SEC scheduling 'first domino that's got to fall' for Georgia, decisions down the road

The University of Georgia Athletic Association Board of Directors met Friday afternoon at the Georgia Center for its annual fall meeting, and in speaking with president Jere Morehead and athletics director Josh Brooks afterwards, one thing is clear: the future of Georgia Football centers around SEC scheduling. With the arrival of Oklahoma and Texas scheduled for 2025, the conference is in limbo over whether it’ll play eight or nine games against each other each season. Morehead and Brooks indicated that there is not a timeline in place for a decision to be made there, but also may have shown their hand on which way Georgia leans.

“Really, through all of this, the No. 1 thing that we all have to get figured out is, what is our conference schedule going to be,” Brooks said. “That’s the key piece to this. Are we eight games? Are we nine games? Once that domino falls, then we can get into the specifics of others. That’s the first domino that’s got to fall before we can start getting into anything else.”

“With this, you want to move with speed, but you don’t want to rush as you factor everything in,” he continued. “It’s respectful. Everyone’s got their own opinions. Everyone’s looking out for what’s best for their university which is their responsibility. My responsibility is to do what’s best for the University of Georgia, and as I get feedback from our fans that want better games and I have a coach who’s willing to play bigger games, our opinion is maybe different than others.”

Brooks’ comments certainly make it seem that Georgia would lean more towards a nine game conference schedule, one that thus creates more ‘big games.’ Morehead weighed in as well. He too wouldn’t explicitly state what Georgia’s opinion on the matter was, but did say that there would need to be discussions had to renegotiate the conference’s TV deal if a nine-game schedule were put in place.

“The presidents have been talking about this as well. We have to see if we go to a nine game schedule, is that going to provide an opportunity to renegotiate the contracts with ESPN and the like,” Morehead said. “What we have negotiated now is an eight-game schedule. There’s a factors that have got to be played out before we’ll know whether we’re going to do eight or nine and what’s best for Georgia.”

Georgia-Oklahoma Cancellation, 2023 schedule

The SEC released its 2023 schedule on Tuesday less than a week after the league in conjunction with the impacted schools announced the cancellation of out of conference home-and-homes against Oklahoma. Georgia, as well as Tennessee, had its series affected with the 2023-2031 agreement now off the books. The Bulldogs quickly added Ball State to the future schedule for that year to fill the date they would have traveled to Norman, but many fans were left unhappy.

Josh Brooks made it clear he would like for his predecessor Greg McGarity and Kirby Smart to still get credit for their aggressive scheduling philosophy. The cancellation of Georgia and Oklahoma’s home-and-home certainly put a damper on that to an extent, especially after fans saw a full version of the 2023 schedule that does not feature a Power Five opponent in the non-conference outside of the traditional date against Georgia Tech.

“It just so happened that Texas and Oklahoma joined the conference, and it affects those series,” Brooks said. “You’ve got to give credit to the administration here for going out and scheduling great games, but then when you get in the situation that you go to Oklahoma in ’23 and they don’t return until the 2030s, it wouldn’t be a true return because it would be a conference game.”

“You’ve got to adjust quickly. I understand the need, the want, the hope for bigger games. We were stuck with a situation where there weren’t really a lot of options, so the best bet was to find who could fill that date,” he continued. “At that point in time, there just weren’t a lot of options. Thankfully we were able to find Ball State to fill that. It didn’t impact the home schedule other than adding a game. But what I would tell everyone is, I understand it, and I think that we’re solving a lot of that as we work through future SEC scheduling. I think one of the main priorities that they’ve focused on as ADs, whatever we land on as a new schedule is going to provide greater variability of scheduling. I think that no matter where we land, you’re going to see greater variability of western teams playing eastern teams. I think as we look at the possibility of one grouping, not an East or West, then you’ll get greater rotation so you won’t get stagnant. I think that’ll provide some greater home games scheduled in the future.”

For fans disappointed in Georgia’s 2023 home schedule, Brooks did have some words of encouragement, once again centered around the importance of figuring out the SEC’s new scheduling model.

“I do think that as you look at the future schedule and as we look at potential future scheduling in ’25 or whenever the new potential SEC scheduling starts, there’s going to be better home schedule scenarios,” Brooks said. “We’ve just got to deal with this right now and it’s going to get better in the future. With greater variability, I think it’s going to be exciting to see more of those western teams that we haven’t seen a lot that we’ll see more of at Sanford. And then we’ll have some great roadtrips as well.”

Brooks would not comment on whether there were discussions had about making Georgia-Oklahoma a neutral-site game but said that they “vetted every option possible.” He also added that Georgia-Texas, currently set for 2028 in Austin and 2029 in Athens, will simply be worked into the conference schedule but may not happen in those exact years.

“You’ve got to go ahead and factor in, we haven’t gotten into that yet but they’re going to be in those years that they’re schedule at, they’re in the conference,” Brooks said. “We wouldn’t go play a conference team. We haven’t gotten into the weeds of that just yet, but you can go ahead and factor in that those games are going to be folded into the normal schedule.”

Quick Hitters

• Georgia has $65 million already raised towards the $300 million goal that it announced in May for athletic facilities renovations that include Olympic sport training rooms at Stegeman Coliseum and in the Butts-Mehre Building, upgrades to Foley Field and Jack Turner Softball Stadium, an expansion of the indoor tennis facility and most notably a two-phased project at Sanford Stadium.
• Jere Morehead indicated that he thinks it’ll be hard for the College Football Playoff to expand to 12 teams by 2024. “There’s still work to be done on whether all that can be completed in the fashion that’s hoped for. Time will tell. I think we’ll know in the coming months what’s going to happen with that … I haven’t heard that they are far enough along in this process to guarantee that the expanded Playoffs will be underway by ’24. That may take until ’25 or even longer. That’s still being discussed as to whether than can go from four to 12 by ’24.”
• The addition of Oklahoma and Texas is still on schedule for as originally announced (2025) according to Morehead. “Nothing has officially changed yet,” he said. “That’s not been resolved at this point, them coming early.”
• As conference realignment pertains to future scheduling outside of the Oklahoma and Texas series, Brooks did not want to speak for other schools like UCLA (2025, 2026), Louisville (2026, 2027), Florida State (2027, 2028), Clemson (2029, 2030, 2032, 2033), Ohio State (2030, 2031) and NC State (2033, 2034).
• On whether the Georgia-Florida agreement with Jacksonville would be extended, Brooks went back to the ‘key domino’ that is getting the conference scheduling format set. Both Brooks and Morehead said that it’s early to be having extension agreements with the game in place there through 2023. “We want to see where we end up with a conference schedule before we really dig in and see where we’re at there.”
• Speaking of Jacksonville, Brooks added some clarity on what went into the decision to provide prospective student-athletes with tickets to the Georgia-Florida game in years that the Bulldogs are the designated home team, as is the case this fall. “Recruiting is important. That’s the lifeline of any program, so anything we can do to make that better, provide more opportunities for student-athletes to be there, we’re going to support that. Even if that means losing some of our ticket allotment there. It’s important. And that’s one of the factors in everything that we do, recruiting and how we can better support all of our coaches when it comes to recruiting.”