Know Your Foe: Will Florida and Georgia continue playing in Jacksonville

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In just a few days’ time, the banks of the St. Johns River will be flooded with orange and blue, red and black clad fans. It’s Florida-Georgia week, one unlike any in more than 30 years.

The No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs and Florida Gators will meet at TIAA Bank Field on Saturday and for the first time since 1981, Georgia will come into the game as the defending National Champions.

This will be the 100th meeting between the two schools, or 101st if you ask Georgia. Both teams had open weeks to prepare for the rivalry game but they come into this weekend on different paths. Florida is 4-3 and just 1-3 in the conference.

On Monday, Florida and Georgia released a joint statement that didn’t give many answers. The schools are contracted through 2023

A big factor could be what the schedule will look like once Texas and Oklahoma join the conference. The league will either adopt an eight-game model with one permanent opponent and seven rotating opponents every two years, or a nine-game model with three and six, respectively.

The landscape of college football is changing quickly and it could end a near 90-year tradition.

Will Florida and Georgia continue playing in Jacksonville?

Palmer Thombs: Obviously, this is a topic of conversation that comes up every year at this time, and oftentimes at SEC Media Days too. Some folks just can’t let it go, and it’s a hot-button issue with Georgia and Florida fans. Monday’s joint statement from the two schools certainly isn’t going to do anything to quiet the conversation…
Kirby Smart was asked about it last week to get the conversation out of the way during the bye and gave maybe his best answer ever on the topic in my opinion. He admitted that there are benefits to both keeping the game in Jacksonville and taking it to a home and home.
“There’s really quality benefits to both,” Smart said. “You guys, I get it, you want to make a story. You need a story. Everybody wants to talk about it. It’s really not a big debate for me. It’s been made really big by the media because they’ve made it out to be a really big deal. I enjoy the pageantry of going down there and playing, I enjoyed it as a player. I enjoy tradition; I enjoy all those things. When it comes down to it, the very very basic element of everything comes back to, number one, money, and number two, recruiting and getting good players. I firmly believe that we’ll be able to sign better players by having a home and home because we’ll have more opportunities to get them to campus. But I also think there’s a financial factor that factors into that with having the game there and being able to make more money for the university possibly there. So you have to weigh both of those and make really good decisions.”

If Smart’s assessment of the situation wasn’t enough, I might add that I absolutely agree with what he said about there being benefits to both. Financially, it makes more sense for both schools to keep it in Jacksonville and be paid out every year. If they were to change it to a home and home, they may stand to make more during the year that they host, but obviously, there wouldn’t be any income the year before and the year after when they go on the road. However, from a recruiting aspect, having the game in Jacksonville does put these schools at a disadvantage because even when they are the home team, they can’t meet with recruits like they would be able to on campus. As Smart said, everything comes down to money and recruiting. Keeping the game in Jacksonville favors one while moving it on campus favors the other. I do understand the tradition side of keeping things in Jacksonville. The unique atmosphere of the 50-50 split that gets created but I also get where players (and many fans) are coming from wanting to experience the road atmosphere of Athens and Gainesville.