Stokan denies Georgia-USC rumor
A hot rumor spread from the West Coast on Wednesday that the USC football team would come to Atlanta to play Georgia in the 2011 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. (It spread the new-fashioned way, from Twitter to message boards.) But Gary Stokan, the game’s president, denied the rumor when I called to ask him about it Wednesday night.
He said there have been talks with USC about a possible appearance in the 2011 game — but not, he said, against Georgia.
“Georgia is not a possibility for 2011,” Stokan said.
He said UGA, through former athletic director Damon Evans, expressed interest in playing in the season-opening game in the Georgia Dome at some point in the future but indicated the next few years wouldn’t work schedule-wise.
Georgia is scheduled to open the 2011 season against Louisville in Athens.
As for USC, Stokan said Trojans coach Lane Kiffin sent him a text message in February to suggest a 2011 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game matchup against his former team, Tennessee. “It’d be a great storyline,” Stokan quoted Kiffin as telling him in a subsequent phone conversation. Stokan said new Tennessee coach Derek Dooley later told him he’d be willing to play USC in Atlanta — after he has three years or so to get his program established.
The bottom line, Stokan said, is that the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game still doesn’t have a 2011 matchup.
“We don’t have an opponent [for USC],” Stokan said. “We don’t have USC either.”
Stokan does have matchups for 2010 (LSU-North Carolina on Sept. 4) and 2012 (Tennessee-N.C. State).
++++++++++++++++
Speaking of scheduling: Georgia hasn’t finalized or announced its 2010-11 basketball schedule yet, but the Bulldogs will open the season at 7 p.m. on Nov. 12 in the new-look Stegeman Coliseum against Mississippi Valley State. That’s according to a schedule posted on the MVSU website.
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535 comments Add your comment
76-Dawg
July 29th, 2010
1:32 pm
Too FINISH : Southern Cal and the rest of the Pacific10 conference champion has to play a easier opponent from the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl and some times that’s ok but many years the SEC 2nd or 3rd place teams would be a better match up with Pacific 10. The way it is set up if the Pacific 10 winner is undefeated or only one lost then they could be one of the national championship opponents and the SEC champion could get left out because they have 1 or 2 loses. We don’t ever want another team like Auburn in 2004 to be left out when the Pacific 10 doesn’t even play a championship game.Every reasonable college fan in 2004 knew the best team in America at the end of 2004 was Auburn. The media wanted to see a match with USC and Okla. quarterbacks and money made that match up happen. We need a playoff system of 8 teams and then you would get a true champion as long as the SEC can end up with with 2 or 3 teams in the 8 playoff teams if they deserve it.
Contractor
July 29th, 2010
1:32 pm
Delbert D,
I know how you worded your post, and mine did come across as you ranking them, so sorry, but you are using that as position to say USC plays a bunch of tough teams, when it shows they don’t. And save “spew your venom elsewhere’ for a political blog, this is sports.
Still@theBAR
July 29th, 2010
1:32 pm
SLOW down their Kevin. Tech is 11-9 against USC with an average margin of victory by 7.2 points. Slow your roll big guy.
Lunchtime links: Masoli’s untold story | Hog Country Online
July 29th, 2010
1:33 pm
[...] the rumblings, Georgia and Southern California will not be meeting in the 2011 Chick-fil-a Kickoff Game. However, the Trojans remain a strong possibility to play somebody in Atlanta in [...]
Gatorzip74
July 29th, 2010
1:35 pm
If the payout was good enough to cover the cost of losing a home game I think Coach Meyer would jump at the chance to thump the Trojans!
DawgDad
July 29th, 2010
1:35 pm
UGA already has to play Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas. That’s plenty of sleaze on the schedule, thank you.
Lunchtime links: Masoli’s untold story | SportsXXL
July 29th, 2010
1:38 pm
[...] the rumblings, Georgia and Southern California will not be meeting in the 2011 Chick-fil-a Kickoff Game. However, the Trojans remain a strong possibility to play somebody in Atlanta in [...]
Still@theBAR
July 29th, 2010
1:41 pm
2012 Tech has an open OOC game I would love to plat the Vols, So. Carolina, or Bama. Ole Miss, Army, and Bama had games with us from a few years ago to in the Future and they all backed out. The SEC is a joke when playing OOC. BAMA backs out on Tech but plays Ga STATE. AHHAHAHHAH.
kevin
July 29th, 2010
1:41 pm
Still@thebar. Okay, so USC would beat GT 1/2 the time. Point is, don’t talk about UGA not playing people and the SEC being lame when your team has been beat 8 out of the last 9 times and play in the All Crap Conference.
kevin
July 29th, 2010
1:43 pm
Still@thebar,
“The SEC is a joke when playing OOC” Well, the ACC is a joke in conference
DAWGS#1
July 29th, 2010
1:47 pm
“Warp drive 1″ Ga tech does not need to face an SEC team in the chick-fil-a classic because they would be embarrassed not only on the field but in the stands as the SEC school would have more fans even though atlanta is home to the bumble bees, just worry about filling up that high school stadium and leave everything else up to the big DAWGS!!!
Fire Marshall Bill
July 29th, 2010
1:56 pm
The only Tech fans that would show up to a kick off classic would be
The concession stand workers
Stadium Janitors
The Tech Football Team
Ticket Taker
and Scoreboard person
The rest of them would be at home listening on their HAM radio’s in the garage trying to put a toilet together for their final project to recieve their Sanitation Engineering Degree
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
1:57 pm
Meanwhile, teams like USC schedule one big game against an SEC team and have all season to recover. Who do they play Oregon? Stanford? Oregon St?”
USC plays #11 Oregon, #15 Oregon St., and #25 Washington (SN top 100 rankings.) Plus, they play their traditional rival Notre Dame (generously ranked #29) every year.
I guess this year will be the last of the PAC-10 round-robin schedule.
I will gladly trade Washington, Oregon St., Oregon and the powerhouse ND and give you Alabama, Florida, LSU and let USC come play in the SEC in front of the largest crowds and noise.
Lunchtime links: Masoli’s untold story | SportsTalk South
July 29th, 2010
2:08 pm
[...] the rumblings, Georgia and Southern California will not be meeting in the 2011 Chick-fil-a Kickoff Game. However, the Trojans remain a strong possibility to play somebody in Atlanta in [...]
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
2:10 pm
Not to mention, the PAC Ten does not even play a conference championship.
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
2:11 pm
So you don’t even have to play the toughest opponet in your conference at the end of the season that could jepordize your national championship.
noles76
July 29th, 2010
2:14 pm
if florida “would have killed” miami since 2005,
then why didnt gators keep the canes on the schedule?
gators continue to refuse to put the canes on the schedule,
and contiue to play cupcakes like charleston so, western carolina,
troy, citadel, western kentucky, etc.
i got more respect for canes putting ohio state, okalhoma, lousiville, txa&m, houston and other D-1 teams on the schedule.
gators have 4 “real” games a year in the sec and then play door mats like vandy and ooc cupcakes.
without help from sec refs, gators lose to missst and ark.
you can t tell how grossly oer-rated 2009 gators were by how badly the tide annihilated the gators.
noles got the balls to have kept both gators & canes on the schedule for years.
gators dont want to play miami.
AD Foley wont do it, and everyone knows why.
DoubleDownDawgFan
July 29th, 2010
2:14 pm
I’m just happy that we don’t play in the ACC Coastal…the toughest football conference in the nation!!
Tide11
July 29th, 2010
2:21 pm
Agree.
If Florida put Da U on their schedule,
Florida wouldnt get even a sniff of a NC ring.
West Coast Bias
July 29th, 2010
2:23 pm
GeorgiaDawg84- unlike the Big 10, the Pac 10 plays every team in their conference every year, so you can’t win the conference by the luck of the schedule. Of course, this will change when they go to 12 teams but then they will have a conference championship game.
Still@theBAR
July 29th, 2010
2:23 pm
UGA can play the Blind Catholic Shcool Girls in the DOME and all the proceeds go to charity. Richt can feel good about play a creampuff then and all the player get some Community service credit for playing in the game.
kevin
July 29th, 2010
2:27 pm
Miami plays in a weak conference and needs to play tough OOC games where as UF plays in the toughest conference in the country and does not need to schedule tough OOC games.
UF won the NC twice since 2005. So yeah, i think they would have beat the he11 out of Miami who is 1-3 in bowl games (and some pretty lame ones at that) in that time.
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
2:28 pm
West Coast Bias.
I will give you that USC is great team second is probably Oregon. But, I have a hard time comparing the rest of the SEC matched up with the PAC10. Lets throw out Alabama say to your USC, and an LSU to your Oregon. That still leaves Florida, UGA, Auburn, Tenn, Ark, SC. To play those teams week in and week out in hostile enviroments in SEC and then turn around and play a conference championship is quite impressive.
kevin
July 29th, 2010
2:29 pm
still@thebar,
When you say Blind Catholic School Girls, are referring to Duke, Wake, NC State or some other weak team in the ACC?
Tide11
July 29th, 2010
2:29 pm
Noles 76
Forget it
Kevin is douche
davsag8r
July 29th, 2010
2:30 pm
Noles……
The Gators don’t play Miami because we got tired of filling their stadium and their pocket books.
Why should we put money in scUM’s bank account. That is why we never wanted to play your semeNoles and that’s why we dropped scUM. If they want to play in Gainesvegas every year then I am sure we can work something out.
kevin
July 29th, 2010
2:31 pm
Tide11,
How in the world can you say an unranked Miami team beats the #1 team in the country? Now, that’s douchey.
Delbert D.
July 29th, 2010
2:32 pm
@Contractor
July 29th, 2010
1:32 pm
“Delbert D,
I know how you worded your post, and mine did come across as you ranking them, so sorry, but you are using that as position to say USC plays a bunch of tough teams, when it shows they don’t. And save “spew your venom elsewhere’ for a political blog, this is sports.”
Let’s end the argument. There is no disagreement. A previous poster “imagined” what teams USC played, and I simply produced their most difficult teams according to the Football News. I am certainly not a fan of USC by any stretch of the imagination. When someone presents speculative, possibly unsubstantiated information, I try to clarify things.
Cheers, Delbert D.
Question
July 29th, 2010
2:32 pm
Is it possible we can fire Mark Richt before 2011?
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
2:34 pm
And I wouldn’t call winning the conference by luck
Last Year
Alabama:
September 5 vs. Virginia Tech Atlanta (Georgia Dome)
September 12 Florida International Tuscaloosa
September 19 North Texas Tuscaloosa
September 26 Arkansas Tuscaloosa
October 3 at Kentucky Lexington
October 10 at Ole Miss Oxford
October 17 South Carolina Tuscaloosa
October 24 Tennessee Tuscaloosa
October 31 —Open Week—
November 7 LSU Tuscaloosa
November 14 at Mississippi State Starkville
November 21 Tennessee-Chattanooga Tuscaloosa
November 27 at Auburn Auburn
December 5 SEC Championship Game (FLORIDA) Atlanta
Florida
Sep 5 Charleston Southern Gainesville, FL 7:00PM
Sep 12 Troy Gainesville, FL 12:21PM SEC Network GRN/Yahoo!
Sep 19 Tennessee * Gainesville, FL 3:30PM CBS GRN/Yahoo!
Sep 26 Kentucky * Lexington, KY 6:00PM ESPN2 GRN/Yahoo!
Oct 10 LSU * Baton Rouge, LA 8:00PM
Oct 17 Arkansas (HC) * Gainesville, FL 3:30PM
Oct 24 Mississippi State * Starkville, MS 7:30PM
Oct 31 Georgia * Jacksonville, FL 3:30PM CBS
Nov 7 Vanderbilt * Gainesville, FL 7:15PM
Nov 14 South Carolina * Columbia, SC 3:30PM
Nov 21 FIU Gainesville, FL 12:30PM
Nov 28 Florida State Gainesville, FL 3:30PM
Dec 5 Alabama – SEC Championship Game
USC
/09 vs. Maryland Berkeley, Calif. W, 52-13
09/12/09 vs. Eastern Washington Berkeley, Calif. W, 59-7
09/19/09 at Minnesota Minneapolis, Minn. W, 35-21
09/26/09 at Oregon Eugene, Ore. L, 42-3
10/03/09 vs. USC (Homecoming) Berkeley, Calif. L, 30-3
10/17/09 at UCLA Pasadena, Calif. W, 45-26
10/24/09 vs. Washington State Berkeley, Calif. W, 49-17
10/31/09 at Arizona State Tempe, Ariz. W, 23-21
11/07/09 vs. Oregon State Berkeley, Calif. L, 31-14
11/14/09 vs. Arizona Berkeley, Calif. W, 24-16
11/21/09 at Stanford Stanford, Calif. W, 34-28
12/05/09 at Washington Seattle, Wash. L, 42-10
12/23/09 vs. Utah (Poinsettia Bowl) San Diego, Calif. L, 37-27
kevin
July 29th, 2010
2:35 pm
I thought GT fans talking about being better than UGA after losing to them 8 of the last 9 years was stupid, but talking about some irrelevant Miami team beating UF in the last 4 years takes the cake. Congrats to Tech fans for being less delusional than these 2 Miami folks.
davsag8r
July 29th, 2010
2:38 pm
scUM doesn’t even have an on-campus stadium. They have to travel north to Ft. lauderdale to play home games. The U is quickly becoming ucf. USF has replaced you in the state of Florida and will probably whip your a$$ this year. Of course we will have beaten them soundly on 9/11/10.
Why don’t you build a stadium? Oh that’s right, none of your fans can actually afford to go to the games because the spent their allowance on crack the got in liberty city!! Have fun playing in a half empty Dolphins stadium this year.
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
2:39 pm
excuse me that was Cal’s big schedule
Dec 26, 2009 Boston College 13
Dec 05, 2009 Arizona
Nov 28, 2009 UCLA Box score
Nov 14, 2009 Stanford Box score
Nov 07, 2009 Arizona State Box score
Oct 31, 2009 Oregon Box score
Oct 24, 2009 Oregon State Box score
Oct 17, 2009 Notre Dame, Ind.
Oct 03, 2009 California Box score
Sep 26, 2009 Washington State Box score
Sep 19, 2009 Washington Box score
Sep 12, 2009 Ohio State Box score
Sep 05, 2009 San Jose State Box score
Joke by Coke
July 29th, 2010
2:44 pm
Check out Tech’s O schedule…South Carolina State, Kansas, Middle Tenn,
davsag8r
July 29th, 2010
2:49 pm
UF is THE flagship university in the sunshine state. The sooner scUM and Semenhole fans come to terms with this the sooner they can be satisfied being also rans in the acc.
Anthem
July 29th, 2010
2:51 pm
Serious Dawg fans need to start organizing and demanding that Richt be fired. Otherwise, sports writers will be asking the same question this time a year from now.
Richt represents mediocrity. Saban and Meyer represent excellence and championships. Richt simply isn’t in their class, nor will he ever be. Richt would have to be incredibly lucky to win the division, and the odds against him winning the SEC championship go up to at least 20:1.
Those are the simple facts, and there’s no amount of enthusiasm or cheerleading or Top 5 recruiting classes that can get around it.
As they say in poker, “Read ‘em and weep.”
LMFAO
July 29th, 2010
2:53 pm
Florida said no 2 times when asked for Home v Home vs the Trojans.
Reminder
July 29th, 2010
2:54 pm
There’s a reason why UGA is better known as The Cesspool of the South.
A lot of reasons, actually.
Oh look, red panties are falling from the sky!!!
LMFAO
July 29th, 2010
2:56 pm
The loadest statdium in the counrty is Oregon, USC plays there every other year and they sell out the LA Colesium at 96,000+. They are used to noise and crowds.
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
2:58 pm
Reminder, please explain
Lunchtime links: Masoli’s untold story | Rebel Country Online
July 29th, 2010
2:58 pm
[...] the rumblings, Georgia and Southern California will not be meeting in the 2011 Chick-fil-a Kickoff Game. However, the Trojans remain a strong possibility to play somebody in Atlanta in [...]
davsag8r
July 29th, 2010
2:59 pm
I was at the last home game during the UF and USC home and home and I’m sure we beat the crap out of socal! The next year in LA you were lucky to get a tie?? socal don’t want no part of UF…..and if they really do then make it to the BCS again sometime and we can see what happens.
Fire Richt
July 29th, 2010
2:59 pm
Is it possible we can fire Mark Richt before 2011?
Probably not, but it’s at least encouraging to think about it.
Richt should have been sacked after last season.
LMFAO
July 29th, 2010
2:59 pm
The PAC 10 plays every member of the conference every year. They will not do that after 2010; 2011 they start a CCG that year.
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
2:59 pm
LMFAO.
USC Doesn not sell out the Colesium every year. You can walk up and buy tickets for the game the day of. Get your facts straight.
Reminder
July 29th, 2010
3:02 pm
Reminder, please explain.
Jan Kemp trial
Jim Harrick
Damon Evans and the red panties
47 players arrested in three years
How many more reasons do you need, because there are lots more!
Still@theBAR
July 29th, 2010
3:07 pm
JOKE TECH’s OOC had a record of 32-17 and UGA’s had a record of 21-28 with TECH having 11 of those wins. So. Carolina St was 10-2 and lost to 2 big time schools and has the FCS “Heisman” Walter Payton Award #1 canidate. Kansas was 5-7, Mid Tenn St was 10-3, and UGA was 8-5. Now UGA OOC teams La. Laf 6-6, Colorado 3-9, Idaho St 1-10, and TECH 11-3.
Now joke coke sniffer tell me how GT’s ooc is weak compared to UGA’s?
TECH has DUKE 5-7, UGA has Miss St. 5-7, TECH has NCSU 5-7, UGA has VANDY 2-10.
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
3:10 pm
National Championships
SEC 18 PAC10 9 (Seven by USC, hmm weak conference)
Since 1990
SEC 8 PAC-10 1
GeorgiaDawg84
July 29th, 2010
3:10 pm
Reminder, and what fine institution would you be claming that is much more impressive?
LMFAO
July 29th, 2010
3:17 pm
I was off on the attendace; it “only” averages around 85,000 down from over 87,000.
“Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
USC home football attendance dropped from 87,476 in 2007 to 84,799 in 2009