WATCH Kirby Smart on what he saw in Georgia football scrimmage
Georgia football coach Kirby Smart speaks to reporters on Aug. 19, 2026 during preseason practices.
On a late summer night, tens of thousands of fans gathered inside Georgia’s Sanford Stadium for a different kind of football — and, in the process, made a bit of history.
A crowd of 25,433 was on hand for Georgia women’s soccer’s 6-0 victory against James Madison on Thursday, August 20, setting a new NCAA record for a men’s or women’s college soccer game.
It broke a nearly 50-year-old mark set in 1980, when Saint Louis and SIU Edwardsville men’s soccer had 22,512 fans for a game between the longtime rivals at Busch Stadium.
Thursday’s game was billed as a celebration of the 30-year anniversary of the United States women’s national team’s 2-1 victory against China at Sanford Stadium in the gold-medal match of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Midfielder Honoka Hamano, a Central Florida transfer in her first season with the program, scored two goals for Georgia in the victory. Five different players scored for the Bulldogs, who outshot the Dukes by a 24-6 margin.
The win was the first of the season for Georgia, which had tied Illinois and Minnesota in its first two games. The Bulldogs are No. 25 in the latest United Soccer Coaches poll.