Vince Dooley’s top five Georgia football upsets

Number 1, Georgia Tech 1964

It was Vince Dooley himself who called the Tech game, “The biggest one of all.” The defining moment of Vince Dooley’s career was his first season defeat of Georgia Tech and its legendary coach, Bobby Dodd.

Before Dooley’s arrival in Athens, Georgia fans and supporters suffered the deepest and longest of football humiliations as the Jackets not only dominated the state, but Southern football as well. It was after three straight losses to Tech by a combined 73 – 16 score that Dooley stepped up to face the living-legend’s juggernaut program.

Doubling down on fate

To raise the stakes, Georgie Tech, in a moment of supreme arrogance, withdrew from the  Southeastern Conference the previous January rather than accept conference scholarship restrictions. There were hard feelings from many schools over Tech scheduling snubs as well. (Regarding that fateful decision, the rest, as they say, is history.)

It was an existential imperative for Dooley’s fledgling program to somehow beat Tech, and he did, upsetting the Jackets 7-0 in Athens.

Dooley beat Tech four more consecutive years, and 19 times in 25 tries. Dodd retired in 1967 having never beaten Dooley. The1964 upset of Tech was Dooley’s biggest, the launching pad from which Dooley’s Dogs ascended to national prominence.

Besides, it’s Tech.