problem were the schedule Florida would not have won national titles.
The problem with UGA is not signing, spending, and being willing to hire and fire with the programs that have won more. UGA fails to win and then focuses more on an eye gouge than the X’s and O’s. UGA’s plan to win is a 15 yard penalty after the 1st score. The roster management article today reflects reasons why UGA has not won.
Further football is tradition believe it or not people complain and drop tickets to Kentucky when it does not fall into the tradition of their every other year fall leaf trip North to the Blue Grass state.
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Florida doesn’t win and their blogs are posting OC play calling tendencies breaking it down by down and distance and flaming how predictable their OC was calling for a firing.
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My points:
1. Keep the game in JAX.
2. To help the Sanford Stadium schedule that is admittedly hindered by a permanent neutral site game, scrap the current division format for the 3 permanent, 5 rotating rivals.
Form the divisions from 1 pod containing UGA, USC, UF and the other UT, AU, Bama………the other 8 are grouped in two 4 team pods and rotate as a single unit to match with one of the 3 team pods in even years, switch in odd years for a 7 team “division” not based in geography. Every year UGA would play (1) USC (2) UF and (3) AU…….plus 4 new SEC teams. I am more than willing to scrap annual tilts with UT (which only began in 92), Vandy, Kentucky and Mizzou (2012) to see the other guys more.
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I’m not talking about competitive advantage or disadvantage schedule wise. I’m talking about spicing the schedule up with more variety and, frankly, the more marquee opponents out of [what is now] the West Division.
If a fall leaf trip to Kentucky (which you would still have 1 in 4 years instead of 1 in 2) is a big enough tradition to maintain instead of playing our other conference members more often, then we will just have to agree to disagree. A fall leaf trip to Kentucky sounds like something out of the Georgia Way handbook as to why we can’t ever be bothered to change anything.
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Since we are throwing out ideas, why not neutral and neutral? Jax and ATL. Don’t think it would have helped over the last three years but apparently throwing the kitchen sink didn’t either.
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Atlanta doesn’t pay as well as Jacksonville, so that’s a non-starter.
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Never said it was a good idea… 😜
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How do you know that Senator? We will have “Arthur World” as the new field in Atlanta. How do YOU know how much the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium Authority is willing to pay to get a major game like that at Mercedes Arena? Already negotiated the deal, eh? You are the definition of “fake news.”
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Gary Stokan made a pitch for the game a few years ago, Mayor. He couldn’t come up with the numbers to top Jax.
Seating capacity for football at MBS hasn’t been increased, so unless they’re really going to stick it to the fans — which I guess they could try to do — the math still doesn’t work.
By the way, if they did move it there, ticket allotment for Georgia fans would decrease from the amount available in Jax. Sounds like a plan.
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We beat this to death a couple of years ago and I personally believe that the stadium size is a reason NOT to play in Atlanta–but it is also a reason not to play the game in Jacksonville. The Gator Bowl (or whatever they are calling it this week) seats about 74,000. So does the Georgia Dome (and I take your word that Arthur’s World seats about that amount too). Both Sanford Stadium and the Swamp seat about 90,000. That means by having the game played in JAX every year 15,000 fans of one school or the other don’t get to see their team play in person. That right there is reason enough to play the game home and home. As much of a “fan’s rights” guy as you purport to be I would think you would favor home and home for this reason alone.
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That’s fucking brilliant, Mayor. But why stop there? Neyland Stadium seats 10,000 more people than Sanford Stadium does. Let’s move all of Georgia’s games there! Fans’ rights, baby!
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UT gets to keep all the gate receipts from games at Neyland Stadium and it’s in Knoxville. But you knew that, right? Just more made up BS from you to support something that is really unsupportable.
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No, no, no, Mayor, you’re not getting this. I’m not talking about the Georgia-Tennessee game. I’m talking about moving all of Georgia’s home games to a bigger venue, ’cause we’re all about fan rights here.
If you don’t like Knoxville, how about UGA uses the NASCAR track at Bristol? Or they could just rotate Georgia games at every site in the country that holds more that 92,000. That would be so great for all the fans.
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I knew what you meant and you also know how ridiculous that statement by you was. Suggesting that our fans drive all the way to another state to see their team play in what was being called a home game for our team? Why, nobody would ever allow or even argue in favor for such a thing to happen…er…wait…Senator, is this your new idea for all Georgia’s home games to be like the WLOCP? Brilliant. That sounds like something you would come up with. They should built a statue of you in front of Sanford Stadium and label it “Opponent’s Best Friend.” Admit it Senator–you are really a secret agent for FU, aren’t you?
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The marketing value generated by the game in Jax is enough reason to keep it there. We receive national attention no matter the records, it’s almost guaranteed to be on CBS and the trip serves as a bowl trip experience for our fans. When you have one game that is assured of those three benefits, you don’t change it so that it looks everything else. Forget worrying about the wins or losses on the field and appreciate that the game in Jax is a guaranteed win in all other capacities. That’s enough for me and is most definitely enough for the university.
How many GA/Auburn games have kicked off at noon due to our collective records? How any of those Auburn games do you even remember? Yeah, we won many of those games, but who even noticed? The GA/FL game will evolve into a similar game if it moves. Here’s to hoping that McGarity doesn’t listen to his fan base on this subject. His past record suggests we’re safe.
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Great post Al. 🙂
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You’re not missing a damn thing.
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