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Georgia Bulldogs' Season Kickoff to be Earliest in 137 Years

It you like smothering August heat, the early start to UGA's 2029 season might be the thing for you.
Dean Legge|
UGA during the 2026 Sugar Bowl. (Geoff Burke / Imagn Images)
UGA during the 2026 Sugar Bowl. (Geoff Burke / Imagn Images) | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Georgia Bulldogs

ATHENS - It’s more than a century in the making - Georgia’s 2029 season will be the earliest kickoff for the program in 137 years.

That’s right, Georgia’s August 25th kickoff in a couple years is the earliest the program has started a season since Georgia’s 1892 slate began with a win over Mercer on January 30 that year. The Dawgs’ 50-0 win that day was the first game in UGA football history. Georgia played only two games that season.

The move comes after the NCAA changed the college football calendar to begin two Saturdays before Labor Day, and conclude the Saturday after Thanksgiving. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told Dawg Post he is in favor of a uniform start to the college football calendar, which is possible due to the NCAA’s adjustment to the calendar.

“I'm not familiar with a professional league, amateur league or Little League down the road that has all kinds of different teams starting on different dates,” Sankey told Dawg Post. “It’s, Opening Day for a reason. We should have a common start date, and there should be a few exceptions.”

The Dawgs are set to take on the Akron Zips for the first time ever in the 2029 opener. FBSchedules.com first reported the UGA-Akron agreement. The Athens Banner-Herald further reported some of the details of the agreement, which includes 3,000 tickets the Zips can sell, and another 900 complementary tickets for the MAC program.

Georgia has two other out-of-conference games currently scheduled to be played in 2029. The Dawgs are slated to play at Georgia Tech and at Clemson that fall. But in May, UGA AD Josh Brooks indicated the Clemson game could be changed.

The Bulldogs have only played 11 games in August in school history, including a win over No. 14 Clemson to start the 2024 season, and a 45-7 win over Marshall last year.

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Dean Legge
DEAN LEGGE

After two-plus decades of covering the Georgia Bulldogs and the SEC, Dean Legge is one of the definitive voices in Athens and beyond. Legge has authored two books - DAWGSTRUCTION and DOUBLE DAWGS - with each chronicling Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs' run to national titles in 2021 and 2022. Legge has been a Heisman Trophy voter since 2005 and a Biletnikoff Award voter since 2009. He’s covered SEC Championships, Peach Bowls, Orange Bowls, Sugar Bowls, the Rose Bowl Game, College Football Playoff National Championship Games, the NCAA Tournament, the College World Series as well as a slew of college football, basketball and baseball games. Legge graduated from Coker College in 1999 with a degree in Political Science. He played both tennis and basketball for the Cobras. After graduating, Legge completed his academic career at the University of Georgia where he earned a Master of Public Administration from the School of Public and International Affairs in 2001. In 2008, Legge was elected President of the Coker College Alumni Association. He served on the Board of Trustees at Coker from 2009 to 2017 and was a member of the Executive Committee, Student Services and Enrollment Committee and Athletic Committee in that time. Legge is a native of Tucker, Georgia.

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