Georgia Bulldogs Countdown to Kickoff: 92 Days
The year is 1892. UGA graduate and Milledgeville, Ga. native Charles Herty is back in Athens as a chemistry professor after receiving his Doctorate in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins. However, what Herty’s best known for is bringing the game of football south to the Classic City and creating the Georgia Football program.
Herty coached Georgia in it’s first game on January 30, 1892, a 50-0 win over Mercer in Athens. Georgia wasn’t known as the Bulldogs at the time, instead, the billygoats. How ’bout them goats?!
The Athens Weekly Banner described the scene saying, “Enthusiasm was supreme, boys were riding around on a sea of shoulders, even the goat was ridden.”
Georgia has played Mercer a total of 22 times – none since 1941 – with a perfect 22-0 record. The Bears did however drop football after the 1941 season before picking it back up again in 2013 after a 72-year hiatus.
The next month would bring on the first of 126 total meetings so far in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry against Auburn at Piedmont Park in Atlanta. Auburn won 10-0 in the only Georgia Football game played in February to date. Since then, Georgia has taken 62 games in the series to Auburn’s 56. The two teams have tied eight times.
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Georgia fans also have Herty to thank for founding the baseball program – a fitting acknowledgement given the fact that the Bulldogs begin their NCAA Baseball Tournament run later today.
Herty Field – home to that first game against Mercer and ensuing home games up until the construction of Sanford Stadium in 1911 – is now the site of graduation pictures and inebriated adventures into the fountain. However, it’ll always hold a special place in Georgia Football history as the birthplace of the program way back in 1892.
So, 92 days away from the start of another Georgia Football season, we look back and appreciate the efforts of Charles Herty in 1892, Georgia’s first football season.
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