Georgia will now have a new opponent when it opens the 2020 college football season. On Wednesday, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced that they would be implementing a conference-only schedule for fall sports, following up on the actions of the Big Ten and Pac-12 Conferences from a few weeks ago. Included in that announcement is the fact that each ACC member can play one non-conference opponent in football, but the specifics will all but eliminate Georgia's chances of facing Virginia.
"All non-conference game opponents, selected by the respective school, must be played in the home state of the ACC institution, and all non-conference opponents must meet the medical protocol requirements as agreed upon by the ACC," the conference press release stated.
Per the Macon-Telegraph, Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity confirmed that the announcement "Eliminates UVA game.”
Georgia would have had to travel to Virginia for the game against the Cavaliers to take place. The November 28th home game against in-state rival Georgia Tech would fulfill the new ACC conference requirements, but that still remains in doubt as well, as the SEC has yet to announce its decision on how the conference will handle the schedule for this season.
Late Wednesday evening our sources confirmed the SEC would have their version of a schedule out by the end of the weekend and quite possibly by Friday. SEC Presidents will meet via Zoom call on Thursday to discuss different schedule models. Its been rumored the SEC school presidents are to vote on a conference-only schedule which would add 2 additional SEC games. SEC teams would pick up the next 2 cross division games in each team's rotation. In this scenario, UGA would pick up Mississippi st. and Arkansas. While rival Florida would add Alabama and Texas A&M.
With the cancellation of the Chick-Fil-A game and all major conferences moving to a conference-only schedule, expect for the season to now start mid to late September.