Teetering Georgia Tech now faces nemesis Georgia

There won’t be many folks outside the locker rooms at Bobby Dodd Stadium giving Georgia Tech a chance to beat rival Georgia at 3:30 p.m. Friday.

The Yellow Jackets, 9-2 after a devastating, 42-28 loss at home to Pittsburgh, are 12⅓-point underdogs in the latest version of Clean Old-Fashioned Hate.

They’ve lost seven straight in the rivalry with the team from Athens and are not exactly playing their best ball coming into the matchup to be held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Tech has allowed 41.3 points and 510.6 yards per game over the last three outings and has gone 1-2 in those games. It trailed 28-0 a little more than 18 minutes into the contest, which wasn’t much of one Saturday against Pitt.

Coach Brent Key was guarded earlier in the season about his team not peaking too early, and that now appears to have been the case for a squad that at one time was 8-0 and ranked No. 8 in The Associated Press Top 25.

After two losses and a close win at Boston College (a team that is now 1-10), Tech’s hopes of winning an ACC championship and/or playing in the 12-team College Football Playoff are all but shot.

Key’s teams are 12-3 after a loss since he took over the program in October 2022 and have always shown a propensity to get up off the mat. But bouncing back from Saturday’s defeat against a top-five opponent is a tough hand to be dealt.

“We have six days,” Key said after the loss to Pitt. “I expect ‘em to be pissed and mad, but I told them before the game, ‘We don’t get today back.’ It’s all about how they respond to (Saturday). We play a game in six days.”

Some more numbers going against No. 16 Tech ahead of Friday? Key is 0-5 against the SEC and 0-3 against UGA. The Jackets are also 1-4 in games at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and have lost three in a row at the venue.

Georgia’s seven-game winning streak against Tech is one shy of the longest winning streak by either team in the rivalry (Tech won eight between 1949-56). The Jackets haven’t beaten the Bulldogs (10-1) since 2016 and haven’t beaten them in Atlanta since 1999.

Of course, Tech nearly ended some of those streaks a year ago in Athens at Sanford Stadium, where it led 27-13 with less than four minutes to go in regulation. But UGA scored two touchdowns in the final 3:39 of the game, then outlasted Tech in the eight-overtime classic that ended with the Bulldogs on top 44-42.

“That was a tough game,” Tech offensive guard Keylan Rutledge said. “Does it motivate us? I mean, yeah. That’s who we got next. But throughout the year we played it game by game. Faceless opponent. Prepare the right way. And we’ll prepare the same as the ones before that.”