This is quite a surreal few days on the University of Georgia campus.
Thanksgiving week for the Bulldogs is typically a time to feast on Thursday and feast again on Saturday at the expense of state rival Georgia Tech. The Bulldogs have won 16 of their last 19 matchups with the Yellow Jackets, including the past three by the average score of 45-12, but this year's game at Sanford Stadium was scratched in late July by the Southeastern Conference, which opted for league-only schedules for its 14 members among the continuing coronavirus pandemic.
So instead of playing for the annual Governor's Cup on Saturday, the No. 13 Bulldogs will travel to South Carolina.
"It's a different feeling," Bulldogs senior left guard Justin Shaffer said this week, "but I'm just glad we have a season."
Georgia's 52-7 win in Bobby Dodd Stadium last November was its largest margin of victory against the Yellow Jackets in a series that began in 1893.
The Peach State has not been immune to this second wave of rising coronavirus cases, which canceled or postponed 18 college football games last week and has wreaked even more havoc on this week's start of the college basketball season. Bulldogs fifth-year coach Kirby Smart said Monday that he will share a safety plan with players closer to Thanksgiving, admitting both a concern and a strong desire to keep the positive COVID numbers as low as possible.
Other traditional matchups involving SEC teams originally set for this week that were axed in July include Florida-Florida State, Kentucky-Louisville and South Carolina-Clemson.
"It's weird, and Georgia Tech is one of our biggest rivals," redshirt sophomore tight end John FitzPatrick said, "but South Carolina is now our most important game because it's our next game, and that's where our focus lies."
Although there is no state championship at stake this week, the Bulldogs should not be lacking for motivation in their trip to Williams-Brice Stadium. Georgia was expected to win a fifth consecutive time by double digits over the Gamecocks last season, when the two teams vied inside Sanford Stadium, but the Bulldogs endured their most stunning defeat of the Smart era.
The normally steady Jake Fromm threw three interceptions and lost a fumble, while the normally reliable Rodrigo Blankenship missed two field-goal attempts, including a miss from 42 yards that served as the final play of South Carolina's 20-17 triumph in double overtime.
"It's definitely motivation," FitzPatrick said. "We came into that game last year and didn't play like we wanted to. We laid an egg. We've got to come out this year and focus on us. We're going to execute and play more physical."
Playing more physical is certainly the goal of Georgia's offensive front. Although Southern California transfer quarterback JT Daniels threw for 401 yards and four touchdowns during his Bulldogs debut in last Saturday's 31-24 topping of Mississippi State, the Georgia ground game netted just 8 yards.
Last Saturday marked the first time the Bulldogs failed to amass 25 rushing yards since a 24-10 loss to Florida in 2016.
"It was what they were doing up front with all the twisting and moving," Shaffer said. "We should have prepared for it better, but the passing game with JT back there is going to help us open up the run game more than it has been."
Feeling old yet?
Georgia junior linebacker Channing Tindall lives just a few miles from Williams-Brice Stadium, and his mother went to South Carolina.
"When I was little, I got to watch Todd Gurley play in that stadium against Marcus Lattimore," Tindall said. "It was very exciting for me, and now I get to play in it."
The game Tindall referenced was South Carolina's 35-7 win in 2012.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.