Behind the scenes on the Clemson deal
Tuesday’s announcement that Georgia and Clemson would open the 2021 season in Charlotte seemed to come out of the blue. But Bulldog athletic director Greg McGarity told UGASports Wednesday there was a little more to it, behind the scenes.
The deal to play the game at Bank of America Stadium was in discussion for quite a while.
“Actually, it’s probably been in the works for six months,” McGarity said. “Our plan was to announce it Friday, but I think there were so many people involved that, after a meeting on Monday, word leaked out. So we had to go ahead and do something before we were really ready.”
McGarity said he was initially approached by Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich about the possibility of playing the game.
“Dan and I have known each for years, and we were just in a conversation earlier about football scheduling. Dan was commenting that his schedule in 2021 wasn’t as strong as he wanted it to be, and he asked if we had any interest in doing something. Because he knew our schedule wasn’t that difficult from a non-conference standpoint,” McGarity said.
“So we met and decided we could move San Jose State, or could cancel that contract and make it available. After that, we worked with Charlotte, and Charlotte was very interested. They have a history with Clemson as well, having hosted the ACC Championship there for a number of years, and they were very interested. Really, the three parties got together and made it happen.”
The decision didn’t come cheap.
In order to schedule the game, Georgia had to pay San Jose State a buyout of $1.8 million to cancel the game.
“In the end, we would not have been able to do this deal had the financial numbers not worked out for 2021. So, while we will have a 1.8 million payment to San Jose State, we’ll make up for that and more in 2021 with the Clemson game,” McGarity said. “We couldn’t have done it to take a loss, but we sure wanted to be sure we were neutral or better in the financial end, so it would make sense.”
With Georgia opening the 2020 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium against Virginia, the Bulldogs will now play the next 13 campaigns with at least one early-season non-conference game against a Power 5 foe, along with the regular-season finale against Georgia Tech.
The Bulldogs and Tigers will play in the 2024 Chick-fil-A Classic at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They also have two home-and-home series scheduled that will see Georgia host Clemson in (2030 and 2032), with the Tigers entertaining the Bulldogs in (2029 and 2033).
“No question that both schools wanted to play each other as evidenced by 2024, but we have two home-and-home games scheduled later on,” McGarity said. “If we could make this happen, we felt it could be a win-win for everyone.”
Besides Clemson, Georgia also has home-and-home series scheduled with Texas (2028 in Austin, 2029 in Athens), UCLA (2025 in Pasadena, 2026 in Athens), Oklahoma (2023 in Norman, 2031 in Athens), Florida State (2027 in Tallahassee, 2028 in Athens), and Ohio State (2030 in Athens, 2031 in Columbus).
McGarity said the responses he’s received for the beefed-up non-conference slates have been nothing but positive.
“It’s overwhelmingly happy. I know our fans love coming to Athens, they love to watch our team play, but there might have been some fatigue on some of the non-conference opponents we were playing,” McGarity said. “So once we were able to make the home game schedule better from an opponent standpoint, while we lose a home game, I think our fans would much rather play an opponent of this stature, and of the stature of the other programs we’re playing, in lieu of a guaranteed home game that has become, more and more, less popular.”
