It’s a new world for Georgia football and the SEC when it comes to kickoff times and TV channel choices.
The annual rivalry game against Georgia Tech will be moved up to Thanksgiving weekend this season on Friday, Nov. 29, per a source. Kickoff at Sanford Stadium is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on ABC. Ross Dellinger of Yahoo! Sports was first to report this.
This will be the first time the Georgia football team will play a game on a day other than a Saturday at Sanford Stadium since the team played on a Friday in 1994. The team also played in Atlanta on Thanksgiving in 1995.
The Bulldogs’ home opener against Tennessee Tech is also expected to be announced Thursday when the SEC releases more game times and television rights.
The Georgia-Tennessee Tech match on September 7 will kick off at 2 p.m. The game will be available exclusively via streaming with an ESPN+/SEC Network+ subscription.
Georgia hasn’t played Georgia Tech at night in Athens since 2010, when the Bulldogs won 42-34.
Last season’s “Clean Old Fashioned Hate” game in Atlanta also had a 7:30 p.m. kickoff. Georgia won that game, 31-23.
The SEC is in the first season of a new television deal with Disney that allows SEC games to be shown on ABC, ESPN and streaming services.
The new agreement allows the SEC to set earlier kickoff times.
Currently, kickoff times and television rights for Georgia’s first four games and six of the 12 regular season games have already been announced.
All games announced thus far, except for the game against Tennessee Tech, will be broadcast on ABC against Georgia.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said at the SEC meetings on Wednesday that kickoff times for more than half of SEC games will be announced by mid-June.
“If people are planning on spending the weekend in their favorite college town or visiting their favorite college team as a visiting team, they’ll be able to make those plans in mid-to-late June,” Sankey said. “People talk about money, and some of our conversations and some of our relationship with ESPN have allowed us to have some things that I don’t think would have been done in other environments.”
