2024 Georgia baseball schedule

If it seems like Wes Johnson went out of his way to schedule Georgia's non-conference games a specific way before beginning SEC play, you’re right.

Although some of the opponents may not be all that familiar to casual college baseball fans, with so many newcomers on his inaugural squad, Johnson wanted to be sure to have plenty of evaluation opportunities before kicking off conference action on March 15 at Kentucky.

In an interview last week with Jeff Dantzler, Johnson explained why he set Georgia’s non-conference schedule up the way he did.

“We played 19 games before SEC play, which quite a few. But we did that on purpose,” Johnson said. “We brought 17 guys in from the portal, then the freshmen, and the guys we’ve got coming back, that we were going need to try and do some different things, put some pitchers in some different roles, try some different lineups, try a guy at shortstop, try a guy at third base that maybe hasn’t played there a ton.”

There certainly will be no shortage of opportunities.

After the opening weekend series against UNC-Ashville, Georgia will play the likes of Georgia State, Northern Kentucky, and Presbyterian before hosting Michigan State for a single game on Wednesday, Feb. 28.

Following a three-game series against Georgia Tech that will see the Bulldogs play the Yellow Jackets at Russ Chandler Stadium, home at Foley Field and Coolray Park in Lawrenceville, Georgia travels to North Augusta to take on Georgia Southern at SRP Park.

A single game against Stetson, five games in four days against Northern Colorado, followed by a midweek contest against Iowa precedes the opening weekend of SEC play at Kentucky.

“We know they can do it and they’ve played a ton of those in scrimmages, but we all know when those lines get painted, real umpires are out there and another team is in the other dugout, things change. So, we’ve done that on purpose,” Johnson said. “When we open SEC play at Kentucky, so when we get there, we’ll have a very, very strong idea about what guys can and cannot do.”

The rest of Georgia’s SEC slate sees the Bulldogs host Alabama (March 22-24), Missouri (April 11-13), Ole Miss (April 19-21), Vanderbilt (May 3-5), and Florida (May 17-19). Besides Kentucky, the Bulldogs travel to Tennessee (March 29-31), Mississippi State (April 5-7), Texas A&M (April 26-28), and South Carolina (May 9-11).

Other midweek games include contests against Wofford (March 19), Mercer (March 26), Georgia State (April 2), two against Kennesaw State (April 9 in Athens; April 30 in Kennesaw), and Clemson (April 23).