Anyone familiar with the SEC knows its member teams can bring literally anything into their rivalries. This week, the rivalry between the Georgia Bulldogs and the South Carolina Gamecocks amped up when Bulldogs' head coach Kirby Smart took to the AM radio airwaves for an interview. Smart let it slip that he and Gamecocks' head coach Will Muschamp had been trading smack talk when Muschamp claimed there was no way Georgia would be able to sell out it's spring game.
Last year, Smart's first in Athens, over 93,000 Bulldogs fans came to see what he had planned for the team.
“Muschamp called me and said we would not even get (40,000),” Smart told 680 The Fan. “If everybody knows Muschamp at South Carolina, he’s calling me out. I figure we will get that. He is calling the Dog fans out.” He continued.
Record-setting spring
On its face, Muschamp's claims that Georgia will not be able to get 93,000 Bulldogs fans in for what is a glorified practice isn't completely out of bounds. The first year of a new head coach is always going to get the most buzz. The massive turnout for the spring game in 2016 was not only to see if Smart could bring his Louisville magic to Georgia but also to get their first looks at former 5-star recruit Jacob Eason.
Dawg fans have gotten a taste of what they can expect under Smart and Eason.
There might be a bit of a depression in attendance for this year's scrimmage, known as G-Day. At the same time, even if attendance for G-Day does indeed drop a bit, there isn't a Bulldog fan around who truly believes only 40,000 are going to show up. College football is as big in Georgia as it is anywhere in the country.
Hyping up Georgia Bulldogs fans
The big question, of course, is whether or not Will Muschamp actually said anything at all about the Bulldogs and how many fans were going to come out for G-Day. Being a former Georgia player himself, the South Carolina Gamecocks head coach likely has a special place in his heart for the school's fandom.
At the same time, Kirby is indeed smart for broadcasting the "conversation" between his SEC rival and good friend. There's nothing that won't get people out to the ballpark quicker than being told they aren't devoted enough to their team. Coaches don't have to be enemies in order to have a good rivalry. If this kind of talk between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Georgia Bulldogs continues, this looks like the SEC could have a healthy rivalry brewing.
