Georgia selects Deep South's Oldest Rivalry game vs. Auburn as 2024 Homecoming

Georgia’s Oct. 5 game against Auburn will be the 2024 homecoming game, the program announced Thursday. Kickoff time and TV information were not yet announced at the time of publication.

The matchup will be Georgia’s fourth game of the season and its second at Sanford Stadium. The Bulldogs open the year Aug. 31 against Clemson at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and their home opener awaits a week later against Tennessee Tech in Athens.

Then, UGA heads on the road for back-to-back SEC matchups at Kentucky and at Alabama. Those will set the table for the homecoming game against Auburn, which will mark Georgia’s first SEC home game of the year.

However, there’s a major change coming to the schedule late in the year. The rivalry game against Georgia Tech is moving.

That matchup, set to be in Athens, will now be on Black Friday in primetime with a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ABC. It’s part of the SEC’s new media rights deal with Disney, and Georgia vs. Georgia Tech will be one of the featured games during Rivalry Week as part of a now-loaded Friday slate after Thanksgiving.

ABC’s Black Friday schedule features another game moving from its usual slot. The Egg Bowl between Ole Miss and Mississippi State will now be on Friday with a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ABC, moving from its traditional time on Thanksgiving Day.

The SEC landed a landmark 10-year deal with ESPN and ABC worth nearly $3 billion in late 2020, and in Summer 2021, OU and Texas announced their plans to leave the Big 12 to join the league and take the SEC to 16 teams. Late last month, ABC unveiled the new logo for the broadcast, which will debut with a tripleheader on Aug. 31.

Last year, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey spoke about why the agreement is a big win for the league and said it goes beyond the $300 million per year. He mentioned the reach of the network going over-the-air, as well as the digital plans ESPN has going forward, as reasons why the deal came to fruition.

The SEC was the first major conference to secure a lucrative media rights deal as figures began to soar and realignment winds blew. The Big Ten later agreed to a seven-year, $7 million contract with three networks – FOX, CBS and NBC – while the Big 12 extended its deal with FOX and ESPN earlier than expected.