Kirby Smart sounds off on future of South Carolina-Georgia football series

South Carolina and Georgia have played every year in football for three decades — but that streak is coming to an end.

The league last month announced its eight-game schedule for the 2024 season that will incorporate Texas and Oklahoma into the SEC. However, the annual USC-UGA game wasn’t part of the slate.

“When we began discussing a 16-team football schedule in August of ‘21, the first set of conversations were taking the words ‘fair’ and the word ‘balance’ and defining them,” league commissioner Greg Sankey said on Monday at the league’s annual SEC Media Days event. “Balance was rotating teams through with greater frequency — I think plenty of people have written about a team may not see a team certainly for six years or may not go someplace for 12 years if they’re in another division. ... Fair was narrowing the competitive equity band, which is what we achieved, even with our eight-game schedule we announced a few weeks ago in June.”

The general consensus in SEC circles is the league will move to a nine-game conference schedule that incorporates three “permanent” opponents along with six other rotating contests to fill out the slate. No decisions have been made on who South Carolina’s permanent fixtures will be, but Georgia figures to be in the conversation.

That the Gamecocks and Bulldogs won’t meet a year from now is a shift. They’ve played every year since South Carolina joined the SEC in 1992. It’s the only true rivalry game the Gamecocks play within the league, as Clemson receives the main helping of hatred inside the USC fanbase.

Count Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart among the proponents for the border battle.

Speaking with reporters in Nashville on Tuesday, Smart noted his desire to keep the game, while highlighting the complications that come with compiling the schedule to incorporate the additions of Texas and Oklahoma moving forward.

“Yeah, I’d love for it to (stay on the schedule),” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said on Tuesday. “We’re on that side of the state. The distance between the two is important to have in those rivalries. But the other side of the fence is we had two unique teams join our conference and it’s hard to play everyone in the scheduling model we have. I respect how difficulty in the schedule-making process.”

The Gamecocks and Bulldogs will play in 2023, facing off Sept. 16 in Athens.

Georgia, too, falls in a unique category of programs with a number of obvious choices to keep as part of the permanent opponent model. Florida and Auburn will almost certainly stay on the Bulldogs’ schedule. Tennessee, too, represents one of the higher-profile opponents on Georgia’s annual slate. The Volunteers and Bulldogs — like the Gamecocks — have played every year since the SEC expanded in 1992 and have matchups dating back to 1899.

“Extremely important. Border rivalry. A lot of ties between the schools,” Smart said. “The Vince Dooley-Pat Dye connection. Lot of respect for Auburn and Hugh (Freeze). But there’s a lot of great rivalries. I think somebody told me this once that we’re the only school with five contiguous states. You end up with a lot of rivalries when you touch five states.

“Priorities will be based off what the SEC office thinks is best. I don’t have a lot of it. I just deal with the hand that I get at the end.”

Gamecocks 2024 football schedule

South Carolina won’t play Georgia, Tennessee or Florida in 2024.

▪ Conference opponents: (dates are TBD) home vs. Ole Miss, LSU, Missouri and Texas A&M; away vs. Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky and Vanderbilt

▪ Non-conference opponents: home vs. Old Dominion (8/31), Akron (9/21) and Wofford (11/23); away vs. Clemson (11/30).

Recent South Carolina-Georgia results

2022 — Georgia 48, South Carolina 7

2021 — Georgia 40, South Carolina 16

2020 — Georgia 45, South Carolina 16

2019 — South Carolina 20, Georgia 17

2018 — Georgia 41, South Carolina 17

2017 — Georgia 24 , South Carolina 10

2016 — Georgia 28 , South Carolina 14

2015 — Georgia 52, South Carolina 20

2014 — South Carolina 38, Georgia 35

2013 — Georgia 41, South Carolina 30