Saturday will mark Georgia’s first-ever appearance on the ESPNU network, but it will also be the 17th-ranked Bulldogs’ third consecutive night game.

The clash with unranked Arizona State, a rematch of last year’s game in Tempe, will start at 7 p.m., giving Georgia the chance to put its 2-0 night game record on the line.

“I love night games, the atmosphere is awesome,” said linebacker Rennie Curran. “There’s no better feeling than those lights being on and the fans going wild.”

Under coach Mark Richt, the Bulldogs are now 24-8 in night games

“A game’s a game,” said receiver Tavarres King. “I’m excited each and every Saturday about playing between the hedges.”

King would concede that fans tend to be a little crazier during evening contests though.

“Probably so, probably so,” he said. “A long day of tailgating.”

Though late starts have their perks for players (i.e. sleeping in), the hangover isn’t as much fun.

“The only thing is, the next day when you’re sore, you don’t have a whole lot of time to recover,” Curran said. “The game’s over at 11, you’re getting home by 12, so you don’t have nearly as much time to recover, especially when we practice on Sunday.

“It’s a fun atmosphere, but you’ve got to pay for it, too.”

Loss had nothing to do with the flu

Three weeks after the fact, Georgia quarterback Joe Cox still asserts that his now infamous “flu-like symptoms” had little to do with him and his offense’s poor performance in a season-opening loss to Oklahoma State.

Even after impressive passing performances against South Carolina and Arkansas and national accolades coming in, Cox said it was just a plain bad performance.

“Flu or no flu, I still know that I didn’t play the way I needed to play,” he said. “So it wouldn’t even be worth chalking a loss up to being sick knowing that, even if you were sick, there were things that you could’ve done better. I wouldn’t even accredit that loss to having anything to do with the flu.”

Running backs to get equal shots

Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo said Wednesday that tailbacks Richard Samuel and Caleb King will likely get an equal amount of carries at the start of Saturday’s game, and that whoever develops the hot hand could end up getting the majority of the Bulldogs’ rushes.

Samuel has had some fumbling issues this season, while King saw his first action of the season last week after a hamstring injury sidelined him for the Bulldogs’ first two games.