UGA Redcoat Band making their way to southern California for national championship game

ATHENS, Ga. — Excitement is growing at home and in southern California for Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship game between UGA and TCU.

A big part of Bulldog football is the Redcoat Marching Band and all those musicians who make their instruments sing.

Channel 2′s Justin Carter met up with the band as 460 Redcoats and staff filled eight coach buses to leave UGA’s campus in Athens on Saturday morning for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to fly over to Los Angeles.

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It was just last week when over 400 band members found out they were championship bound, and now they’re anxious to being Georgia magic over to the west coast.

“[It’s the] second year we are doing this for the national championship game, the second time in five or six years that we’ve flown, which is a pretty big job with this many people, if you can imagine,” Director Dr. Brett Bawcum said.

“We’ve been working hard for the entire semester. We started a week before fall classes started, that was our band camp week, and every week since then. It’s been two to three practices a week, on gamedays we have up to four,” said tenor saxophone player Harris Greenbaum.

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Bawcum said since this is the national championship, they have a few tricks up their sleeves.

“Third down, specifically, we’re gonna really get behind that defense,” he explained, “something called ‘Choker,’ it’s supposed to doom the opposing team.”

Of course, they have to stay true to Georgia.

“At halftime, we’re doing a seven-minute show called ‘Peace, Love and Dawgs,’ and it’s all about the music of the counterculture,” he said.

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Greenbaum says this isn’t an opportunity they’ll soon squander.

“We’re all so excited to head to LA, we’re all very, very lucky for this opportunity, and we’re gonna do the best we can,” Greenbaum told Carter.

The team had just six days to work out flights and logistics, but they got it done. They’ll arrive in LA on Saturday afternoon.

The big game kicks off on Monday at 7:30 p.m. from So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles.

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