Saturday’s Georgia-Tennessee game could be the last as an annual rivalry
ATHENS — Kirby Smart doesn’t like to hype the Tennessee rivalry.
Some of that is rooted in not wanting to make any game too big and thus put too much pressure on any one game.
“It’s an area in Georgia geographically that it’s obviously the most important primary opponent we play,” Smart said. “You talk to somebody in South Georgia or west Georgia, it may not feel the same way, but they all have their passion and energy. It’s a historic rivalry because it’s been so many years played over time.”
Maybe it’s because Smart doesn’t have fond memories of the rivalry when he himself was a Georgia defensive back. Despite intercepting Peyton Manning in college, Smart never beat the Volunteers during his five years at Georgia.
The Volunteers ran the rivalry in the 1990s before Mark Richt flipped the matchup. As a coach, Smart has made the rivalry noncompetitive — as he is 8-1 against the Volunteers. Tennessee’s lone win came on a Hail Mary in 2016, during Smart’s first season in Athens.
Even as the rivalry has become more lopsided, the Georgia-Tennessee game still carries significance on a local and national scale. ESPN’s “College GameDay” was at the game in 2022 and 2024 and will be on hand again Saturday.
Which makes the fact that it might soon no longer be an annual rivalry game all the tougher to swallow.
The SEC is set to change its conference schedule starting in 2026, as the league elected to expand to nine conference games. Doing so ensures that athletes and fans will get to see the rest of the conference more regularly.
With three annual opponents and six rotating foes, every athlete who stays at a school for four years would get a home and road game against every conference opponent.
“You’re going to get them at home and on the road once every four years. I think that’s good,” Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks said. “When you talk to fans and the desire for higher-quality opponents and then knowing the rotation and being able to plan the next four years, you’ll be able to come out and plan your next four years and say, ‘I’m going to go to this trip in this year.’ I think that’s good for fans.”
Consider Georgia still hasn’t visited Texas A&M, despite the Aggies joining the conference in 2012. LSU last came to Athens in 2013.
As for what the schedule looks like, that has not been determined. Georgia has some things to figure out with its nonconference schedule for next season, as the Bulldogs already have four nonconference games scheduled and must now play a ninth conference game.
Brooks expects those details to be ironed out in the coming weeks. When the 2026 schedule comes out, Georgia will have a better idea of who its three annual foes will be.
As for who that third team might be, there are options. Georgia had a similar history with South Carolina before the addition of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC. Georgia last faced the Gamecocks in 2023 and won’t see them this season.
Kentucky had earned mention as a possible third team when the nine-game conference schedule previously was kicked around. Tennessee likely will have Alabama and Vanderbilt on its annual schedule. But Florida and Kentucky loom as possible opponents.
There will be hard choices made by Commissioner Greg Sankey when the 2026 schedule comes out. While the Georgia-Texas game from 2024 represents the upside of the new league schedule, the loss of the annual rivalry between Georgia and Tennessee is the bill coming due.
How you got them is how you lost them, it would seem. Georgia and Tennessee became an annual matchup when the league expanded in 1992. The constant back and forth elevated it into a rivalry.
Over that time, the two schools have engaged in a number of classic games. From the Hobnail Boot game in 2001 to Joshua Dobbs’ Hail Mary in 2016 to the matchup of No. 1 Tennessee vs. No. 3 Georgia in 2022, these two programs have consistently brought out the best from each other. Only twice — in 2010 and 2011 — has neither side been ranked going into the game since the matchup became an annual rivalry.
Some of the best team’s other players in this rivalry have ties to the other state. Dobbs was from Alpharetta, and Tennessee defensive back Eric Berry starred at Creekside High School in Fairburn.
On the Georgia side of things, Ladd McConkey wanted to go to Tennessee, but a scholarship offer never came. Tate Ratledge’s dad had a Tennessee sticker on the back of his car before Ratledge committed to Georgia. Ratledge and McConkey were key members of Georgia’s back-to-back national championships.
Perhaps the best way to understand the current and future state of Georgia and Tennessee is through Colbie Young. Saturday will be his first trip to Neyland Stadium, as the senior wide receiver transferred in from Miami.
He’s never heard “Rocky Top” live and will get, or rather have, to do it once in his college career.
“I haven’t really heard that song yet,” Young said. “But I played at Miami, and we’d have to listen to Florida State’s song, so I feel like I’ll be good.”
Should Tennessee lose its status as an annual rival on Georgia’s SEC schedule, the trip to Knoxville becomes just another game. Even with the rich history between the programs.
“It’s a lot of big games,” Smart said. “A lot of big games during Coach Richt’s era, and coach (Jim) Donnan’s era, been a lot of big games played between Tennessee and Georgia. Not a lot more I can say than that.”
About the Author
Connor Riley has been covering the University of Georgia since 2014 before moving to DawgNation full-time before the 2018 season. He helps in all areas of the site such as team coverage, recruiting, video production, social media and podcasting. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 2016.
