Could UGA Kickoff the Season vs. West Virginia in Atlanta?

ATHENS - Kirby Smart and Georgia’s opener with Virginia looks all but done. 

But there is a possibility the Bulldogs could still play in Atlanta to start the season... IF the Dawgs are permitted to by the SEC. 

Gary Stokan, President and CEO of Peach Bowl and person responsible for putting on the Chick-fil-A kickoff games, said last week that if the event lost UGA and FSU because of out-of-conference rivalry games, that the event would try to put Virginia and West Virginia together.

We just have to wait until the end of July to see what the ACC, SEC and Big 12 do. Are they going to play conference plus one? If they are they we lose Georgia and FSU, and we will put Virginia and West Virginia together.”

Newly-agreed to ACC rules dictate that neither FSU nor Virginia are permitted to play out-of-state non-conference games. That leaves both the Bulldogs and Mountaineers with no dance partner at the dance. 

The Bulldogs have agreed to multiple appearances in Chick-fil-A kickoff games under Kirby Smart.  

“Kirby Smart, when he played his first first game ever in our Chick-fil-A kickoff game against North Carolina. At the press conference he said: 'We will play as many times as you will have us.' So we sat down and scheduled 2020, the Virginia game. We scheduled 2022 against Oregon, which will be a blockbuster game. And then we scheduled Clemson-Georgia, which they will both definitely be ranked in the top ten. We've got three really good games coming up (with Georgia),” Stokan told Dawg Post last week. 

UGA officials could not be reached Wednesday afternoon for comment. The Bulldogs’ first game after the Chick-fil-A opener is scheduled for Saturday, September 12 in Athens against East Tennessee State. The Bulldogs last faced West Virginia in the 2006 Sugar Bowl, which was displaced because of Hurricane Katrina and played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.