ABC announces date, time for Georgia-Oregon Week 1 showdown

ABC announced a package of key games’ dates and times on Monday, including the details for Georgia’s season-opener versus Oregon. The game on Sept. 3 goes down in Atlanta and will kick off at 3:30 p.m. on the ABC channel.

Georgia and Oregon go head to head in the 2022 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic, hosted at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Bulldogs have played the Ducks just once – a 1977 victory in Athens.

On top of Oregon-Georgia, the opening Saturday of the season has several key matchups like Alabama-Texas, Notre Dame-Ohio State, Arkansas-Cincinnati, Utah-Florida and more. College GameDay will be live from Columbus, Ohio, before kickoff between the Fighting Irish and Buckeyes.

Defending champion Bulldogs to face former coordinator in season-opener

The Georgia Bulldogs are coming off of their first national title in 41 years and they’re reloading after a historic 2022 NFL Draft. Meanwhile, the Oregon Ducks went through an offseason coaching change with Mario Cristobal heading to Miami and former Georgia coordinator Dan Lanning taking over. The Bulldogs are 15-point favorites in Las Vegas to take down their former coach and the Ducks. Kirby Smart has only lost one game as a 15-point favorite.

Smart addressed his initial thoughts on the season opening matchup, and he also touched on the fact that he’s going up against Lanning to kick off the season.

“We looked at them in the spring and kind of studies those guys,” Smart said. “It makes it awkward, you know the new head coach, you can take the film and things. You’re really looking more at who the players are than anything. Very familiar with Dan Lanning, very familiar with a lot of guys on the staff. His offensive coordinator was at Auburn and also at FSU, so we looked at those guys. But got a lot of respect for Dan and what he did for our program, and know he’ll do a really good job there at Oregon.”