It wasn’t necessarily a whim of television executives that landed Georgia a noon kickoff Saturday in Columbia. The Bulldogs actually lobbied for an early kickoff.
Coach Mark Richt admitted during Tuesday’s news conference that UGA lobbied the conference office to keep it away from a late kickoff if at all possible.
“Well, we didn’t lobby for noon, but we weren’t interested in 9 o’clock. Even 6 (p.m. ET) would have been tough on us,” Richt said Tuesday. “A 9 p.m. game would’ve gotten us in about 6 or 7 in the morning. A 6 p.m. kickoff would have gotten us back about 3 or 4 in the morning. Knowing you’ve got another game the next week, it would’ve been tough. So we were hopeing for an earlier time than those two, especially 9 o’clock.”
The Bulldogs have two of the longer away games they could possibly play coming in back-to-back weeks. They play Arkansas in Little Rock on Oct. 18. That game has been set for a 4 p.m. ET kick.
Georgia’s travel logistics are a little more difficult this season since Delta, its official carrier, grounded its regional charter service this past year. As a result, the Bulldogs are having to bus to and from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which lengthens the overall commute.
Playing at noon actually gets gives the players the chance to sleep in their own beds at a decent hour Saturday night. Kicking off at 11 a.m. local time should also mean for a less intensified atmosphere at Missouri’s Faurot Field.
Not everybody is thrilled about Georgia’s early start, though.
“I actually heard where it hurt some of our fans who are trying to go to the game,” Richt said. “Some of them were planning on flying in on Saturday morning and getting there in time for kickoff for a 3 or 6 or 9 (p.m.) game. We definitely were not trying to hurt our fan base in any way, shape or form. But we were just thinking in terms of the rest that’s needed to be prepared for the next one.”
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