The Georgia football team hammered Georgia Tech 45-21 this weekend and it’s worth wondering if this is even a rivalry anymore?
Twenty years ago, this sort of talk would have been heresy. The UGA-Georgia Tech rivalry is one of the oldest in college football and dates back more than 120 years. The ‘clean old fashioned hate’ title inspires a lot of talk on sports shows, but over the past 50 years, it’s a rivalry that has become increasingly one-sided. With the Dawgs taking Tech to the Woodshed this weekend for the second time in two years and the programs going in very different directions, it’s worth considering whether this game really is in Georgia’s best interest going forward.
Mike Griffith of Dawgnation has rilled up a lot of UGA fans this year by questioning whether this game should even be played anymore. He’s no Georgia fan, just a reporter who now writes about them and when you consider an outsiders perspective, he makes some good points. The Yellow Jackets run a ridiculous triple option offense which UGA has to prepare for every week for an entire year. UGA doesn’t benefit at all from having them on their schedule. In fact, right now, they’re suffering from having to work so hard to beat a team that struggles to get to seven wins every year.
Here are some numbers to bear in mind for this matchup. Since the year 2000, Tech has won 4 of 19 games. That’s .210 winning percentage people. Don’t like just looking at the past 20 years? How about the past 50, where Tech has won only 14 times since 1970. In short, the Yellow Jackets have lost three out of every four times they have played in this matchup in the last five decades. That kind of sounds like a trend doesn’t it?
At this point, what does UGA get from playing Tech every season? Getting to say that ‘we run this state’? Pretty sure that’s obvious. Other than that, there’s just no reason for this game to be played every year from a UGA perspective. They gain nothing from getting a win and run the risk of players getting injured playing against a system that deliberately targets opponents knees with some horrible low blocking.
In his third season as a head coach, Kirby Smart just finished 11-1. He did that with the youngest team in the nations best conference. He’s got a chance to go to the playoffs for the second year in a row. In contrast, Tech consistently plods along winning 6-8 games and is never going to fire Paul Johnson. These are just two different programs going in completely opposite directions. One is comfortable being the little brother than hopes for an upset once every decade. The other isn’t even satisfied with going to Atlanta and an 11 win season.
I’m not saying that this game needs to go away, but it’s just not accurate to call this a rivalry right now. Until Georgia Tech can become more than just a gimmick team, this game is going to continue to disappoint. If Kirby Smart hadn’t called off the dogs, UGA would have put up 80 on Tech last night and they wouldn’t have conceded more than 7 points. That’s a shame because I love rivalries, they are what make college football so great, but Tech kind of suck. Until they don’t, it’s going to be really hard to get me interested in this matchup again and I doubt I’m the only UGA fan who feels that way.