ATHENS — Georgia’s Jamon Dumas-Johnson made a mistake last year that he made sure he didn’t repeat this season. This was weeks ago, when asked who the Bulldogs’ greatest rival was, he admitted to thinking it was Auburn or Florida. Then he heard differently from coach Kirby Smart.
“I know for sure Coach is going to be mad if I don’t put Georgia Tech first,” Dumas-Johnson said in September when the Bulldogs were getting ready to play Auburn. “Since I stepped foot in here, Georgia Tech is the one for him.”
And that message gets communicated consistently within Georgia’s Butts-Mehre football complex.
A lot of people might think that odd considering all the other rivals the Bulldogs have, many of whom give them a much harder time than the Yellow Jackets have in recent years. Georgia has won five in a row over Tech and 18 of 21 since losing in 2000.
And generally those contests haven’t been close. During the current five-game win streak, the average margin of victory for the Bulldogs has been 33.6 points. The average score in those games was 43.4 to 9.8.
Even Brent Key, Tech’s second-year coach and a Jackets letterman, has a hard time thinking of it as a rivalry when his team is not even competitive. Asked this week if those margins of defeat bothered him, Key replied, “You are damn right it does.”
“Rivalries are not one-sided,” the former offensive lineman said. “Rivalries are competitive games between two teams. That is what makes rivalries great. … Well, in order for that to be the case, it needs to be competitive. That is on us at Georgia Tech to be able to go out and compete for four quarters in a football game.”
Perhaps, but Georgia’s recent domination has done nothing to dull Smart’s senses about this annual game, and he and his staff have been deliberate about delivering that message to his players.
It helps that so many coaches on the Bulldogs’ staff are either Georgia lettermen themselves or grew up in the state. Smart, offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, co-defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and receivers coach Bryan McClendon played for the Bulldogs. Tight ends coach Todd Hartley is a UGA alumnus. Running backs coach Dell McGee (Columbus) and Stacy Searels (Rome) grew up in Georgia.
Within them all is a profound sense of how important the Tech game is to the Georgia football program. As the old saying goes, “Don’t think it’s important? Try losing to them one time.”
That message has been reiterated in the Bulldogs’ position meetings all week.
“It’s an in-state rival, and we’ve been playing them for a long time,” junior safety Javon Bullard said. “It’s more of a pride game than anything. We pride ourselves on running this state, so we definitely want to come out on top.”
“It’s a huge one,” said tight end Oscar Delp, a junior from Cumming. “The best team in the state wins the Governor’s Cup. It’s a huge trophy, and it’s a huge game for us every year and for them every year. They’ve got a lot of guys over there that were with us previously.”
Offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, wideout Dominick Blaylock and tight end Brett Seither were at UGA before joining Tech this year.
None of the current Bulldogs have tasted defeat against the Jackets. But Smart has, both as a player and a coach.
Georgia lost to Tech and former coach Paul Johnson 28-27 in 2016, Smart’s first season. The Bulldogs also lost to the Jackets 22-19 in Athens in 1998. That was Senior Day for Smart, a two-year starter at safety.
“I was 4-1 (against them), but I redshirted, so I guess you don’t count that one, but I was still part of the team,” Smart said “I don’t remember much (about the games), just that they were tight, really close, last-possession-type games. The last two I was in came down to the last possession, and it seems this rivalry has been that way for a lot of years I’ve been around.”
Not lately, though. The closest during Georgia’s current five-game streak was 37-14 last year in Athens. But the undefeated Bulldogs, who would go on to win their second consecutive national championship, clung to a 10-7 lead at halftime. As Georgia is wont to do, it scored 27 consecutive points in the second half to pull away. The Jackets threw a touchdown pass with 2:55 remaining for the final margin.
That Tech team finished 5-7. This one, everyone agrees, is far more dangerous.
The Jackets (6-5, 5-3 ACC) became bowl eligible for the first time since 2018 when they beat Syracuse at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday. They have wins over two teams that were ranked at the time, 23-20 over No. 17 Miami on the road and 46-42 over No. 17 North Carolina on The Flats. Key has quickly enhanced the roster through the transfer portal with additions such as former Texas A&M quarterback Haynes King. Faulkner’s game-planning and play-calling skills have improved scoring by more than two touchdowns per game.
And as badly as the Bulldogs want to beat Tech, the Jackets probably want to win even more. Not only would that wreck Georgia’s long streak of perfection, but it also would provide a foundational building block for Key. He happened to be a member of the most-recent Tech teams to beat the Bulldogs three years in a row (1998-2000).
“Who wouldn’t?” Smart said of Tech wanting to torpedo the nation’s No. 1-ranked team. “They’re all coming for us. But we’re not concerned with who is coming after us, we’re concerned with who we’re coming after. Our job is to get ready and prepared for a physical, hard-nosed team that knows everything about us.”
Should the Bulldogs somehow lose, it won’t be from a lack of respect for the opponent or the rivalry. Smart and his staff have made sure they’re fully aware of the importance.
“I grew up around it, was recruited by both schools,” said outside linebacker Chaz Chambliss, a junior from Carrollton. “You know there’s bad blood between them always. Being here the past couple years, I know more about it than I did about the rivalry. Coach Smart does a great job of showing the history of the teams going back to when they used to beat us all the time.”
Said sophomore All-American safety Malaki Starks: “It’s intense. It’s ‘Hate Week.’ Everything kind of turns up a little more. Everything ramps up. Georgia Tech week around here, there’s nothing playful about it.”
Credit: Curtis Compton
Credit: Curtis Compton
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