Gameday Saturdays in Athens can be described as a sea of red, but for this week’s game against Auburn, Georgia head coach Mark Richt wants to “blackout” Sanford Stadium.

The plan is for all the fans to wear black instead of red for the game. The idea for the blackout was broached by the seniors on the team.

“The seniors asked me to encourage the Bulldog Nation to wear black to Saturday’s game,” Richt said in his Tuesday press conference. “They said it would be cool and a great sign of unity.”

By Tuesday afternoon, the idea of the fan “blackout” was filtering down to the rest of the team. Redshirt freshman running back Knowshon Moreno was out of the loop on the blackout and first heard about it when a mob of reporters asked him about it after Richt’s announcement.

“I guess it will be pretty cool if that’s what they want,” Moreno said.

Junior wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi thinks the blackout is a way to get the 12th man pumped up.

“It is a way to get the fans involved, and so they could be a little bit more active,” Massaquoi said. “I think it is a good move.”

Sophomore quarterback Matthew Stafford is all for the blackout.

“Let’s do it. It is awesome. It is a cool thing to look up in the stands and see everybody wearing the same color,” he said.

Last year, there was an attempted blackout when Tennessee came to town, but only the student section got the message. Sophomore Eric Steed, a fan from Monroe, hopes both alumni and students will participate in the blackout.

“I am hoping it will be better this year,” Steed said. “I think it is pretty cool as long as you can get everyone doing it.”

Other schools have done similar gimmicks, such as Penn State doing a white-out.

“I know Penn State did the white-out, and I like that,” junior tight end Tripp Chandler said. “If we can get some black pom-poms like they had the white ones, that would be cool too.”