ATHENS – Nowadays, you might hear some young Georgia fans wondering why the Bulldogs still bother to play Georgia Tech in football. It’s not competitive, they argue, and it comes at a terrible time of the year, when the Bulldogs should be preparing to play in the SEC Championship game.
You won’t hear such talk from anybody who has witnessed the rivalry known as “Clean Old-Fashioned Hate” more than a decade or so. The game has earned that nickname honestly.
Traditionally falling on Thanksgiving weekend, for those participating in it, the outcome dictated more than any other contest whether a season was a success or failure.
“It was just so passionate,” said Buck Belue, who went 4-0 against the Yellow Jackets as Georgia’s quarterback from 1978-81. “For us, the whole end of the year was full of passion, with the Georgia-Florida game in Jacksonville, then we’d play this heated game with Auburn, and then, gosh, you’re in the middle of Clean Old-fashioned Hate the next week. Only the really good Georgia teams were able to run the table at the end of the year, and those games with Tech were always so action-packed.”
Georgia was, of course, originally scheduled the play Tech on Saturday. But that game was one of numerous casualties across the country because of the coronavirus pandemic. The SEC elected to play a conference-only schedule of 10 games, which meant Georgia dropped its Nov. 28 home game against the Yellow Jackets. The Bulldogs instead were playing South Carolina on Saturday night in Columbia, S.C.
Pandemic permitting, Georgia will renew its 127-year-old series with Tech next year. It will be back in Atlanta, according to UGA Athletic Director Greg McGarity.
Belue will tell anyone who will listen how important the Tech rivalry is. He won a national championship with the Bulldogs and forever will be remembered for his role in the Belue-to-Lindsay Scott play of 1980 against Florida. But it’s Georgia’s 1978 game against the Yellow Jackets that he tabs as his all-time favorite memory as a player.
That game exemplified the electrifying, back-and-forth battles that Tech-Georgia often was in the 1960s and ’70s. Then a freshman, Belue came off the bench to team with receiver Anthony “Amp” Arnold for an incredible come-from-behind 29-28 victory at Sanford Stadium.
It packed nearly everything into one football game, including a 72-yard punt-return touchdown by Scott Woerner, a 100-yard kickoff return by Tech’s Drew Hill, 160 yards from Eddie Lee Ivery, a couple of fourth-down conversions to keep Georgia’s final drive alive and a two-point conversion to win it.
“We were struggling on offense, and coach (Vince) Dooley came over and said, ‘Go find your helmet, and let’s see what you can do,” said Belue, now a sports-talk radio host on Atlanta’s The Fan.
What Belue did was run for 6 yards on a keeper on fourth-and-2 deep in Georgia’s territory. Then, he hooked up with Arnold on another fourth-down play, this one going 42 yards for a touchdown.
Without hesitation, the Bulldogs elected to go for two. After a pass-interference call against Tech put the ball on the 1, Georgia scored on Belue’s option pitch left to Arnold on an end-around play.
“As loud as I’ve ever heard Sanford Stadium,” Belue said. “It was the most fun I ever had on a football field, and my dad was so proud of me. I still have the picture on my office wall of me and coach (Mike) Cavan hugging on the sideline. It was awesome.”
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