Sanford Stadium

Sanford Stadium is the football home of the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens, Georgia, sunk into a natural valley on North Campus that gives it a distinctive bowl-shaped intimacy despite its massive size. It ranks among the largest stadiums in the country and one of the true cathedrals of college football, packed with a raucous SEC crowd every fall Saturday. The playing field is famously ringed by manicured privet hedges, and the surrounding campus setting, complete with tailgates on North Campus and Herty Field, gives game day in Athens an unmistakable character. Between the hedges, Georgia has built one of the sport's most intimidating home-field advantages.

Sanford Stadium opened in 1929 with a win over Yale and was named for university chancellor S.V. Sanford, who championed its construction. The stadium's privet hedges, planted from the start, gave rise to the enduring phrase that Georgia plays 'between the hedges,' a tradition so cherished that the hedges are dug up and replanted after major renovations. Over nearly a century it has hosted countless ranked matchups, SEC title-run celebrations, and the 1996 Olympic soccer competition, while expansions have pushed capacity past 92,000. Few college venues carry as much sustained tradition and atmosphere as Sanford Stadium.