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- Please no inappropriate usernames (remember that there may be youngsters in the room)
- Personal attacks on other community members are unacceptable, practice the good manners your mama taught you when engaging with fellow Dawg fans
- Use common sense and respect personal differences in the community: sexual and other inappropriate language or imagery, political rants and belittling the opinions of others will get your posts deleted and result in warnings and/ or banning from the forum
- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
Comments
Flared won't do anything to help Dawg recruiting.
@UGADad20 100 percent
Interesting that the Mayor of Jacksonville is all up in this situation while the mayors of Athens and Gainesville are silent. While you can't expect $35 million at either city were it to move to Home/Home series, the economic impact of playing in Athens every other year would be very significant - far more than the $3.5 million paid to UGA. Why are we not hearing from ACC gov't and specifically Kelly Girtz and/or Clarke County's Ga State Delegation? Athens should be pushing for a Home/Home series OR requesting a cut of the $3.5 million paid to UGA to offset the economic loss to Athens/Clarke County from not having the home game. UGA take a huge amount of property of the tax rolls of Clarke County. This is one of the reasons Clarke County has one of the highest millage rates (property tax rates) in the State of Georgia. Move to Home/Home series. This is a win for everyone except Jacksonville, UF recruiting, and UGA/UF school/Athletic Association officials getting perks from keeping it in Jacksonville.
I don't see that game moving out of Jacksonville anytime soon. I completely understand what KS is saying about having that as a recruiting showcase, but he has five or six other home games a year to show off Athens. More importantly, and the mayor alluded to it, the people who make that decision are the school presidents and they will be greatly influenced by the big money alum who have homes in and around the Golden isles and want to have that game in Jacksonville with that atmosphere every year. Those alum don't want to drive to Gainesville every other year and they can go to Athens for a game anytime. These are the alum that write seven figure checks to UGA and have the president's number in their phone.
Let's put some of that economic economic impact into the hands of the Athens merchants that support the university and community instead of Jacksonville. And if you are paying a head coach $12M a year you might as well try and give him what he believes he needs to be as successful as possible.
I respect the mayor’s position. The WLOCP is a gold mine for the city. It’s also pretty lucrative to Southeast GA. But Kirby is more interested in recruiting and rightfully so. It’s time to go home and home with FL. So far their AD says FL will always play the game in J-ville when it’s their home game. Really? That makes zero sense from FL’s perspective. But if they’re dumb enough to do that, so be it.
In any event, we’re about to see how Josh Brooks handles a big issue. Does he support Kirby or not? $112,000,000 looks like a big lean toward Kirby winning on this issue or any other football related issue.
Sick of this back and forth. The boosters and politicians be damned. Let’s go Home-JAX-Home-ATL. A little something for everyone that way.
And what???...forsake 25% of Georgia. Southeast GA. makes out like a bandit on the win-win GAvFL game in JAX. Jacksonville might get $35 million, but Coastal Communities like Brunswick, St Simon's, St Marys and Kingsland also bring in millions. You may not see it in Athens, but, you aren't paying Kirby's salary, and the scholarship money allocated to players. We all are. Taxpayers and Alumni alike. And Southeast Georgia lives and breathes Bulldog DNA. Always has. Look at the talent reaped out of this area. Those guys were raised to be Dawgs and the GAvFL game in JAX was a big part of the tradition, kids down here were raised on it.
The benefits of moving the game to home-and-,home, do not outweigh the losses to Southeast Georgia in revenue or recruiting.
I used to be for moving the game, until they actually did it in the '90's to accommodate the renovations to the Gator Bowl for the Jags. I saw what would come of it. It will be just another SEC game. Yeah, we hate the Gators, but we're not fond of the Vols, War Eagles, Tide, Wildcats, or any other SEC team.
Moving the game will leave the SE Ga. fans and prospective players out on an island. For what? A recruiting equalizer? Florida recruits are no better than South Georgia recruits. Moving the game to Athens will not enhance Ga. recruiting or FL. recruiting...that's just a canard to eliminate the game. If a prospect wants to see UGA's facilities, he can...anytime. They aren't a State secret. LOL
UGA has private jets and buckets of money to lease Condos or Villas on Sea Island and Amelia Island to entertain recruits and their families as do UGA Alumni in the area. Treat em to 5 star meals at restaurants like the Cloister. Give them guided tours of the facilities, the Friday before the game and fly them down to Glynco Airport on a private jet...check em into Sea Island Resort....bus them to the front entrance of the stadium...watch the game...bus em back to St Simons...play golf or charter fish on Sunday...fly home. They'll spend the next 6 months catching their breath.
Get creative with recruiting...don't kill another tradition that will in time be forgotten. That's my opinion anyway.
@BigDawg61 - Interesting perspective. I wonder if you also insisted Justin Fields should've started over Jake Fromm and JT Daniels should've replaced SBIV? Despite our professional coaches (who have everything to lose in making wrong/bad decisions) making the decision otherwise. I say that to illustrate how disconnected the view is that it won't help/impact recruiting. One of the premier recruiters in college football is our head coach ("winning is 50% recruiting", etc.). If he says it hurts recruiting and UGA would be more successful in recruiting with the game played in Athens every other year, why wouldn't you/others accept that? If Kirby thought they could recruit kids successfully (and win the FL game) in the manner you described, don't you think he (or Richt, Donnan, Dooley, etc.) would've done that already? Regarding the economic impact, no doubt all those areas would be negatively impacted. But the real money/impact is concentrated in N. East Florida and Jacksonville in particular. As a %, what is actually spent in Ga now is small compared to Florida. If played in Athens each year, 100% of the impact is in Ga - including greater Athens/Clarke County and parts in between there and Atlanta. There are 4.5 million people that live in the Piedmont region of Ga. Only 726 thousand in the Lower Coastal Plain (SE Ga). The math doesn't lie - whether it be about number of top recruits in each region, the amount of taxes paid to support UGA, the economic impact realized playing in Athens vs Jacksonville, etc. Thanks for the dialogue.
It's boozing and eating for days leading up to the game in Jacksonville.not to mention all the highroller condos rented out. Also., I would imagine it hurts the strippers too if you move it. LOL!
That's a little short-sighted. I'm not questioning Smart's opinion. He's probably right. What I'm saying is that there are more things to consider here, than "what's best for UGA Football".
This is a State Revenue issue. It's not a great idea to shut off another financial tap, feeding the Coastal Georgia tourism trade. COVID and the recession have done enough, for now. If the decision is going to made, and I think it will, sooner or later....NOW...on the tail end of a global pandemic and the birth of economic depression...is not the time to do it.
It wouldn't be good for the people of Georgia...right now.
And, last I checked UGA students can't afford high roller condos and strippers. They represent the biggest group of people to visit our area. UGA has a satellite marine biology campus in McIntosh County that does research all along Coastal Ga.. They are very intelligent, respectful young people as most UGA Students are.
The villas and condos for rent, are not as expensive as you might think. 4 or 5 students can pool their money together and get 1 or 2 to share with peers. We did it, when I was in HS. LOL...and I don't know where you would go to get strippers.
Have any of you made the trip?? Ever? Just askin, cause it sounds like a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions are being made to support an argument.
I've made the trip 6-8 times. My first trip was in a Winnebago with about 12 other fraternity brothers (an oh wow weekend). Have stayed at J'Ville, St. Simons, and Amelia. Have been much recently due mainly to conflicts with Halloween (small children). I don't THINK my view is short sighted. Long-term UGA recruiting will be better (the professionals say so) and Ga would be better off with the full economic impact every other year than the bread crumbs (compared to what FL gets) Ga gets in SE Georgia each year. Pretty sure each year the State if Florida laughs its way to the bank and UF laughs each time they hear it is a neutral sight game.
I'm not gonna pretend that Florida doesn't make out better on the deal than we do. I've backed going to home-and-home for that game, going back to the '90's; however, I just don't think now is the time.
During the '95-'96 home-and-home, while JAX was renovating the Gator Bowl, it wasn't the same along the Coast and Spurrier put 50 points on UGA between the hedges, just because he could. That put a sour taste in my mouth.
There's a good chance we party'd together, if you were on the Island. That's where the real GAvFL tailgating takes place. LOL Why would you want to give that up? LOL