It's 1,918 miles to Tempe, we've got a full roster of players, half a bottle of bourbon, it's hot and we're most definitely going to be wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
Yet another article came out yesterday about the Bulldogs historic lack of travel outside of the Deep South for non-conference games. This time, the Macon Telegraph weighs in. Luckily, Josh Kendall wrote this one so it's a nice homer piece. In the article, Damon Evans talks about Georgia's scheduling philosophy in regards to leveraging the 12th game to broaden the UGA brand and recruiting base.
He specifically mentions Notre Dame as a team that he'd love to see us play. I seriously doubt the Irish will be down with that anytime soon, but I'd love to see it.
Teams that I've heard rumors of varying quality that UGA has spoken with over the past few years about home and home series include (in no particular order):
- Michigan (per Damon)
UCLA (discussions fell apart late)
Notre Dame (per Damon)
Penn State
Nebraska (rumored date conflicts)
Oklahoma (rumored date conflicts)
Washington
Oregon State (they canceled)
See Also:
-- UGA Schedule: Long Tough Road - GSB
-- Are Your Bags Packed - GSB
-- Phil Steele's Toughest Road Schedule - Blutarsky
What are your thoughts?
PWD
14 comments:
Fellas- I just don't understand the urge to play some of these big name teams. I understand the interest and perhaps the desire to go out and test ourselves against some out of conference big boys, but playing these games in addition to the already ridiculous SEC slate is borderline absurd. It does catch up to you and usually the week or so afterwards against an average opponent. Are we better than So Car? Yes. Are we better than ASU? Yes. Are we better than Alabama? Yes. But are we able to beat all of them back to back to back ? Very, very tough. There is no reason to add an ASU to our schedule. We do not need it regardless of what some pundit or skeptic may say. Anyone agree ?
PWD,
I'm with you about teams we should schedule. I do think we should be looking for top 25 teams, but not top 5 teams unless we draw the Misses from the West.
I also think NCST or UNC might be a decent schedule. Close enough to make the journey and we do recruit NC pretty well, so it couldn't hurt to shore up our efforts there.
Living in Tallahassee, I for one would love to see a series with Florida State. Aside frome the obvious CMR connection, its only about a 300 mile trip from Athens, as well as being right in the heart of one of the country's best areas for high school football
anon 3:55...honestly, it's mostly about vanity. Fans want a cool trip and to shut up rivals and pundits who dog us for playing Northwestern South Carolina. That's most of your motivation.
When it comes down to what's best for the team, well, just read the Steele link.
Evans' statement about broadening Georgia recruiting base just blows my mind. Here we have a team that already gathers top 5 classes in a talent-rich state. We already have huge contributors from as far away as Texas and New Jersey. So from the "recruiting base" angle, Evans is busy addressing problems that we don't have.
"It a'int where you from, it's where you at." As a displaced Dawg living in SoCal, I am all for these intersectional matchups. I fully understand the peril that lies therein, but I also love the braoder exposure. 5 years ago, all I got for wearing a "G" logo, was "Go Packers." After I slapped those people silly into recognition, they saw the red and black. Nowadays, everybody out here, USC fan or not, knows and fears the Dawgs. I love it. Hey, I am coming home for at least 2-3games a year, that is a given, so something a little closer or a different locale for me is bliss, not to mention the opportunity to visit and experience places and cultures I'd never see. Reminds me of limitless possibilities and being young, just like college @ UGA, to get all esoteric for a moment. So, I say bring it on, I know SEC is the toughest out there, but play early enough in the season and get out there and enjoy being the biggest, baddest Dawg on the block.
My wish list, 2 per BCS Conference:
Florida State
North Carolina
Texas A&M
Nebraska
Ohio State
Penn State
West Virginia
Pitt
Washington
USC
hobnail boot
that list is great i would LOVE to have another crack at wvu and it would be cool to play fsu. BUT we CANT play these tough teams when lsu and bama are on the schedule. we just cant. but the yrs we play the miss. schools bring it!
CPC vs. CMR= battle of the icons
Groo,
Isn't Northwestern South Carolina = Clemson? I would love to play 'em every year.
What I don't understand is why it's "absurd" to schedule out-of-conference peers. You guys are worse than the wusses from last year who were afraid to see Georgia possibly end up in the Rose against USC. I personally hope Georgia schedules the best teams they can get their hands on. At worst case, we might occasionally lose a game we wouldn't otherwise and get stuck in an Outback Bowl against Michigan instead of landing in a awesome BCS Bowl against a ferocious team like Hawaii.
I pretty much completely agree with Dante. Bring it on. If you want to try and get it for years w/o LSU, that's fine, but honestly I wouldn't care even if we did play them all in one year. There should be one fluff game per year and the other 2 OOC outside of Tech should be top notch teams.
What bothers me is this. When we play a team like ASU, Ok. State, Colorado, etc these are teams that are just good enough to beat you on a down day, but not good enough to garner any great respect for beating them. You pony up and play USC you're going to get respect no matter what, barring a total beating. My list:
FSU - Play Bowden again
Boston College - revenge for 01 Music City bowl
West Virginia - also revenge
Penn State - revenge for 82 Sugar Bowl
USC - Richt/Carrol match up
Texas
Texas AM
Nebraska
Honestly, right now if we replaced ASU and CMU with Texas and Notre Dame the difficulty wouldn't be that much more. Plus it would look a hell of a lot better.
Anon 3:02,
Don't sleep on ASU. They are going to be Top 10-12 when we play them, and they will likely end up in the Fiesta or Rose at the end of the year.
Beating them will be the biggest regular season non-conference win since the 1991 Clemson game when the Tigers were #7 at the time and later won the ACC.
PWD
Gentlemen- don't get me wrong, I'm not scared to play any of these peanuts. It's just that Ohio St has to win virtually one game yet again in '08, that being against USC and early on. They do that- they're in the BCS title game. They get the benefit of playing nobody all year (short one game) and get to the championship game. Why would we want to voluntarily take on a ridiculously tough schedule OOC if we can help it ?? We'll be judged the same as Ohio St- by our W/L record.
Found this interesting in comments from SMQ's Contender Series about Ohio State:
And next time an SEC team wants to go north then give Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith a call. Georgia backed out of talks with us, because they refused to travel to Columbus. They wanted Ohio State to travel to play them, but they flatly refused traveling for a home and home
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