Georgia and North Carolina will open the 2016 season in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game at the Georgia Dome on September 3, 2016.

It’s been a long time coming. Georgia and Carolina have played 30 times with Georgia holding a 16-12-2 advantage. Outside of current SEC members, only Georgia Tech and Clemson have been more frequent Georgia opponents. In fact, the Dawgs have faced North Carolina more times than they’ve faced four SEC West schools. But the Dawgs and Tar Heels haven’t met since the 1971 Gator Bowl when brothers Vince and Bill Dooley squared off in a 7-3 Georgia win.

Rekindling the series has come up several times in the 40+ years since, most recently in 2009 when talks were underway for the 2010 and 2011 Kickoff Classics. UNC ended up playing LSU in 2010, and of course Georgia opened with Boise State in 2011.

Personally, this is the best matchup I could ask for – the team I grew up supporting against my alma mater. My only quibble is that this was a missed opportunity for a series. The history between the two programs is there. Athens and Chapel Hill are iconic college towns with two top public Southern universities. The stadiums even share a common heritage. Kenan Stadium isn’t huge, but its picturesque setting among the pines is worth visiting. It was built by T.C. Atwood who then designed our own Sanford Stadium. I’ve said my peace before about giving up home games for neutral sites, but it especially applies for these two teams: fans of both schools are giving up the chance to visit another classic college town and stadium in order to close down a soon-to-be abandoned dome in downtown Atlanta.

I get why a home-and-home would have been tough to do. Georgia is headed to South Bend in 2017, so the return trip wouldn’t happen any time soon. The neutral site game gets us off the hook at the cost of a 2016 home game against a lesser opponent. Neutral site games also charge a premium for tickets, so there will be a minor financial windfall. Georgia received $1.7 million for the 2011 game against Boise State, so we’d expect at least $2 million this time around. Those 2011 tickets were $55 – higher than a $40 home game but still towards the low end of neutral site games.

If this is the only way to make a game between UGA and UNC happen, so be it. I hope it’s a starting point to consider an on-campus series in the future.