60 Fun Facts About Georgia Football

In which Georgia city do the Bulldogs play their home games?

Sanford Stadium sits right on the University of Georgia campus.

Georgia's first football team in 1892 was organised by a professor of which subject?

Dr. Charles Herty scheduled a game against Mercer, the first intercollegiate football game in the Deep South.

Georgia's home field is famously said to be 'between' what?

Grantland Rice coined the phrase in the 1930s for the English privet hedges that have ringed the field since 1929.

Why was the famous privet border around the field removed in 1996?

Offshoots were replanted after the Atlanta Games; the hedges also hide a crowd-control fence.

Which opponent did Georgia face in the first game at Sanford Stadium in 1929?

Georgia's founder Abraham Baldwin was a Yale man, and the school's Bulldog nickname is traditionally traced to that link.

The 'final straw' that got Sanford Stadium built was a 12-0 loss in the rain to which team in 1927?

Georgia's 'Dream and Wonder' team went in ranked No. 1 and undefeated; Steadman Sanford wanted a venue to match Tech's.

What is the name of the line of white bulldogs that have served as Georgia's mascot since 1956?

Georgia is the only school that buries its past mascots inside the football stadium.

Every Uga has been owned by the Seiler family of which Georgia city?

Sonny Seiler brought the first one, a wedding present, to a game in 1956; Uga travels with the team and gets his own hotel room.

In 1996 Uga V famously lunged at a wide receiver from which rival after he scored a touchdown?

The same dog appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1997 and played his father in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Which coach introduced Georgia's 'silver britches' in 1939?

Dooley switched to white pants when he arrived in 1964 but brought the silver back before the 1980 title season.

Who was the first player from the SEC to win the Heisman Trophy, doing so for Georgia in 1942?

The AP voted him 1942's No. 1 athlete over Ted Williams, who had just won baseball's Triple Crown.

Georgia's 1942 team capped an 11-1 season with a 9-0 win over UCLA in which bowl game?

Georgia later claimed a national title for that season after Vince Dooley found it listed as champion in an NCAA record book.

How many national championships had Georgia claimed through the 2022 season?

1942, 1980, 2021 and 2022; the last three came from the major wire-service polls.

Georgia's longest-tenured coach led the team from 1964 to 1988. What was his record?

He also served as athletic director from 1979 to 2004 and is in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Georgia's 1980 title-winning coach played his college football and began coaching at which rival school?

He was a Marine Corps infantry officer between playing and coaching under Shug Jordan.

Georgia won the 1980 national championship by beating which team 17-10 in the Sugar Bowl?

The Bulldogs finished 12-0 and No. 1 in both the AP and Coaches polls.

In which year did Herschel Walker win the Heisman Trophy?

Uga IV attended the ceremony in New York in a tuxedo.

In which small Georgia town was Herschel Walker raised?

He was born in Augusta and later ran for the US Senate in Georgia, losing a runoff to Raphael Warnock.

After Georgia, Walker spent three seasons with which USFL team?

He was the league MVP in his final USFL season before joining the Dallas Cowboys.

Walker's 1989 trade from Dallas to which team is considered one of the most lopsided in NFL history?

The haul of picks is credited with building the Cowboys' 1990s dynasty.

In which Winter Olympic sport did Herschel Walker compete for the United States in 1992?

He also competed in mixed martial arts and pursued a food-processing business.

Larry Munson broke his chair calling which 1980 play against Florida?

'Run Lindsay!' capped a Buck Belue pass on third down from the 8, and Munson went 'right through a chair, a metal STEEL chair'.

In which years did Larry Munson call Georgia football on the radio?

He got the job after reading in the Atlanta Journal that Ed Thilenius was leaving for the new Falcons.

Munson's 'hobnail boot' call came in a 2001 win over which team, on a David Greene touchdown pass?

'We just stepped on their face with a hobnailed boot and broke their nose!'

Georgia's oldest rivalry, dating to 1892, is with which school?

It is called the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry, and the first 'Bulldogs' badge appeared at the 1901 game.

Which city hosted the neutral-site Georgia-Florida game almost every year from 1933-2025?

Its tailgating earned it the nickname 'The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party', a name officially dropped in 2006. The game moves to Atlanta in 2026 and Tampa in 2027 while Jacksonville's stadium is rebuilt.

What is the name given to Georgia's rivalry with Georgia Tech?

After the 1893 game Charles Herty removed old gold from Georgia's colours because Tech wore it.

The Bulldogs refuse to count two losses to Tech from 1943 and 1944 in the series record. Why?

Georgia counts them separately because Tech's players were not at war and Georgia's were.

Georgia fans ring what after every victory, a tradition dating to the 1890s?

Freshmen were once required to keep ringing it until midnight.

Which coach began the 'Dawg Walk' tradition of players walking through fans into the stadium?

Ray Goff moved and then dropped it, and Mark Richt revived it in 2001.

Mark Richt coached Georgia from 2001 to 2015. How many SEC championships did he win?

He was replaced by UGA alumnus Kirby Smart, who took Georgia to the title game in his second season.

Kirby Smart grew up in which Georgia town and played defensive back for the Bulldogs?

His college teammates included Hall of Fame cornerback Champ Bailey.

Before Georgia hired him in 2015, Kirby Smart was a longtime assistant under which head coach?

He followed Saban from LSU to the Miami Dolphins to Alabama, where he ran the defense.

Georgia won the 2021 national championship by beating which team 33-18?

It was the program's first national title since 1980, and the first won by a No. 3 seed in the playoff era.

What was the score of Georgia's win over TCU in the 2022 season's national championship game?

The 58-point margin set a postseason record, and Georgia finished 15-0 for the first time in school history.

In the 2022 season's Peach Bowl semifinal, Georgia beat Ohio State 42-41 after the Buckeyes missed what?

It was the largest fourth-quarter comeback in College Football Playoff history.

Georgia's repeat in 2022 made it the first team to win back-to-back titles since which program?

Georgia was also only the third team in the modern era to finish 15-0, after Clemson in 2018 and LSU in 2019.

Two-time champion quarterback Stetson Bennett went by what nickname?

He started as a walk-on, left for Jones College when Justin Fields arrived, and came back to win two titles.

How many Heisman Trophy winners has Georgia produced?

Georgia has also had five No. 1 overall NFL draft picks.

What saved Georgia's program after the 1897 death of player Richard Von Albade Gammon?

Gammon's own mother reportedly urged that the sport her son loved not be abolished.

UGA was chartered in which year, making it the first state-chartered US public university?

The General Assembly approved Abraham Baldwin's charter on January 27 of that year, though classes did not begin for another 16 years.

Who wrote UGA's original charter and served as its first president?

A Yale graduate from Connecticut, he later signed the US Constitution and led the Senate as President pro tempore.

Which Declaration signer, as governor, persuaded the legislature to endow UGA with 40,000 acres?

He was one of only three physicians to sign the Declaration, and a Yale man like Baldwin.

Which committee member bought 633 acres by the Oconee River for the Athens campus?

He later became governor of Georgia, and the street running through campus bears his name.

UGA's oldest building, now called Old College, was originally named after which Founding Father?

It was modelled on Yale's Connecticut Hall and is the oldest building in Athens.

The three pillars of UGA's famous Arch are said to stand for wisdom, justice and what?

Those are the three principles engraved on the state seal, and the Arch is the traditional entrance to North Campus.

Which two students desegregated UGA when they walked through the Arch to register on January 9, 1961?

The building where they registered is now the Holmes-Hunter Academic Building, and Hunter-Gault went on to win two Emmys and a Peabody.

UGA's College of Education is named for which woman, the university's first African American graduate?

She transferred in as a graduate student in June 1961 and the college was named for her in 2020.

The Georgia Museum of Art was founded in 1945 with about 100 paintings from which New York collector?

It is now the official state museum of art.

How did the first mascot come to be named Uga in 1956?

Law student Billy Young suggested it to owner Sonny Seiler, whose bulldog had been a wedding present.

Which coach asked Sonny Seiler's permission to make his bulldog the team mascot in 1956?

Every Uga since has descended from that first dog and lived with the Seiler family in Savannah.

Which Uga made the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1997 and acted in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil?

He played his own father, Uga IV, in the Clint Eastwood film set in the Seilers' hometown of Savannah.

What is the given name of Uga X, the mascot for the 2021 and 2022 national titles?

Boom took over as Uga XI in 2023, and Loran was Uga VI's registered name.

Where are deceased Ugas laid to rest?

Each tomb has a bronze plaque and epitaph, and a life-size bronze Uga stands in front of them.

Which of these outfits has Uga worn for a special occasion?

Uga IV wore the tux to New York in 1982 when Herschel Walker won the Heisman; the usual outfit is a red jersey and spiked collar.

Georgia's first game in 1892, against which school, was the first college football contest in the Deep South?

Chemistry professor Charles Herty organised that first team and set up the game.

How many SEC championships do the Bulldogs claim, the second-most in conference history?

They count 18 conference titles overall and 64 bowl appearances, also second all-time.

Who arranged Georgia's rally song 'Glory, Glory' into its current form in 1915?

The song had been sung at Bulldog games since the 1890s; the Redcoat Band's slowed 'Battle Hymn' dates only to 1987.

How did the 1942 Georgia team come to claim a national title retroactively in the late 1980s?

That team went 11-1, shut out six opponents and beat UCLA 9-0 in the Rose Bowl, finishing second in the AP poll.

How many times has Georgia finished in the AP Poll's top ten?

Fifteen of those were top-five finishes, and the program has more than 900 wins, ninth all-time.