4/18/2017 football Edit

The Annals of G-DAY: The Specifics

(L to R) G-Day in 1996 was played in front of a sellout crowd at Clarke Central High School; Twenty years later, the game lured another sellout of much bigger proportions; and, it once cost to attend G-Day like in 1980 when, considering inflation, admission was roughly $10 by today's standards.

Patrick Garbin • UGASports

Team & Research Writer

When G-Day wasn’t cheap, was at night, Red vs. White, and over 1.25 million served…

Leading you up to Saturday’s G-Day, get ready for information overload—and in regards to somewhat of an insignificant game, no less. However, in researching 76 years of G-Day, I discovered some material in which a handful of you may find remotely interesting. Concerning the history of the annual spring game, today I present “The Specifics” of G-Day, which will be followed by “The People,” or those who have made G-Day rather significant for decades to many Bulldog enthusiasts.

GAME: The first G-Day game was played on March 8, 1941, and has been played annually ever since, except in 1943 because of the draft of WWII depleting the Georgia program; 1945 because of numerous injuries suffered by the squad; and in 2000 when underground pipes had to be inspected because of a sewage leakage at Sanford Stadium.

TEAMS: Of the 73 G-Day games in history, most have pitted the familiar Red versus Black; however, the first 21 intrasquad contests actually matched the Red versus the White—that is, until 1964 when head coach Vince Dooley changed the White team to the Black. What has constituted each team has varied drastically over the years: from the entire team being divided as evenly as possible into the two sides by the coaching staff, to the familiar first-team offense and second-team defense vs. second-team offense and first-team defense, to… you name it, including in both 1984 and 1989, when the Red was comprised of then-current players facing the Black made up entirely of alumni players. And then, there was the one-of-a-kind 1952 game when three teams were featured: a Red offense opposed a White offense—each of which was defended by the same all-defensive Black team.

DATE: The game’s date has ranged from as early as March 2 (twice) to as late as July 7 (in 1944), or the one time the spring game was more so a summer game. Three of the previous 73 games were not played on a Saturday, but on a Thursday in 1946, and on Fridays in 1944 and 1947. And, it was never played during the week of the Master’s—that is, until 1999 when, after 57 consecutive years of not taking place during the week of the celebrated golf tournament, G-Day was held on the next-to-last day of Master’s week. Soon afterwards beginning in 2001, eight of the next 15 G-Days played under head coach Mark Richt were unfortunately (in the opinion of many Bulldog enthusiasts) held during the Master’s. This year’s date of April 22 is the latest the spring game has been held since April 25, 1998.

TIME: The kickoff time for G-Day has widely ranged over the years. In 2006, the game kicked off as early as noon, whereas 60 years before in 1946, it started at 8 p.m. Of the 66 recognized kickoff times (start times for seven of the 73 games through last year are unknown), the 4 p.m. start to the 2016 game marked the seventh latest in history. Having kicked off at 2 p.m. on 31 previous occasions, or nearly half of all G-Days, this Saturday’s start time has been the most popular, followed by 2:30 (15 times).

ADMISSION: Although children, high school students, and certainly UGA students have for the most part always been admitted into G-Day at a discount, if not free of charge, only fairly recently beginning in 2009 has admission into the spring game been free for everybody. For the first game in 1941, admission for the general public was 50 cents, which had climbed to $2 by the mid-1960s, and $3 by 1980. Twenty years ago in 1997, general admission was a whopping $5, where it remained through 2008.

RESULTS: Of the 73 G-Days, the 1998 game is not considered in the all-time results because it was considered a “mere scrimmage” and no score was kept. However, I do recognize the 1999 game, which featured an all-offensive Black team versus an all-defensive Red (obviously resulting in the exclusively-offensive team winning, 37 to 0), considering an all-defensive team probably has just as good of a chance of scoring more points than an opposing all-offensive group as an alumni team does defeating a squad of current players (i.e., the two Current Players-Alumni games of 1984 and 1989). With that being said, the Red leads the all-time series 38-31-3 over the White/Black. In addition, the Red also holds the advantage in points scored—but only in the slightest—1,187 to 1,153, or an average score of 16.5 to 16.0.

ATTENDANCE: The 70 G-Day games with an identified attendance (attendance for three games—1944, 1948, 1950—is unknown) have totaled more than 1.25 million spectators. From the 2,500 in attendance in 1941, whereby three-fourths of the crowd had left by halftime during a 35-7 rout by the Red, to 18,000 in 1954, which almost quadrupled the total from the year before, to the first time the game exceeded 30,000 spectators (1982), to the sellout crowd of 10,196 played at Clarke Central High School in 1996 (because of Olympic events being held that summer at Sanford Stadium), to the unfathomable sellout crowd of 93,000 a year ago, 1,264,454 spectators have witnessed G-Day, or an average crowd of 18,064. Notably, since admission into the game has been free beginning in 2009, the average attendance is 49,929 spectators.