Kirby Smart has brought a lot of excitement to the Georgia football program during his 10-year run as head coach. Not only has he done a lot of winning, but he's played some really exciting non-conference matchups along the way.
Instead of stacking Georgia's schedules with low level opponents, he regularly plays a big name non-conference school every year outside of their annual season finale against Georgia Tech.
Georgia had a home-and-home series with Louisville that was supposed to begin this season. These two teams have only played one time in their history, so this was an exciting new series that everyone was looking forward to. Unfortunately the SEC decided to add a ninth conference game which meant Georgia had to cancel this series, but the Cardinals were just voted to finish third in the ACC this year so Georgia is missing out on a marquee non-conference game because of a decision the SEC probably should've never made.
SEC forced Georgia to cancel on Louisville at the worst possible time
If it were up to Georgia they would be playing their matchup against Louisville this season. They were scheduled to face the Cardinals on the road on Sept. 19 with a return trip to Athens during the 2027 season, but the SEC made it impossible for these games to occur.
When the SEC added a ninth conference game to this season Georgia had to cancel one non-conference game because they already had four non-conference games scheduled. They technically could've chosen to still play Louisville, but they would've then had to play 11 Power Four opponents with their season finale against Georgia Tech still on the schedule. Almost no teams in the country do that, so that is why the Louisville game was canceled.
If the SEC didn't add a ninth conference game then Georgia would be playing Louisville the next two years. These teams have only played once when they met in a bowl game in 2014, so this would basically be a brand new matchup no one has ever seen before. And considering they're expected to be one of the best teams in the ACC this season that would've been a really fun game.
Georgia proved that playing nine conference games isn't necessary
This year is the first season the SEC will play nine conference games, and it's already obvious that this was the wrong choice. Schools having to cancel non-conference games like Georgia did is just one reason why this was a mistake, but the increase in schedule difficulty is another reason why.
Georgia has the easiest schedule in the SEC this year according to ESPN data. They however have the 20th-most difficult schedule in the country. So why did the SEC add a ninth conference game to make everyone's schedule even more challenging when their schedules were already difficult enough with eight conference games?
This makes it abundantly clear that the SEC never needed to add another conference game, but they fell victim to the Big Ten's demands. Unfortunately for the SEC the Big Ten won't require their schools to play a Power Four non-conference team every year like the SEC does, so equality only appears to matter when it favors the Big Ten.
Hopefully the SEC and Big Ten can come to some sort of agreement. Fans on social media have floated around the idea of having the two conferences play one regular season game against each other every year based on the previous years standings, and that would be an amazing idea.
But until something like that happens the SEC will keep playing far more difficult schedules than the Big Ten while also being unable to schedule exciting non-conference matchups like Georgia and Louisville would've been.
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