UGA looks to increase national exposure

Athens — When Georgia’s football team travels to Arizona State this week, it’ll be the longest trip the Bulldogs have taken for a regular-season game since Dwight Eisenhower was president.

And it’ll be the first time the Dogs have left the Southeast for a regular-season game since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House.

Aside from bowls, the trip to Tempe, Ariz., will be Georgia’s longest since a 1960 excursion to Southern Cal and first outside the Southeast since 1965 and 1967 visits to Michigan and Houston, respectively.

In the decades since, no major college football team has stayed closer to home than the Bulldogs.

That changes this week.

“I always had that concern about us not getting outside our region,” Georgia athletics director Damon Evans said. “I’ve had a thought of us becoming more a nationally known program. One of the best ways to do that is to take your biggest or most recognized sport across the country.

“I want to grow our brand,” Evans added. “I think getting across this great country of ours and showing people what the Georgia Bulldogs are about will help with our brand recognition. I think it also will help with our recruiting.”

Evans said he is committed to playing, in addition to Georgia Tech, at least one other non-conference opponent from a BCS league every year. He is committed to two-year contracts with such opponents — a game in Athens one year and on the road another year.

In fact, Georgia already has scheduled one opponent more distant than this week’s: It’ll play at Oregon in 2015. The Bulldogs will go to Oklahoma State next year and to Colorado in 2010.

Evans said the key to the change in scheduling philosophy was the NCAA’s addition, starting in 2006, of a 12th regular-season game each year.

Under an 11-game schedule, Georgia maintained that its SEC slate — including the annual neutral-site game against Florida — and its rivalry game against Georgia Tech discouraged other non-conference road games. That was partly because another road game would have left the Bulldogs with just five home dates some years.

“We weren’t willing to do that,” Evans said. “But when the 12-game schedule rolled around, it presented a great opportunity.”

Along with the inter-regional games, Georgia has scheduled Louisville in 2011 (here) and 2012 (there) and restored Clemson — a frequent foe in past decades — to the schedule in 2013 (there) and 2014 (here).

Even with a 12-game schedule, Georgia gives up a lucrative seventh home date each time it adds a non-conference road game. That amounts to a loss of more than $3 million in ticket and concessions revenue.

“If our brand grows, that revenue will be made up,” Evans said. “And if these games help … put us in position to compete for the national championship, that itself outweighs money.”

Bulldogs coach Mark Richt said he concurred with adding some far-flung opponents.

“The bottom line was, we wanted to … give our fans and players the experience and allow the other side of the country to maybe take a little more notice of Georgia and not look at [UGA] as such a regional team,” Richt said.

He said such games could provide recruiting benefits.

“There might be one great player on that side of the country who gets a chance to go to the game … and all of a sudden takes a liking to [Georgia],” Richt said.

Still, such a trip can substantially complicate the season, especially when it falls — as it does this year — on the week before an SEC showdown against Alabama and on a schedule that already includes games at LSU and Auburn.

“I’m always mindful the Southeastern Conference is a tough conference,” said Evans, a former Georgia football player. “At the same time, I believe that in order to be the best you’ve got to beat the best, and you’ve got to get out there and play a national schedule.”

To offset such schedule challenges, Evans said Georgia plans plans to book one Division I-AA opponent each year. The Bulldogs opened this season against Georgia Southern and will play Tennessee Tech next year.

“We’re trying to maintain some balance,” Evans said.

He noted other SEC teams — particularly Tennessee and occasionally others — have made trips out West in recent years.

And he sees the shift in Georgia’s philosophy as one that could lead to some compelling — although not currently scheduled — match-ups in years ahead.

“Think about this: Michigan down in Sanford Stadium and us up in The Big House,” Evans said. “Or Notre Dame down in Sanford Stadium and us up in South Bend.”