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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2006 > May > 09
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Aim high for 12th game
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let’s get real here. Georgia isn’t going to be able to play seven home games every year unless we want a steady diet of UABs and Western Kentuckys.
OK, we know the home games are going to sell out, even if the opponent is another Troy or Western Carolina or Louisiana Monroe instead of a top-flight team. But while it might be tempting to think about regularly having seven home games to bolster an already impressive bottom line, that’s not in the best interests of the program. It shortchanges the fans and the players, and just ask the folks over at Auburn what a soft nonconference schedule of designated patsies can do to your chances of playing for the BCS championship.
So how should UGA sue the 12th regular season game now granted by the NCAA?
The UGA Athletic Association already has acknowledged that the only way you can add quality teams to your nonconference schedule is to sign home-and-home deals where they come to Athens one year and we go to their place another year. Already, we’ve scheduled such swaps with Colorado (2006 and 2010), Arizona State (2008 and 2009) and Louisville (2011 and 2012). Which means some years we’ll only have six home games. You know, considering we’re the most profitable football program in the country, I think we’ll survive that.
So far, the UGA schedulers seem to be going for a mix of midlevel major teams like those above and DPs like Western Carolina, Georgia Southern and Appalachian State.
Now, Louisville and Colorado are certainly several steps up from those teams, but really they won’t do that much to enhance the national profile of the Bulldogs. And while I’d love to see traditional rival Clemson on our schedule again at least semi-regularly, that game wouldn’t really benefit the UGA program as much as going farther afield.
Going to the West Coast occasionally certainly would help with recruiting out there — The Athens Banner-Herald reported last week that Georgia is talking to Oregon about home-and home games sometime around 2014 — but playing those Pac 10 schools means not many of your fans (or theirs) can make the road trip.
Really, if we want to be a perennial Top 5 program, we need to play other national powers, and not just in bowl games. There’s a lot to gain from taking on the top teams and not much downside, if you’re talking early in the season. It’s a fact of life in the poll system that early losses don’t hurt you as much as losses later in the season, and early losses to a Top 5 program don’t hurt you much at all if you win out. And an early win over a Top 5 team can give you a leg up on making it into one of the two top spots in the BCS standings.
I asked a number of fans which top teams they’d like to see the Dawgs play. The two most popular choices were either a Big 10 power like Michigan or Ohio State, or a matchup with Texas or Oklahoma of the Big 12. A couple of folks also said they wouldn’t mind seeing the Dawgs play Miami or Virginia Tech of the ACC.
I think any of those games would be great additions to the UGA schedule.
DON’T FORGET: The rubber game between the Diamond Dogs and the Insects From North Avenue is at 7:06 p.m. Wednesday at Turner Field. The 16th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs (31-16, 13-11 SEC) have been on fire the past couple of weeks, winning seven straight, including back-to-back SEC sweeps, to move up to second place in the SEC Eastern Division.
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