Anyone who believes the rivalry between Georgia and Georgia Tech has lost its luster should ask Kirby Smart the next time they have the opportunity.
During Tuesday’s post-practice press conference, Smart was quizzed on whether the annual season-ender against the Yellow Jackets will continue to be an annual rivalry once the revamped SEC schedule goes into effect.
A look of bewilderment crept across his face.
“I can’t even fathom a world where we wouldn’t play them. I guess it could happen, but that’s just probably out of my scope,” Smart said. “Do I want it to happen? Absolutely not. It’s a great rivalry game. It’s great for our state. It’s great for both universities. I mean, it’s a long-standing tradition, so no, I don’t want it to happen, but I don’t know what the foreseeable future has.”
For the record, there has been no discussion of putting an end to the longstanding series, one the Bulldogs lead 70-39-5 and have dominated in recent years.
Georgia owns a five-game winning streak dating back to 2017 and has not lost in its last 11 trips to Atlanta, going all the way back to 2011.
It’s results like that which rankle head coach Brent Key, a Georgia Tech graduate.
“You are damn right it does,” Key said. “Rivalry games are not supposed to be one-sided. It needs to be competitive and that is on us at Georgia Tech. That is on us to go out there and be able to compete for four quarters in the football game.”
Key knows what it’s like to hold a win over the Bulldogs.
During his career as a player and as an assistant coach with the Yellow Jackets before taking over the program late in 2022, Key holds three wins over Georgia.
It’s a feeling he won’t soon forget.
“It’s huge, it’s tremendous. The feeling of winning that game and receiving the Governor’s Trophy; I put it in my office for my guys to see it,” Key said. “We have two goals each season: to go to a bowl game and to beat Georgia. We don’t come out and openly talk about what our goals are so last week I began to talk about going to a bowl game, because it was time to talk about that. Another goal is beating Georgia.
“I said in my opening press conference a year ago we will work every day to beat the team on the other side of the state, and that's what we are doing, and that's what we’ve done. We’ve worked every day with that goal.”
Although Smart doesn’t speak as openly in regard to his feelings on the rivalry, behind closed doors he makes sure his players get the message.
“Coach Smart gave us a history lesson earlier this week,” safety Malaki Starks said. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to speak on that or not so I won’t. It’s nothing bad, but just a history lesson about Georgia playing Georgia Tech and just how long it goes.”
Even out-of-state players like wide receiver Dillon Bell get the picture.
“I didn’t really know anything much about it since I’m from Texas,” Bell said. “As I got here, I know that it’s a big in-state rivalry. It’s like a championship game. It’s really big here, and I’ve gotten to know that since I’ve been here for two years.”
Players like Milledgeville native Javon Bullard don’t need reminding of how big the game is.
"It's an in-state rival, Georgia Tech. It's been that way for years, going to continue to be that way, and like I said, this is more of a pride game than anything,” Bullard said. “We pride ourselves on running this state, so we definitely want to come out on top."
Linebacker Chaz Chambliss had offers from both schools and knows as well as anyone that the saying “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate” definitely rings true.
“Being recruited by both schools, there’s always bad blood between them. Being here for the last couple of years, I’ve learned more than I knew before about the rivalry, historically,” Chambliss said. “I think Coach Smart does a great job of showing the history between the two teams, going back to when they used to beat us, and how history has panned out. Coach Smart does a great job of emphasizing that even though it’s not as big of a hyped-up rivalry game, for us, it’s still a rivalry game in-state.”
