The Georgia-Tennessee game marks a Saturday of firsts for the Bulldogs and the Volunteers.
Saturday’s game marks Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt’s return to Athens since leaving for the defensive coordinator job at the University of Alabama.
Georgia hosts Tennessee at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
“I think it’ll be cool,” Georgia defensive lineman Michael Barnett said. “I miss those guys and those are the guys that recruited me. It’ll be pretty cool to just say, “hey, what’s up?””
Pruitt served as Georgia’s defensive coordinator from 2014 until coach Mark Richt was fired in 2015. Pruitt headed to the University of Alabama in 2016, where the former Crimson Tide defensive coordinator helped lead the team to the 2018 national championship over the Bulldogs.
The championship game in January –– the last time the Bulldogs faced Pruitt –– will be a game the team uses during preparation for Pruitt’s return to Athens.
“I mean that’s a game we’ll definitely look at,” Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm said. “You know coach Pruitt, he’s going to have his defense. We’ll watch as much as we can and try to get a beat on it.”
Pruitt’s return to Athens features Georgia’s first SEC game between the hedges this season. The Bulldogs are 2-0 in conference play, playing games against South Carolina and Missouri on the road.
The Volunteers (2-2) are 0-1 in SEC play, losing to Florida at home. Although Tennessee suffered a double-digit loss to an unranked Gator team, Smart realizes the difficulties that his team will face Saturday.
“I think this is one of the exciting rivalries in college football,” Smart said. “I look at Tennessee and say that's a really well-coached, hard-nosed fundamental football team that's coming in here off a situation where they had however many turnovers they had.”
Since the programs’ first meeting in 1899, Georgia and Tennessee have played only 47 times. The Volunteers lead the all-time series record 23-22-2.
Tennessee's last victory in the series came after a 43-yard Hail Mary pass in the final four seconds in 2016 –– a game in Sanford Stadium that Fromm witnessed before officially joining the program.
“To be in that situation, after the penalty, and just not something very disciplined,” Fromm said. “I think that coach Smart and the program has gotten a lot better about being disciplined and being able to execute situational stuff.”
With the ability to tie the all-time series against Tennessee, Georgia also looks to correct miscues from the first four weeks of the season.
“It's been close for years, and we have to worry about us,” Smart said. “We have to go correct our mistakes and our problems and make sure that we got our stuff tightened up so we can play the best we can play.”
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