The SEC released its 2020 football schedule earlier this week. Georgia’s schedule has two items that were big enough to compete with 2019 preseason coverage. First was confirmation that, yes, the Auburn game would leave its traditional November slot for an early October date. The big story was that the Bulldogs would open SEC play on the road in Tuscaloosa as Alabama rotates on to Georgia’s schedule. The two most recent regular season meetings haven’t gone so well for the Dawgs, but Georgia has taken the past two meetings in Tuscaloosa.

It’s a good thing that the Alabama game will take place so early in the season as its build-up has the potential to suck all of the air out of the room, especially if the two teams meet yet again in the 2019 postseason. Both teams will be able to put it behind them and get on with the rest of their season. We’ll hear plenty about that game during the offseason. It’s possible that both teams will have new quarterbacks, and there are a zillion other storylines about that game we’ll have plenty of time to get to after, you know, the actual 2019 season staring us in the face.

Some other quick thoughts about the 2020 schedule before we shelve it for the next six months:

1. I’m glad Blutarsky brought this up because I was struggling with a way to put it. The early placement of the Alabama-Georgia game is ideal for the conference’s chances of having two playoff teams. The loser of the game will have plenty of time in which to climb back up the polls before a possible rematch in December. At the same time, a loss will leave one of those teams with little margin for error for the rest of their season within their own division.

2. Not only does Georgia open the SEC slate at Alabama, that trip to Tuscaloosa will also be Georgia’s third game in 12 days. The season opener in Atlanta against Virginia is on Labor Day (Monday). It will be interesting to see how the staff manages the ETSU game. On one hand, you want the team sharp and rounding into form for the season’s biggest game. On the other hand, you might need an opportunity to rest players moreso than usual after a game just five days earlier.

3. You can pencil in October 3rd (Vanderbilt) as Homecoming.

4. Every couple of years we’ll get a schedule that takes Georgia away from Athens for over a month. With only six home games on the schedule, Georgia will go from October 10th through November 14th without a game in Athens.

5. Yes, the shift in the Auburn game will take some getting used to. It also means that Georgia will have its SEC West obligations out of the way by early October. Georgia closes the conference schedule with five straight SEC East games and won’t play its second game in the division until the second half of the season. In fact, it looks as if the SEC has set up many of its biggest intra-divisonal games for late in the season. From weeks 9 through 13 you have Georgia-Florida, Georgia-Tennessee, LSU-Alabama, LSU-Auburn, Auburn-Alabama, Alabama-Texas A&M, and LSU-Texas A&M. November 2020 should be fun.

6. I was disappointed to see the Kentucky game move back to November. There was some hope based on the 2019 schedule that we’d have an October trip to Lexington. An early autumn trip with Fall Meet going on at Keeneland used to be one of the highlights for Road Dawgs, but it’s not going to happen next year.