The No. 10 Georgia Bulldogs are preparing for their in-state rivalry game with the No. 18 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, but this year’s game could mean more than just state bragging rights.
Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate is but a few days away, and the Bulldogs are in the midst of preparing for what could be the most important installment of the more than century-old rivalry in many years.
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Both teams sit with two losses, both in their respective conference. Both teams still have dreams of conference championships. Both teams are ranked in the College Football Playoff Top 25. And both teams still have an outside shot at making the first ever College Football Playoff.
That’s a lot to pile on to one already bitter rivalry game.
Two coaches who couldn’t differ more. The mercurial and oft curt Paul Johnson, master of the triple-option offense and harbinger of knee damage nationwide. The personable and soft-spoken Mark Richt, stockpiler of tailbacks and state recruiting monarch.
WE RUN THIS STATE says Georgia
WHAT’S THE GOOD WORD says Georgia Tech
Both teams respond with to hell with the other.
Georgia Tech’s fate is already sealed in terms of a conference championship. They’re winners of the Coastal Division, and will face the Atlantic Division champion Florida State Seminoles in the ACC Championship Game on Dec. 6 in Charlotte, N.C.
The Bulldogs still need a little help.
Despite walloping the Missouri Tigers 34-0 in Columbia, Mo. on Oct. 11, the Bulldogs still sit behind Mizzou in the SEC East standings thanks to a completely forgettable and unforgivable performance against the Florida Gators just three weeks later. That loss, coupled with the early-season stumble against South Carolina, has Georgia playing the waiting game.
If the Arkansas Razorbacks can continue their hot play and topple Missouri on Black Friday, then it will be a Red & Black trip to the SEC Championship for the Bulldogs, and even more at stake a day later when they meet the Yellow Jackets.
If that should happen, and both teams win their respective conference championship games, then what?
Then you have to start talking playoffs. Despite each team having two losses, the Playoff Selection Committee can’t possibly ignore the SEC Champion, or an ACC Champion who upset (probably) undefeated Florida State — that is unless the Gators do the dirty work first this weekend.
The Georgia Bulldogs are big Arkansas fans, and strange as it may sound, the Yellow Jackets are big Florida State fans this weekend.
Desperation makes for strange bedfellows.
So, potentially, the rivalry game between Georgia and Georgia Tech could have national championship implications. The loser of this game — even if they go on to win the conference championship — would have three losses, and that would be a sure fire ticket out of the final four playoff teams.
Is the word epic overused? Certainly by the current generation. But it’s no exaggeration to say that the 2014 installment of Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate has the potential to be just that…
Epic.