Who are they scheduling for, anyway?

In his Mailbag yesterday, Seth Emerson makes a Cocktail Party-related point ($$) about Georgia’s future home scheduling.

But when it comes to the home schedule, as weak as it has been for Georgia in many years, that should change post-expansion because the SEC is getting rid of divisions. No more guaranteed home games every other year with Vanderbilt, Missouri, Kentucky (sorry, Mark Stoops) at the expense of rarely seeing Alabama, Texas A&M, LSU, etc. The home SEC schedule is going to be much more palatable to the fan, which ultimately may take away some of the argument for moving the Florida game.

Is “may” in that last sentence doing some heavy lifting?  Judging from the comments section here, I would say those in support of moving the Georgia-Florida game to a home-and-home series fall into one of two camps, those who want to strengthen the home schedule and those who want to give Smart their full endorsement in how he chooses to run the football program.

For the former group, then, yes, this would seem to be a valid point in favor of maintaining the Cocktail Party status quo.  But for the recruiting über alles gang, led by Kirby Smart, I’m afraid it’s a moot point.

Which brings me to the thrust of this post.  Ultimately, we Georgia fans, especially those of us shelling out money for season tickets, are consumers of an entertainment product.  As Seth notes a little later in his post, “There isn’t any groundswell of discontent about the site of the game that Smart is tapping into.”  How much should the movers and shakers in B-M take into account the wishes of the people funding the program versus the stated wishes of the head coach?

I’m not asking that in the context of worrying about folks closing the wallets.  I’m asking that in the sense of how much respect should the school show the fan base.

I’m mentioned before that being asked to be a prop in Smart’s recruiting show at G-Day doesn’t sit entirely well with me.  Being a Georgia fan isn’t a job.  It’s not even a responsibility.  It’s a choice, albeit an emotional one.  If the UGA-UF game goes home and home in the name of recruiting, I’ll live with it, but it won’t make me happy if I’m not only expected to get over losing a valued tradition, but expected to participate in making showing up for the Florida game as a recruiting obligation on top of that.

I recognize this may be something for some of you where your mileage may vary from mine, and that’s cool with me.  Curious what y’all think of this.