Wednesday turned into a big day in the SEC because teams in the conference found out the kickoff times for their first three games of the season. For Georgia it wasn't great news as their season opener against Tennessee State was slotted for 3:00 pm EST while their week two matchup with Western Kentucky will begin at 12:45 pm EST.
The first real opportunity for a night game however comes in week three when Georgia opens up SEC play at Arkansas. Instead of giving the Razorbacks a night game against the two-time defending SEC Champions, the conference decided to start this game at 11:00 am CST.
Beginning a game before Noon local time will be challenging for Georgia, but it will actually be more difficult for Arkansas because of the insane travel schedule they will have the week before.
Arkansas' kickoff time at Utah gives Georgia a unique advantage for their Week 3 matchup
Week two sees Arkansas head west to play a road matchup at Utah. This game will kick at 8:15 pm local time in Utah which the Razorbacks are furious about.
Arkansas' athletic director took to social media to explain just how upsetting the late kick time at Utah and early kick time against Georgia in back-to-back weeks is. He estimates that they won't get home from Utah until 6:00 am Sunday morning and that it is unfair to make them play Georgia at 11:00 am the following Saturday.
Yes, you read that correctly, Arkansas is upset that they will be getting home at an awkward time from a game they agreed to play. Nobody made them travel out west to play a non-conference opponent. If they wanted to play a Power Four school closer to home there are plenty of teams much closer who would've probably loved to play them.
Their complaints fell on deaf ears for obvious reasons, but Georgia now gets to sit back and enjoy this advantage they get no matter how small it actually is.
Georgia shouldn't feel sorry for Arkansas for one monumental reason
While this is an unfortunate turn around for Arkansas, no one at Georgia should feel bad for them. Sure Georgia probably didn't need this advantage considering they won the SEC last year while Arkansas finished dead last, but crazy things happen on the road in this conference.
Just look at how Georgia has done on the road against inferior opponents the past few years. Sure Georgia always ends up winning these games, but they nearly lost to Kentucky in 2024 when they beat the Wildcats on the road 13-12. Then just two years earlier when Georgia had arguably their greatest team of all time they barely beat Kentucky on the road again 16-6.
Neither of these Kentucky teams were any good, but they still gave Georgia a run for their money. Arkansas believes they could do the same, but these kickoff times will make that more difficult for them.
Georgia would be favored to win this game by a lot whether Arkansas had to play Utah late at night or not, but there's no denying this will help UGA even just a little and they shouldn't feel sorry about it.
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