Toughest Games
No Walk In The Dawg Park
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
It is never too early to talk UGA football. Here is a look at the Dawgs’ schedule from worst to best in 2018.
12. Austin Peay: The Governors roll into Athens on September 1st and roll out about three hours later with a beat down and big fat paycheck.
11. UMass: The Minutemen arrive in Athens in mid-November and will get hammered within minutes.
10. Middle Tennessee State: The Blue Raiders come to Athens in mid-September and depending on the outcome in Columbia, South Carolina the previous week will determine how badly they get pummeled.
9. Vanderbilt: Vandy won the last time they came to Athens in 2016, but that will not happen in 2018. Vandy will be scrappy but in the end get beat something like 41-17.
8. Tennessee: The Vols come to Athens where they won with a Hail Mary in 2016. Butch Jones left a huge mess in Knoxville and Jeremy Pruitt is there to clean it up. It may take 2-3 years to get the Vols back in contention if they give Pruitt enough time in Knoxville to do it. 41-0 at home last season really eats at the Vol nation.
7. Georgia Tech: The Jackets have won the last two times they have visited the Classic City, but that will not happen in 2018. UGA is too deep and talented for Tech in 2018. Did you ever think Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate would land here?
6. Missouri: The Dawgs travel to COMO on 9/22 with a young secondary and will face a Tiger team with Drew Lock, who throws the deep ball better than anyone in the country. Dawgs better be ready for this one. This game worries me.
5. Kentucky: Georgia travels to Lexington on 11/3 and I already know it will be a night game even before it is announced. This is sandwich game between Florida and Auburn and UGA better be ready. A loss to Kentucky would be disaster for UGA because UGA just flat out owns Kentucky in football.
4. LSU: A trip to Red Stick is never easy. The Dawgs will be coming off a Vandy win and LSU will be in the third leg of a four-game stretch with three of the Tigers biggest rivals. Ole Miss, @ Florida, UGA and then Mississippi State, who beat LSU 37-7 in Starkville in 2017.
UGA is catching the Tigers at a good time, but it will still be a toss-up game. Who will LSU’s QB be?
3. South Carolina: This game has been moved back to early September and let me go ahead and warn you that this will be a war.
Columbia, South Carolina may be the hottest place on the planet early in football season. This will be a great game to attend because the sights around Williams Brice stadium will be easy on the eyes because Carolina girls are sweet southern pearls just as the song says. Will Muschamp is building quietly a quality program in Columbia.
2. Florida @ Jax: With Dan Mullen arriving in Gainesville, promising a better offense and a more heated rivalry after saying of the Bulldogs winning the East in 2017, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.” As Granny Hawkins said in Outlaw Josey Wales that big talk’s worth doodly-squat Dan.
This game will be more heated than in the past with 4th place Dan running things in Gainesville. 42-7 in 2017 could have been 63-7 it was that one-sided. I Have never seen a Florida team lay down like that Gator squad did that day.
1. Auburn: The DSOR (Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry) was played twice in 2017 with UGA winning the SEC Title 28-7 over AU. This game has all of a sudden become very heated with UGA taking 10 of the last 13 contests. This one in Athens on November 10th should be a classic.
UGA’s conference schedule is tough with trips to LSU, Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina, and UF in Jax.
Dawgs need to win four of the five contests to get back to Atlanta and play for another SEC Title. Hey Bama, see you in Atlanta.
