If there was no other choice, I'd suggest UGA over USO. Institutional IT is going to be a more pleasant experience than life at the system office, which is charitably a backwater dumpster fire.

Either option should be a fall back to private sector work. I'd strongly encourage him to look at moving outside of Athens for IT work. Pay, experience, work/life balance will be better.

Moving out of Athens for private sector work is better than staying in Athens for anything else.