2020 UGA Football Schedule: Filling in the Blanks
ATHENS - We already know a few things about Georgia’s 2020 schedule - now we are going to pencil in the rest.
The 2020 season has the standard 13 weeks that’s been common of late, so let’s assume there’s only one bye week. If there are two bye weeks - meaning that he schedule would start on August 29 - one will certainly go before the Gators. But no one is anticipating there will be two off weeks in the 2020 college football season.
September 7
We already know that Georgia is scheduled to play Virginia on Monday, Sept. 7 in Atlanta. That contract was announced in 2017. The Bulldogs took that Monday night game in order to play once more in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. This time the early-season event has three games scheduled in Atlanta over a seven-day stretch. The Dawgs will play in this event three times in four years.
Confidence level: 100%
September 12
Five days later Georgia will almost certainly play at home against a non-power opponent. That should be East Tennessee State. It is possible Georgia could host Vanderbilt five days after the Virginia game, but that seems like a tough ask for the Bulldogs. Traveling to South Carolina or any other SEC school seems totally out of the question. Playing an SEC game five days after playing a legit power-five program seems hard to expect, and I just don’t buy it.
Confidence level: 95%
September 19
For the first time since 2007, Georgia will travel to Tuscaloosa to take on Alabama. There’s a lot of reasons I think this game will go here, but the two basic reasons have to do with TV. CBS’s current contract with the SEC gives the outlet its first unimpeded game selection this week (Week 3). Secondly, this will give CBS and the SEC enough time to space out two of the better teams in the league from playing one another before a potential trip to Atlanta in December. CBS will have the entire season to talk about what happened in this game.
Then there is the schedule - it just makes sense for this game to go at this particular weekend. Alabama does not have a game scheduled for this weekend. The Tide plays Georgia State and Kent State in the weekends surrounding this contest. Alabama, like Georgia, is booked up the rest of September. A November for Alabama that includes UGA, LSU and Auburn isn’t happening. An October for UGA that includes Auburn, Alabama and the Gators isn’t happening. This game will be in September for a lot of reasons, and this is the only weekend available that month for both teams. Also, the last time Georgia played at Alabama was about this time of the 2007 season. Not to be ignored: TV partners (that means CBS/ESPN) already have Texas at LSU in their back pocket for Week 2 of the year - that, coupled with Alabama-UGA is about as impressive a start to the season as TV will get. In Week one, CBS can buy the rights to Alabama-USC in Dallas or the UGA-Virginia game to start the year. In terms of kicking off the season with a bang, 2020 is pretty good.
Confidence level: 80%
September 26
Georgia has a contract to host Louisiana-Monroe on September 26.
Confidence level: 100%
October 3
This is the weekend Auburn will move to from here on out - the late-September-early-October spot Tennessee occupied for about 20 years. We’ve seen all of the talk about this game being moved, and UGA officials all but confirmed it on Wednesday.
Confidence level: 99%
October 10
This is the tricky weekend to figure out. Georgia will either host Vanderbilt or travel to South Carolina. But this week seems to be the spot where Georgia will travel to Cootlumbia. Of late, Georgia has played at Carolina a few times in October (2012 and 2016).
Confidence level: 75%
October 17
Missouri, in its infinite wisdom, managed to release its 2020 schedule on social media ahead of time (thus providing another example of the Tigers not being ready for primetime) so we know with near certainty that UGA will travel to Missouri this weekend.
Confidence level: 99%
October 24
Folks have asked over and over what Georgia got out of playing at Auburn two years in a row in 2012 and 2013… they got this - an off weekend before the Gators. It is something that didn’t happen on a yearly basis until the 2013 season, and seems to be in stone from here on out in Georgia’s SEC schedule.
Confidence level: 100%
October 31
CBS is going to take Georgia-Florida for the next century, and the SEC is going to leave it during this week for that time. That’s something that simply will not change.
Confidence level: 100%
November 7
For a few years now, UGA has played at Kentucky the week after the Cocktail party. That should continue.
Confidence level: 99%
November 14
Tennessee is replacing Auburn at the end of Georgia’s schedule, and this is the weekend the Tigers and Dawgs have played on for decades.
Confidence level: 99%
November 21
It looks like, and this is a tricky one because there’s a lot of places Georgia has played Vanderbilt of late, Georgia and Vanderbilt could close the season with one another. It is possible South Carolina and Georgia could close with one another the week before their in-state rivalry games, but that seems pretty hard to believe.
Confidence level: 75%
November 28
Tech will travel to Athens on November 28 to end the season.
Confidence level: 100%
2020 Georgia Bulldogs Football Schedule (Most Likely)
Sept. 7 - vs. Virginia (Atlanta)
Sept. 12 - vs. ETSU
Sept. 19 - at Alabama
Sept. 26 - vs. Louisiana-Monroe
Oct. 3 - vs. Auburn
Oct. 10 - at South Carolina
Oct. 17 - at Missouri
Oct. 24 - BYE
Oct. 31 - vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
Nov. 7 - at Kentucky
Nov. 14 - vs. Tennessee
Nov. 21 - vs. Vanderbilt
Nov. 28 - Georgia Tech
Dec. 5 - 2020 SEC Championship (Atlanta)