If you were getting excited about the prospects of beating Florida state by sixty points in Athens, you can go ahead and curb your enthusiasm.
“As we considered the effects of evolving scheduling mandates within both the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference, we have mutually agreed that it is in the best interest of both schools to cancel our home-and-home series scheduled for 2027 and 2028,” Michael Alford, Florida State’s director of athletics, said in a statement. “We are now discussing playing a future neutral-site contest, and we are optimistic we will get that done. Importantly, this change will not reduce the total home games on our schedule moving forward.”
Prior to the cancellation, Georgia was staring down the barrel of playing 11 Power Four programs in those two seasons. The SEC announced in August of 2025 that it would be moving to nine-game league schedules. At the same time, it also stated that it would be requiring SEC teams to play at least one more Power 4 program in addition to the conference games.
No worries. After all, when the CFP expands to 64 teams, they’ll just trim the regular season down to ten games, all of which will be conference games. You can play your OOC games in the December Madness tournament. Don’t know about y’all, but I’d rather see Missouri added as a regular opponent on our schedule instead of Tech, or FSU, or Ohio State. Yes, that’s entertainment.
No, what is happening is the whittling down of an already expensive regular season, and using the expanded playoff structure to make you yearn for the chance to have a new visiting team come to your home turf. You’ll get the entertainment value of having someone like Notre Dame, or Utah, finally come to Athens, and you’ll pay top dollar for it thanks to Mickey and the CFP Committees.
That’s also just encouraging the bullshit that is selective scheduling in an era where the gap between haves and have nots is widening, despite people stating “there’s more parity in college football now because of NIL”, until you realize that drop from the sixth best team in the B1G to the remaining twelve in the conference is STEEP, while the same drop off doesn’t exist in the SEC. Meanwhile, smaller programs are starting to shed non-revenue boosting programs like baseball, all for the sake of keeping up with the arms race that is modern college football.
Sankey caved to this, as the head of what is arguably the most competitive and entertaining football conference in the country, to just allow more of this CFP security to exist in the B1G while the SEC beats the literal hell out of each other, and while I’m confident Kirby’s on the mother, I’m not sure the constant shape shifting of the sport of college football is something even the savviest of coaches can keep up with. Once you’ve gotten roster management down, you add NIL, a non-restricted portal, and now you have to do it all over again. Now you have schedule management on top of that. Then you have expanded tournaments,
Photo Courtesy of BetMGM, December 1st, 2028.
If the driving thought was that Georgia didn’t need a strong 11 P4 games on their upcoming schedule and wanted to schedule a cupcake, instead, they need to revisit FSU’s recent success and realize it would’ve been a cupcake game. On top of that, while we’ll get the round robin of usual SEC teams in the future, we’ll likely never see another day like September 21st, 2019, and that’s a fucking crime.
I’ve been to a lot of games in Sanford in my days, and that day was unique. It was wholly different, a completely different visiting crowd and vibe. It was a long and pleasant tailgate, the games playing around the country were largely ignored during the day because of the magnitude of what was about to take place, and the palpable fresh buzz resonating around the usual buildings and streets and tents, like an electricity that had everyone moving in fast forward. It felt like we were about to witness something on the level of a Super Bowl but it somehow landed in our favorite place in the world.
The first time we saw the red lights.
Golden Domes between the hedges, blindingly bright, clean red jerseys versus white. It wasn’t high scoring, but it was exciting in a way that didn’t abate from kickoff to final whistle.
It was like the Thrilla in Manilla, but in Athens.
It was once in a lifetime, and I am infinitely grateful that I had the chance to be there.
And it most likely will never happen again.
That entire day was special you feel the excitement in the air.
I’m not in favor of expanding the playoffs. I do wonder what it’s going to feel like attending a playoff game on campus other than cold.
At $200+ per seat for the same seat you spend $75 on, it’s going to be grand. 😉
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more than that to retain my seats. It’s a total money grab extortion racket that pisses me off every time I think about it. No one in BM gives a crap whether I buy tickets or not. They will get their money.
Was there. Been to many big games, but that one did feel different. Everything was so pumped up. Noise never died. For me, once in my lifetime. Where do we go from here?? Go Dawgs!!! Does anyone know where l can get the game from south bend? I can’t find it anywhere, but l am not computer savvy. Thanks!
I met a colleague who attended ND this week and was at that game as a student. He told me the people there couldn’t believe how we took over the town and the stadium. They haven’t seen anything like it. He also came to Athens in 2019 and said it was the best visiting game day environment he had experienced. I think his exact words were “You guys do it right.”
That was the best regular season road trip ever. And because the home fans were so classy in South Bend, UGA fans made a real effort to return the favor in 2019. (This did not include allowing the visitors a win, of course. Hospitality has limits). But it was a tremendous experience that day, and those of us there knew it was something special.
The suits want to “improve” CFB by ruining all the traditions that make CFB special. Marquee OOC matchups in the early season, traditional rivalries, even conference championship games. I hate losing all of that.
Second it! Say what you will about Notre Dame, but my friend walked around in a Creature Comforts shirt with a wagon with a couple 12 packs of Tropicalia and we were welcomed at many tailgates with good cheer. They also got a kick out of “The Hell With Georgia Tech,” and wanted to slip it in (don’t be lewd) next time they played them. Also, the 4th quarter cellphones set them straight.
As the top 25 will likely make the cfp invitational, once Mickey is done with the conference championship games, that lovely selection committee will manipulate the ranking$ even more so, to achieve $ome de$irable December match up$….GO DAWGS!!
I dont get the cancellation. My thought was similar to yours, “Noles are a cupcake anyways”. UGA not into embarrassing anyone by discussing negotiations….but I could see Hassee begging to get out of this series! CrimeNoles know who runs TallaMyHassee anyways….and they know they are our bitches. That will resonate the balance of my lifetime.
All of this was happening while we were celebrating my FSU son-in-law’s UGA grad school graduation with lunch at the UGA hotel. Very odd intersection of life and sport.
On the topic at hand, I hate this. We decide to cancel the games everyone wants to see to get garbage games against cupcakes that no one wants to see.
It makes me want to puke. We could have found a way to stay at 8 games while protecting the rivalries to allow these games to continue to be played.
Instead, we cancel games because all the idiots that meet in Grapevine see is a number in a loss column.
Makes me mad as hell.
Another reason I want the Power 4 to break away from the NCAA for all sports, so sensible schedule reform can happen and give the paying and viewing public what we really want.
“Instead, we cancel games because all the idiots that meet in Grapevine see is a number in a loss column.”
Never bought into that part of our fan base. There’s always an opportunity to find a way to win.
Until strength of schedule/record is a true measuring stick for comparing teams with similar records, I don’t blame the coaches for dropping the big OOC game for the 9th conference game. I don’t have to like it, but I do understand it.
Going to 9 games without an expanded playoffs or a clear enforced formula to value strength of schedule was a mistake.
There is something to be said about playing a team with some history. Recent history aside and like them or not, the FSU brand has some cache and I would have loved to have hosted them in Athens and traveled to Tallahassee.
That was a great day.
I saw the home and home series…and saw our unblemished 3-0 record vs them go up in flames in NOLA. With the new format, I’d assume we’ll see more of them in the future.
No one I want to beat more. Then Michigan. Then Auburn…
The rest of y’all can be all collegial and complimentary. I spent my time in a bar downtown trying to talk myself into not telling the ND fans in there to get the fuck back to Indiana. Got harder and harder as each bourbon went down.
I did explain to the ND fans in NOLA within shouting distance that the last time they’d won a game of any significance I was too young to buy the beer I was holding.
FTMF!
Remember Refugees, who was Kirby’s Mentor? Saban did the neutral site kickoffs to death and really made it part of the process. Since the big Rival was a conference game anyway, he could shape the season around a big opening game. With the SEC mandating a +1 Power 4 game to maintain state rivals, Tech ain’t going away so expect UGA to do the bare minimum. With expansion going to 24 you would think a big OOC wouldn’t matter but unfortunately Georgia is too comfortable getting screwed in selection so why take the chance?
Good News: we’ll be lectured and called bad fans if we don’t dump every penny into the sport…
Saban did it for eyes and recruiting.
Kirby will do it for NIL funding.