Georgia played its first football game in 1892. Since, the program has played 1,325 total games (as of Oct. 4, 2021). A handful of opponents have made up a good amount of those contests over the years, but who has Georgia football played the most?
Who Has Georgia Football Played the Most?
10: Ole Miss – 45 games (32-12-1)
Both Georgia and Ole Miss are founding members of the SEC from way back in 1932, so it makes sense that the Rebels would be one of UGA’s most common opponents. The two programs first met in 1940 in Athens, which ended in a 28-14 Ole Miss victory. They only played once between 1943 and 1965 but then competed against one another every season from 1966 through 2002. There have only been five matchups in the almost 20 years since as the SEC’s expansion and scheduling format has made it harder for East and West opponents to meet.
Georgia holds a commanding lead in the series, 32-12-1, largely from a 12-game win streak from 1977 to 1988. But Ole Miss currently has the bragging rights, claiming the 2016 showdown in Oxford, 45-14. The one tie occurred in 1941 in Athens, 14-14. There is no game between the two scheduled for 2021.
9: Tennessee – 50 games (25-23-2)
The first game between Georgia and Tennessee was played in 1899 in Knoxville, with the home Vols pulling it out, 5-0. But most of the contests between the two have come since 1992 when the SEC expanded to 12 and formed its divisional format, putting Georgia and Tennessee in the East and guaranteeing an annual matchup between the two. From 1899 to 1991, these teams played just 20 games despite both being founding members of the SEC in 1932.
Tennessee originally dominated the series when the programs were placed in the East Division, winning every game they played against each other in the 90s for eight Ws in a row. The tide has turned starkly in recent years, and the Vols now haven’t beat Georgia since 2016 with a nearly 30-point average margin of victory for the Dawgs during this current four-game win streak. UGA has done enough to wrestle control of the series back from UT, currently holding a slim 25-23-2 advantage. This series will renew later in 2021 when Georgia heads to Knoxville on Nov. 13.
8: Clemson – 65 games (43-18-4)
Most of this series was played in the early 1900s and from the 1960s through the 1980s. Though these programs have never shared a conference, it does make sense that schools located about 70 miles away from one another would play often. In 1967, Georgia and Clemson contracted an annual meeting between them, which lasted in the 80s when both programs became nationally relevant at the same time. That’s when the rivalry really gained some heat.
In 1978, the Bulldogs delivers the Tigers their only loss of the season, and Clemson returned the favor in 1981. From 1977 to 1987, eight of their 11 meetings were decided by seven points or fewer, including a 16-16 tie in 1983.
The series has been scarcely played since, though it was renewed this year in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Georgia coming away victorious, 10-3, in the first meeting between the two since 2014. The Dawgs have won all but one of the eight games they’ve played against the Tigers since 1991 and have dominated the series overall, 43-18-4.
7: Alabama – 70 games (25-41-4)
Georgia and Alabama have played a lot less since 1992 when the SEC expanded to 12 and they ended up in different divisions, but there’s some healthy history between these founding members of the conference. They first met in 1895 in Columbus, Georgia for a 30-6 UGA triumph, and they spent 21-straight years playing one another from 1944 through 1965. But after that, contests became less frequent.
Many of the games they’ve against one another lately have been in SEC Championship Games and in the College Football Playoff, none of which have gone the Dawgs’ way. The last time Georgia beat Alabama was 2007 with six losses to the Crimson Tide since, a handful in horribly heartbreaking fashion in incredibly meaningful games. Alabama leads the series, 41-25-4. There is no game scheduled between the two in 2021, though a meeting in the SEC Championship Game and/or CFP are possible.
6: Kentucky – 74 games (60-12-2)
Though Georgia and Kentucky met for the first time in 1939, a late start compared to other series on this list, they’ve have played each other every year since 1956, so the contests have piled up nicely over the last few decades. Well, I guess that depends on which side you fall on, because they’ve been much nicer to Georgia than Kentucky.
The Bulldogs are currently riding an 11-game win streak over the Wildcats, the longest of the series, and have had multiple spans of continuous triumph in the showdowns, previous holding five different streaks of five wins or more in a row over Kentucky dating back to the 1950s. It would take decades of the Wildcats coming out on top for them to even make a dent on Georgia’s 60-12-2 lead. The teams will play this season on Oct. 16.
5: South Carolina – 74 games (53-19-2)
South Carolina played its first SEC season in 1992, but the Gamecocks and Bulldogs had been meeting well before the expansion team joined the league. UGA and USC met almost annually from 1958 to 1989, cementing a lot of history between programs that first competed in 1894. South Carolina’s introduction to the SEC meant the series with Georgia continued, so the teams have now faced off in almost every campaign dating back to the late 1950s.
Georgia has basically run roughshod over South Carolina in head-to-head meetings, never losing more than three games in a row to the Gamecocks in all the years of their contests. Between 1960 and 1977, South Carolina failed to beat Georgia in 15 tries, though there were two ties mixed in there. After a brief five-year period in the early-2010s where the Gamecocks won four of five, Georgia has claimed all but one of the meetings since 2015, expanding its advantage in the series to 53-19-2, including a 40-13 triumph on Sept. 18.
4: Vanderbilt – 81 games (59-20-2)
Prior to the pandemic, the last time Georgia didn’t play Vanderbilt, Apollo 11 hadn’t yet reached the moon.
Since 1968, the Bulldogs and Commodores have met in every season except 2020, solidifying Vanderbilt as one of Georgia’s most historic opponents. The two first met in 1893 for a 35-0 Vandy victory in Nashville, one of only 20 times the Commodores have come out on the positive side of a showdown with the Dawgs. Georgia has a firm hold on this series, which included an 18-game unbeaten run over Vandy from 1974 through 1990 and an 11-game winning streak from 1995 through 2005. Of Vanderbilt’s 20 wins over Georgia all-time, 14 of them came before 1962.
The Bulldogs are currently on a four-game positive run over the Commodores and lead the overall series 59-20-2 after destroying Vanderbilt, 62-0, this season on Sept. 25.
3: Florida – 98 games (52-44-2)
Now begins the run of opponents that would be considered serious Georgia rivals.
Florida and Georgia haven’t skipped a year since 1943 when World War II stopped the Gators from fielding a team, and that was the only one they’ve missed dating back to 1926. Over the years, the Bulldogs and Gators have created one of the most unique and intense rivalries in all of college football, let alone the SEC.
First, almost every game since 1933 has been played at a neutral site in Jacksonville, adding some extra spice to each meeting. Second, the series has been nicknamed the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party because of the size and scope of the tailgating and associated events based around the game. Third, Georgia and Florida can’t even agree on when they first started playing, with UGA insisted the series was born in 1904 while UF says it didn’t even field its first football team until 1906. The earliest contest both schools acknowledged by both was in 1915 – a 37-0 Georgia win.
Georgia dominated the early portion of the rivalry in the 30s and 40s, then the 50s and 60s swung more in Florida’s favor. The Gators gained a firm grip on the series in the 90s, claiming seven contests in a row from 1990 through 1996, and continuing that strength through the 2000s. From 1990 through 2010, UGA won the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party just three times (1997, 2004, 2007), but since the turn of the decade, the Dawgs are 6-4 versus the Gators. However, Florida triumphed in the 2020 meeting, 44-28. Georgia will look to expand its 52-44-2 lead in the series when the two programs play again in Jacksonville on Oct. 30.
2: Georgia Tech – 114 games (68-41-5)
Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate doesn’t have its name because the hatred is new.
The first game was in 1893, then UGA and GT played a few multi-year series in the late-1890s, 1900s, and 1910s. After not playing from 1917 through 1924, Georgia and Georgia Tech shared a field every since from 1925 through 2019 until the pandemic halted what was 105 years in a row of contests. More than a century, fight songs tailored to insult the other, a dispute over the 1943 and 1944 games, and more later, you have one of the most heated rivalries in all of college football.
The renewal will come on Nov. 27 in the final week of the regular season, as is customary. Georgia Tech is aiming to bend the series back in its favor after Georgia whooped on the Yellow Jackets by a 33.3 average margin of victory slightly from 2017 through 2019. As a whole, the rivalry has trended toward the Dawgs for decades, with GT only topping Georgia 10 times since 1971. The Bulldogs have pulled away for a 68-41-5 lead in the series.
1: Auburn – 125 games (61-56-8)
This weekend, the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry will write its next chapter – the 126th one, to be exact – and Auburn will continue to be who Georgia has played the most.
World Wars have been the only thing to force this series to take any hiatus since 1898, though the series began in 1892 with a 10-0 Auburn win in Atlanta. The longevity and frequency that Auburn and Georgia have played has aptly earned it the moniker of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.
It’s been a very even series, with the teams often trading periods of dominance to ultimately form an almost-even series score of 61-56-8 for Georgia. The Tigers were strong in the early portion of the series, but the Dawgs totally turned it around in the 1920s, winning every game but one from 1920 through 1931. Another Auburn run in the 30s was met with a Georgia response in the 40s, and the teams continued to trade decades in the 50s and 60s. From 1983 through 2005, Georgia was just 7-16-1 against Auburn, but from 2006 on, the Bulldogs are 13-3 versus the hated Tigers, including a current four-game win streak in Georgia’s favor.
Most recently, the 2013 “The Prayer at Jordan-Hare” game and double meetings in 2017 have been massively notable events that shaped the course of the national college football season.
