"I'm not saying we don't prepare hard for everybody," senior
linebacker Arnold Harrison said. "I'm just saying your body reacts
differently when it comes to playing great teams."
Georgia (3-0, 1-0 SEC) plays the No. 13 Tigers (3-1, 1-1 SEC) at 3:30
p.m. in Sanford Stadium. LSU beat the Bulldogs twice last year on the
way to the BCS national championship.
"Everybody knows this is the biggest game we've played this
season,"
defensive tackle Kedric Golston said. "I think everybody is a little
more focused. I think everybody is going to work a little harder this
week."
It's the kind of freshman running back Danny Ware longed to play while
he spent a year of academic exile at Hargrave Military Academy.
"This is the game where everybody looks at you and can tell what
kind
of guy you are," Ware said. "I wanted to be here to see how I measured
up."
The game drew the marquee afternoon time slot on CBS, but other media
outlets are focusing elsewhere on what will be big day in the SEC.
ESPN's College GameDay crew, a status symbol for big games around the
country, will be in Knoxville, Tenn., covering the only game between
unbeaten SEC teams as Top 10 Tennessee (3-0) and Auburn (4-0) battle. It
will be GameDay's seventh trip to Neyland Stadium, while it has visited
Athens just once, for the 1998 Georgia-Tennessee game.
Florida and Arkansas also play (12 p.m., CBS) in a critical conference
game.
"I guess Tennessee-Auburn is getting more attention," Georgia
coach
Mark Richt said. "If (Georgia and LSU) both were undefeated going into
this game, I think the nation would be focused on this game a little
more. That could be good or bad."
Almost 500 members of the media will be on hand to cover the game, but
several members of the national media backed out after the Tigers lost
two weeks ago, said Claude Felton, Georgia's sports information
director.
A ticket for the game is hard, but not impossible, to find. Tim
Cearley, Georgia's interim ticket director, has fielded calls all week
looking for passes. Former Bulldog and current Pittsburgh Steeler Verron Haynes called Wednesday but came away empty.
"I'm sure he'll find a way in, but we don't have any tickets,"
Cearley
said.
The game was the third-most requested prior to the season, behind only
next week's Tennessee game and the Georgia Tech game. As of Wednesday
afternoon, fans could buy two tickets on E-Bay for $187.50, which is far
less than some recent games in Athens. Two sets of tickets set with a
minimum bid of at least $300 hadn't generated a single bid.
Until LSU lost 10-9 to Auburn, it looked like Saturday's game would be
the first time two Top 5 teams had played in Sanford Stadium since No. 3
Auburn played No. 4 Georgia in 1983, but there is still plenty of
historical significance.
It will be the first time since 1946 that Georgia has been ranked this
highly while hosting another ranked opponent, and it will be the first
time since 1982 the Bulldogs have played a defending national champion
at home. That year it was the Clemson Tigers and the Bulldogs won 13-7
in the first night game ever played in Sanford Stadium.
Although LSU handed the Bulldogs their most thorough defeat in the
last four seasons last year, most of Georgia's players have downplayed
the revenge factor.
"Of course we want to beat them," center Russ Tanner said,
"not to
knock them out of the national championship picture but to get us into
it."
|