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In Age Of Coronavirus, Georgia Bulldogs Get Creative For G-Day
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The Georgia Bulldogs will hold their annual spring football G-Day celebration Saturday; it just won’t be what fans are accustomed to. As the nation continues in its shutdown from coronavirus, the Bulldogs have come up with a creative way to engage their fans, even if the football team cannot play.
It will be a virtual G-Day.
Instead of 90,000 fans packing into Sanford Stadium, Georgia’s big win over Notre Dame last season will be rebroadcast on SEC Network with Coach Kirby Smart interacting with fans via his Twitter account during the replay of that game. The Georgia radio broadcast team will also “chop it up” with fans on the Bulldogs' Facebook page.
“It was probably one of the all-time greatest atmospheres in Sanford Stadium (for that game last September),” said Chuck Dowdle, the long-time former television sports anchor who is now the sideline reporter for the Georgia radio team. “It was one of the greatest games in college football last season.”
“This is an opportunity for fans to connect with the program when there’s not a lot of ways to connect right now,” UGA Associate Athletic Director for External Operations Alan Thomas said.
The idea actually started with Smart.
He approached the Bulldogs' marketing and promotions department with the concept of connecting with fans in the absence of the annual G-Day Game. SEC Network had planned to replay Georgia’s 2019 spring game this Saturday, but jumped at the idea of rebroadcasting the Dawgs’ 23-17 win over the Fighting Irish with Smart’s social media involvement.
“This is going to be fun,” Dowdle said. “Everybody looks forward to G-Day. This gives people something to watch and break the monotony of social distancing at home.”
The plans for Georgia’s virtual G-Day Game come in the same week that Vice President Mike Pence met with college football commissioners about plans for the 2020 season in the wake of the current pandemic. The big news coming out of that 30-minute conference call was that commissioners told Pence that college sports could not restart until campuses reopened.
“We are not in control. All we can do is make contingency plans,” Thomas said. “We’re preparing contingencies for everything, from the green light is go and we’re back to normal, to number two are we having events where we have to limit fan bases or will we go through a time where we are still not having events?”
Dowdle described UGA athletic officials as “cautiously optimistic.”
He hosts the 30-minute Bulldog Roundtable daily on Atlanta sports talk radio station 680 The Fan.
“Time is our ally," he said. "We are still nine weeks away from the first of summer.”
But the clock is ticking.
“If you’re looking in the future to give a game ball, that game ball is going to go to modern medicine as they come-up with immunizations or vaccines to protect people from the virus so people can come back and enjoy the sport,” Thomas said.
While the wait for that continues, the Bulldogs will entertain fans with a G-Day Saturday, if only virtually.
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