Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart reveals details and shares personal stories about the historic Georgia vs Florida matchup.

The Georgia Bulldogs and Florida Gators annual rivalry game is set to move to new locations for the 2026 and 2027 seasons while the normal venue in Jacksonville, Florida undergoes renovations. Atlanta will be the location for next year’s game, while Tampa will host 2027’s matchup.

Given that the decision to keep the matchup a neutral site affair was so heavily followed. Many wondered what ultimately led to the decision to opt for neutral site matchups as opposed to a home-and-home series. Georgia head coach Kirby Smart provided some insight about the decision during an interview with SiriusXM.

“That was an AD decision that ultimately was made based on money.” Said Smart “And you know, Mercedes and Tampa both ponied up and made really good financial offers.”

The financial offers Smart referenced were the recent revelations that both universities would receive a $7.5 million payout for each of the matchups played in Atlanta and Tampa. The schools would also be provided with $500,000 in compensation for travel expenses for each game, as well as for lodging.

In addition to providing details on what went into the decision to ultimately keep the game a neutral site affair, Smart recalled the last time the two schools met in each other’s home stadium. The Bulldogs head coach and former player himself retold the 52-17 beating the Dawgs suffered in Athens at the hands of the Gators in 1995.

“Everybody forgets that was seven kickoffs.” Said Smart about Florida’s onslaught of points. “Guess who the kickoff return guy was for Georgia that year… You’re looking at him. Seven kickoff returns in one game, and I brought them all out.”

Though Smart may have taken a physical beating in Athens 30 years ago. The Bulldogs head coach has helped the Dawgs deliver beatings of their own in recent years. Since 2016, Georgia has defeated the Gators in seven of the last nine meetings, many of which were by two scores.

The Bulldogs will renew their annual rivalry with Florida on Saturday, November 1st in Jacksonville, Florida. Kickoff for this game is currently scheduled for 3:30 p.m. and will air on ABC/ESPN+.

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Other Georgia News:

Police in Georgia have detained Nika Melia, a leading opposition politician, his party said on Thursday.

He is accused of insulting law enforcement officers.

Melia is one of the key figures in the pro-European political alliance Coalition for Change, which is Georgia’s largest opposition group.

It’s the second such detention in recent days.

Last week, a Georgian court placed Zurab Japaridze, another leader of the Coalition for Change, in pre-trial detention for an indeterminate period of time.

Japaridze had refused to appear at a parliamentary inquiry into alleged crimes committed under the former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is now in jail.

Other opposition figures have also been accused of similar offenses. They have also refused to appear at hearings and have rejected the parliamentary inquiry as illegitimate.

What is the situation in Georgia?

Georgia was previously regarded as one of the most pro-Western and democratic of the Soviet Union’s successor states.

But the current ruling Georgian Dream party is accused by critics of mimicking authoritarian tactics employed by Moscow and steering the country towards Russia and away from Europe and its aspirations of joining the European Union.

The government denies the allegations.

Membership of the 27-nation bloc is a popular goal among Georgians and incorporated in the constitution.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, however, last year postponed accession talks with Brussels until 2028.

That decision revived street protests that had rocked the country in 2023 and 2024 after the government introduced the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence — referred to by critics as the “Russian Law” — that requires NGOs to register as foreign agents or “organizations carrying the interests of a foreign power.”

Georgia has had no formal ties with Russia since Moscow backed separatists in two breakaway provinces in 2008.

Edited by: Sean SInico

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Most Georgia Bulldogs fans probably don’t know the names behind the scenes in the Butts-Mehre building that crunch the numbers and spent months making decisions when putting together an athletic budget.

People like Stephanie Ransom, Scott Hallberg and Derek Hammock.

“They’re not the most popular people in the athletic department right now,” Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks said.

On a fourth-floor conference room in Brooks’ AD suite, the senior administrators who oversee the finances and business operations of an athletic department that supports 21 teams have held meetings with every sport and department.

“I can walk into those meetings and play good cop, bad cop depending on what mood I’m in that day and help them out,” Brooks said. “It’s been a lot of work to really refine the budget.”

Brooks said crafting the $223 million fiscal year 2026  budget is more “complex” in the first year of expected direct player payments of about $20.5 million — including $2.5 million of new scholarships — as part of the House Settlement which is awaiting final approval.

Brooks said he approached it wanting minimal impact on the experience of the Georgia athletes.

He asked programs to rank their priorities to find areas that Georgia could be more efficient in, like team travel.

He’s got plenty of company at athletic departments across the country, including colleagues in the SEC who are holding their spring meetings this week at the Sandestin Hilton.

“Every school I’ve talked to has tightened the belt and cut expenses and tried to continue to be good stewards of those dollars,” said Auburn executive deputy athletic director Jared Benko, the former Georgia Southern athletic director. “From a revenue standpoint, you’re always looking to grow in revenue.”

At Georgia, softball is expected to produce $127,500 in ticket revenue after the school began charging for tickets this past season. That’s a far cry from the $43,008,842 projected for football ticket revenue in the next fiscal year which includes a ticket price increase to $80 for all games.

If the SEC goes to nine conference games, more money is expected to flow in through its TV contract with Disney.

“That $20.5 million, that comes from somewhere,” South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer said. “We have to come up with it. All of us as coaches are certainly cognizant of that.”

On the expense side, Georgia athletics has cut its annual payment to university programs to the university from $4 million to $2 million.

Spread out throughout Georgia’s budget numbers is the phrase “reassessment of needs and spending efficiencies,” with cuts to travel, supplies and other areas. Georgia cut its “outsourced meals” from $1.4 million to $834,921 as it prioritized in-house meals over catered meals. Costs for pregame basketball, softball, soccer, gymnastics, tennis and volleyball meals were trimmed.

Georgia projects $1.25 million in revenue for a new, non-athletic related events.

Brooks said the school is eyeing a spring Sanford Stadium concert, but has brought in Top Golf in the stadium in the past.

“We have to look at potentially other things we can bring to Stegeman,” he said. “Now that we have turf on the baseball field, maybe there’s opportunities for maybe a small concert there.”

Oklahoma is cutting 5% of its athletic employees, athletic director Joe Castiglione confirmed this week.

“It’s a massive reimagination of the structure that we need for college athletics, the ecosystem for it and obviously the economics behind it,” he said. “I would say it’s a strategic re-org, streamlining.”

At Auburn, Benko said: “We’re looking under every single rock and tightening the belt.”

A year ago, Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts said here: “We don’t have a revenue problem in college athletics, we have an expense problem.”

A year later, here’s how he’s addressed that in College Station.

“We’ve just tried to look at how do we find a way to eliminate redundancy of expenses, how to do a better job of running our business like a business,” said Alberts, noting that student services and academic support make the business of college athletics unique.

Alberts said Texas A&M won’t add additional debt service on facility upgrades so those must be fully funded. That includes a project that would add baseball suites and club seats.

Benko said Auburn is “making things as efficient as possible but still being in position for championships…We’ve put controls in place so every dollar is justified.”