Equal opportunity in Sunday's benefit game

Mark Fox said it will be an equal opportunity for all his players when the Bulldogs take on Michigan State in Grand Rapids for Sunday’s exhibition benefit against the Spartans.

Tip-off is set for 2 p.m. at the Van Andel Arena.

“We’re going to try and give everybody a chance to play significant minutes, so we can find out really how they will respond in that environment,” Fox said Wednesday. “We have a really idea of what Yante Maten can do, so we’ll be a little bit protective of his minutes, but all these guys, especially at the perimeter with so many guys battling for time, I think they’ll get equal opportunity to see how they play against somebody else.”

Proceeds of the game will be split between the two universities with Georgia’s share going to the American Red Cross of Georgia to help victims of the recent hurricanes.

“We agreed to start talking about it the middle of last week. I think the initial thought was we were going to play the game in Detroit, the Lions play the Sunday night game so that was the first thought,” he said. “After a day or two, we realized that wasn’t going to work so we moved the conversation to a true road game in East Lansing, but had a snag there and finally agreed to play the game in Grand Rapids. It will be a great opportunity to find out where we are, but most importantly a chance to help the people in the state of Georgia.” The game will actually be Georgia’s second practice games in three days.

NCAA rules allow for teams to schedule a practice prior to the start of the season, although schools are not allowed to promote, or even say who the opponent will be.

Sources tell UGASports the opponent is Clemson. That “game” will be played on Friday. Bulldog fans can get their first look at the 2017-18 Bulldogs when the team host Valdosta State in an “official” exhibition game on Thursday, Nov. 2 at Stegeman Coliseum.

“I’ll be honest, we have another scrimmage before that which by rule we’re not allowed to talk about, so there’s going to be zero game prep here. It’s going to be go up and play. I vote I the Coaches Poll every week and I voted them No. 1 in the country, so that’s how good we think they are,” Fox said. “They have an experienced team coming back, they have a very good front line and hopefully our front line will show our experience and ability also.” Fox revealed this wasn’t the only benefit game he discussed.

“We were having some conversations with a couple of different people,” he said. “We had had a school contact us about playing somewhere near the Jacksonville area, but we knew if we did this it would have to be a road game and if we were going to go on the road we wanted to make sure we had a game that really challenged us and give us a great measuring stick.”

Georgia opens its regular season Nov. 10 against Bryant.

“The chance to play a road game as an exhibition could be a very valuable lesson for us,” Fox said. “We’re not going to have a shootaround and we’re not going to get to go to the arena, have a scouting report or anything like that, but it’s still going to be as much like a road game as we can make it which hopefully will be a good experience for our team.”