ATHENS — As the Georgia Bulldogs prepare for Saturday’s SEC opener on the road against Kentucky, it’s hard not to see their coming schedule like the other side of that first big hill on a roller coaster. The anticipation while clicking up to the top is fun and exciting, then comes the terrifying reality of the twists, turns and loops that are ahead.
And now, it’s “go time!” Georgia’s visit to Kroger Field on what’s expected to be a stormy night in Lexington is its first of eight consecutive SEC games.
Or, put another way – all of them.
The Bulldogs are one of only three SEC teams who had the reconfigured 2024 schedule work out to play eight league games in a row. The others are Ole Miss and Texas, which play theirs consecutively to end the season.
“It’s a gantlet,” coach Kirby Smart has said since first laying eyes on Georgia’s slate.
The uniqueness of the Bulldogs’ eight-game conference run is it comes slap dab in the middle of the season; Spanning weeks three through 12, there is the welcome relief of having a pair of bye weeks interspersed within, which all SEC teams have in the league’s new scheduling model. But for the Bulldogs, there will be no Texas-El Paso’s or Mercers to break up the grind. From now until late November, it’s all SEC.
Then there is the sheer competitive weight of Georgia’s draw. As per this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll, the Bulldogs will face during the coming stretch of road games against three of the nation’s top five teams in No. 4 Alabama (Sept. 28), No. 2 Texas (Oct. 19) and No. 5 Ole Miss (Nov. 9). The run concludes Nov. 16 at home against Tennessee, currently ranked No. 7.
Of course, Georgia is No. 1 in that poll – and all the other ones as well. And exactly what incarnation of each opponent a team draws annually is anybody’s guess. Kentucky, for instance, was projected to be an undefeated, Top 25 opponent by the time the Bulldogs arrived in Lexington in Week 3 this season. As it turned out, the Wildcats (1-1, 0-1 SEC) not only lost their conference opener against South Carolina, they were manhandled 31-6 in defeat.
But it was evident from the start that Georgia’s schedule would be a challenge this season. Smart first invoked the term “gauntlet” at SEC Media Days in Dallas in mid-July.
“I’m not real sure how we ended up with Ole Miss and Texas and Alabama and Alabama all on the road, but it should be a gauntlet,” Smart said then.
According to the SEC office, it was just the luck of the draw.
Mark Womack, chief financial officer and executive associate commissioner of the SEC, oversees the management and implementation of football scheduling. But in addition to all the data that the conference introduces in hopes of equitable outputs, they also have to work around their membership’s existing nonconference schedule.
Ultimately, that’s what left the Bulldogs playing eight consecutive conference games sandwiched between four nonconference opponents. For several years, Georgia was set to open the 2024 season against Clemson and Tennessee Tech. As always, the season will end against archrival Georgia Tech, preceded this year with a home date versus Massachusetts.
“The SEC schedules around the schools’ nonconference games,” SEC spokesman Herb Vincent told the AJC. “If a school puts all four of its nonconference games in the first four weeks, the only place to put the eight conference games are in the final 10 weeks of the season. Similarly, if a school schedules two nonconference games to start the season and two at end, the only place to put the eight conference games is in the middle of the season.”
Makes sense. Meanwhile, the rest of the league had nonconference games scheduled all over the place. As a result, Arkansas, LSU and Tennessee are among teams that will play seven consecutive SEC games this season. Others, such as Kentucky, Oklahoma and Texas A&M, will play no more than five consecutive league contests.
Of course, nobody takes more of one-game-at-a-time, in-season approach than Smart and the Bulldogs. But with schedules at the forefront of conversations and late in coming this offseason, he was viewing them then like everybody else, from a big-picture point of view.
“I was wondering how I got that draw,” Smart in his first remarks about 2024 slate. “But we’re not one to complain; we’re one to be excited. I think when you step into the shoes of a University of Georgia football player, you accept that kind of a challenge is going to be there. I mean, we kind of embrace that and we love it.”
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