American college football rivalry
Locations of Georgia and South Carolina
The Georgia–South Carolina football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Georgia Bulldogs and South Carolina Gamecocks. The series started in 1894 and was played intermittently over the next several decades. The series then became much more frequent, being played almost every year from 1958 to 1989. After the Gamecocks joined the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the rivalry was played annually from 1992 to 2023. As a result of SEC expansion, it ceased to be an annual matchup in 2024, although there is speculation that the two could become permanent annual rivals again if the SEC moves to a nine-game conference schedule. Georgia leads the series 55–19–2.
Both of these SEC members coincidentally are flagship universities of their respective state systems, and are classified by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education as a Research I university, the same designation as their sibling science, technology, engineering, and mathematics schools from the ACC — with which they also have intense rivalries: Georgia's Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate rivalry with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, and South Carolina's Palmetto Bowl game against the Clemson Tigers.
It has been described as South Carolina's "only true rivalry game" in the SEC, as well as a game that "may not have always had national significance, but always mattered in the South". Although Georgia and South Carolina no longer play annually, the two programs remain rivals in recruiting, often pursuing many of the same players.
Emergence of the rivalry.
Traditionally, Georgia has had three main rivals: Georgia Tech, Auburn, and Florida.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;They’ve got more rivals than almost anybody I know. They really do. Traditionally, we’ve only had Clemson because we haven’t beaten anybody enough to have any more rivals. Georgia, I’ve always said, is our biggest conference rival since they’re closest to us, I think, than any other school.
Schedule change.
In most years, since the 1991 SEC conference expansion, the game was the first conference game on the schedule for both teams. The game was typically held during the second week of the season with a non-conference game being played prior. (This was typically the case with a few early exceptions where the game was the first game of the season for both programs.) Due to SEC expansion in 2012, the schedule needed to be modified to accommodate new SEC members Texas A&amp;M and Missouri. These became known as "bridge" schedules because they were meant to be temporary scheduling formats used to bridge the gap between the formats of 5–1–2, pre-expansion, and 6–1–1, which was agreed upon by the SEC membership as the new format. The 2012 "bridge" schedule, issued by the SEC home office, moved the UGA-USC game to October 6, 2012. However, in 2013 the SEC offices saw fit, even in the face of issuing another "bridge" schedule, to move the yearly tilt between the two programs back to the second week of the season for each program stating that the game would fill needed conference TV inventory for the early week in the season. At the same time the SEC announced that another "bridge" schedule would be issued for 2014, but that schedule has yet to be released by the SEC home office in Birmingham, Alabama. However, later the SEC released a 2014 schedule that is not a bridge schedule, and also released the future cross-division opponents for each team for the 2014–2025 seasons. Additionally, while USC remained as UGA's first conference game, the first conference game for USC was a week 1 game against Texas A&amp;M. In 2016, the game was postponed from Saturday October 8 to Sunday October 9 due to the effects of Hurricane Matthew.
in 2024, the game ceased to be a permanent fixture on both teams schedule due to the addition of Texas and Oklahoma to the league, and the abolition of the Eastern and Western Divisions. However, it has been reported that the SEC will likely eventually move to a nine-game conference schedule that incorporates three “permanent” opponents along with six other rotating contests. There has been speculation that, if this change does occur, South Carolina and Georgia could be one of each other's three permanent opponents.
Border Bash.
Since 1994, the "Border Bash" has been held as a charity tailgate event in the Augusta metropolitan area before every Georgia–South Carolina football game. For decades, it was only held in Georgia (Augusta), but it was held in South Carolina (North Augusta) for the first time in 2017. The event is supported by numerous business and private sponsors from both sides of the Savannah River. The evening event draws thousands of fans from both fan-bases, and proceeds are used to support numerous children's charities from around the CSRA through the Border Bash Foundation. Both mascots, as well as each program's cheerleaders, represent their programs at the event along with various dignitaries from the schools themselves. Neither the football coaches or the ballplayers attend due to conflicts with their pregame preparations.
References.
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