ATHENS — There might be drones. There’s a possibility of fireworks. There definitely will be a light show.
Georgia Athletics is pulling out all the stops for Saturday night’s football game against Tennessee at Sanford Stadium. And justifiably so.
The Bulldogs have been away from home for more than a month, and they’ve absorbed every other teams’ best shots out on the road this season. That’s both on the field and in the sideshows that accompany SEC home games these days.
When the seventh-ranked Volunteers visit Saturday, No. 12 Georgia will play host to a home game for the first time in 35 days. So, now it’s the Bulldogs’ chance to put on a show.
The sky-high stakes riding on the outcome of the game is what attracted both ESPN’s “College GameDay” and SEC Network’s “SEC Nation” pregame shows to town. But this also will be the first true night game at home for the Bulldogs this season. The nationally televised game is scheduled to kickoff at 7:49 p.m. on ABC.
That means UGA will have a rare opportunity to fully engage the stadium’s multimillion-dollar LED light and sound system before, during and after the game.
Exactly what the Bulldogs might have planned, they’re keeping close to the vest. Whatever it is, the UGA administration hopes to enhance it with the element of surprise.
“That is all part of the fun in showing up, to see what happens,” said Alan Thomas, UGA’s associate athletic director for external operations. “A home game at night certainly allows us to take better advantage of a number of our fan-experience tools.”
Georgia has had plenty of opportunities to study other teams’ fan-engagement philosophies. The Bulldogs were the recipient of some incredible shows during what was a nine-week, seven-game stretch in which it played all but two games away from Sanford Stadium.
Kentucky’s fan base was still optimistic and fully engaged in Week 3 when Georgia traveled to Lexington for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff. The Bulldogs got all they could handle on the field, eking out a hard-fought 13-12 win. But the Wildcats also put on an impressive, blue-themed light show for the sellout crowd of 61,663 between the third and fourth quarters.
At Alabama the next week, the Bulldogs might’ve encountered the most intense atmosphere of all. Utilizing a state-of-the-art sound system synchronized with large video boards in all four corners of 101,000-seat enclosed stadium, Bryant-Denny Stadium felt and sounded like a concert venue as Georgia fell behind 28-0 early and fought its way back in what ended a 41-34 defeat.
The most incredible environment encountered by the Bulldogs was on their Oct. 19 trip to Austin, Texas, for the first time since 1958. The No. 1-ranked Texas Longhorns spared no expense. In addition to their regular features, which sees the school turn San Jacinto Drive into “Bevo Boulevard” for home games, Texas’ third-to-fourth quarter transition included a spectacular music-coordinated drone show. That – and the Bulldogs’ 30-15 upset victory – had Bulldogs fans buzzing all the way back to Georgia.
It also triggered a lot of feedback for UGA Athletics about how it might be able to do more with the Bulldogs’ home-game environment. Fans inundated the athletic department with requests for a similar drone show over Sanford Stadium on game days.
There are two problems with that, though. Because of its close proximity to surrounding campus buildings – not to mention Ben Epps Airport – drones to this point are not allowed to fly over or around Sanford Stadium.
There were no drones Saturday in Oxford, Mississippi, but Ole Miss unleashed an elaborate fireworks show to go with the traditional light-and-music show it puts on at the end of the third quarter for home games. There was one problem with the plan: It didn’t account for all the moisture in the air from the all-day rain.
What resulted from the ground-based fireworks was a stadium filled with smoke that took several minutes to dissipate. At the time, Georgia trailed 22-10 and had the ball at its own 21-yard line. Now the field was engulfed in a thick cloud of smoke, and officials had to delay the game for it to subside.
“We had a play called, and we were worried,” Smart said. “I mean, we tried to wait. I think (Ole Miss coach) Lane (Kiffin) was trying to get them to wait, too, because he was worried. We didn’t want that to impact the game. But nobody in the box could see the field, and we could barely see on the field. It reminded me of a fog bowl.”
There is no rain in the forecast for Saturday night. And while UGA generally does not permit fireworks in the middle of campus, it does make an exception for the spring commencement at Sanford Stadium. Word is there is a very good chance that some explosives could be discharged Saturday.
With the Bulldogs desperately needing to defeat Tennessee to keep their flickering College Football Playoff hopes alive, UGA hopes the explosives aren’t limited to fireworks. As has been proved during Georgia’s school-record 28-game home win streak, the Bulldogs are hard to beat at Sanford Stadium, no matter what extraneous efforts are undertaken by the school’s game-day operations teams.
Smart never has been shy about imploring Georgia fans to be extra loud for home games, and he definitely hasn’t been this week.
“Loud, loud, loud and more loud,” he said of what he wanted from the home crowd Saturday. “I mean, we need every competitive edge we can get. So, if you’re frustrated and mad, get loud. You need to get real loud, especially when they have the ball. We need to be loud every time they snap the ball.”
The last time Georgia lost a home game was Oct. 12, 2019, when it fell to South Carolina 20-17 in two overtimes. The problem that day was it was a noon kickoff and the Bulldogs were more than three-touchdown favorites. In recent games such as they will have Saturday, Georgia has proved to be literally unbeatable.
The Bulldogs defeated then No. 1-ranked Tennessee 27-13 at Sanford Stadium on the way to winning the 2022 national championship. Likewise, Georgia rolled over No. 10 Ole Miss 52-17 in November 2023, No. 11 Kentucky and No. 8 Arkansas in October 2021, No. 7 Auburn in 2020 and No. 7 Notre Dame in 2019.
“It’s a night game in Sanford Stadium against a highly ranked opponent. We know our fans will bring the juice, just as they have each season,” Thomas said. “We will push them and encourage them to be in full support of our team and coaches throughout the game. Sanford is and has been a tough place for opponents to play.”
UGA is thought to be one of the first schools in the country to incorporate lights and songs into the third-to-fourth-quarter transition period. In 2019, the “Light Up Sanford” tradition was born where fans raise their lighted cellphones and sway them to the beat of the song “Krypton.”
Thomas has become a regular guest on Athens radio station 960 The Ref’s “Morning Show” each Tuesday this fall. During his hour-long visits, he has polled the audience for suggestions for songs they might like to hear played during certain situations and other things they might like to see added to Georgia’s game-day repertoire.
With no games played at Sanford Stadium the past five weeks, Thomas has had plenty of time to work with Emily Deitz, assistant AD for fan engagement, and senior event producer Anna Pence to incorporate some of those features Saturday. Accordingly, don’t be surprised to see some wrinkles unveiled Saturday night.
Georgia players definitely appreciate the efforts. To probably no one’s surprise, they tend to prefer night games to any other time.
“Night games, the atmosphere is electric,” sophomore tight end Lawson Luckie said. “It’s not the best waiting around all day in the hotel, but when you get out there, it’s worth it. It gets the fans extra riled up.”
Smart likes it, too. He’s witnessed firsthand what the Bulldogs have encountered on the road this season.
But as far as Georgia’s planning and coordination of the home-game atmosphere, he stays out of it other than to ask fans to be loud.
“It’s just part of the entertainment,” Smart said of fourth-quarter fireworks and the like. “I don’t know much about what goes on in that time. I’m so focused on the game that I don’t really care either. … I don’t care about what they do and the entertainment value of it. I just hope we’re competitive with what we do.”
That’s the plan this week.
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