6-5 Georgia Tech vs. 5-6 UGA: ‘It's a way to salvage the season'

The Yellow Jackets and the Bulldogs will meet Saturday night in sold-out Sanford Stadium in a game that will make one team feel a lot better and the other even worse about seasons gone awry. Kickoff is 7:45 p.m.

Tech enters the game with a 6-5 record and without quarterback Joshua Nesbitt, who is out with a broken forearm. Georgia brings a 5-6 record and needs a win to qualify for a bowl.

It's the first time since 1996 that Tech and Georgia will meet with neither team ranked among the nation's Top 25.

Yet, the rivalry is attractive enough for the game to be nationally televised in prime time on ESPN. And the Sanford Stadium crowd is expected to include a governor and a governor-elect, the outgoing Sonny Perdue and the incoming Nathan Deal.

"It's great to have a game like this at the end of the season -- and in particular at the end of this season," Georgia coach Mark Richt said. "To have a season where we've not reached some of the goals, or hardly any of the goals, that we set ... and still have a game that's this meaningful is exciting."

Said Tech coach Paul Johnson: "I am sure both of the teams would have liked to have a better record going into this, but it is what it is and doesn't change that it is still a huge game. It is for the state championship and bragging rights."

Indeed, bragging rights will be the main issue at stake, even if both teams are having seasons that are nothing to brag about.

The winning school will get the Governor's Cup, a large trophy that stays with the victor for the next year. And even though Tech lost to Kansas and Georgia lost to Colorado, the winner will be able to say that it is the best college football team in this state, at least.

"This would make our season if we could go out there and beat Georgia," Tech running back Anthony Allen said. "We had a lot of goals on our goal board at the beginning of the season. We didn't accomplish a lot of them, but beating Georgia is definitely one that we want to accomplish. It won't ease everything, but it'll ease a part of it."

Said Georgia running back Caleb King: "Georgia Tech, that's the game you got to win."

Also on the line, although perhaps secondary to bragging rights, will be Georgia's streak of 13 consecutive bowl appearances. While Tech clinched bowl eligibility for a 14th consecutive season by beating Duke last week, Georgia needs a victory over the Jackets to reach the six-win threshold required to go to a postseason game.

"There's a lot more on the line for us," Georgia linebacker Christian Robinson said. "We are going to do everything we can to prevent them from keeping us out of a bowl game."

Although Georgia has won eight of the past nine games against Tech, the Jackets won the last time the game was played in Athens, 45-42 in 2008. Last season, Georgia won 30-24 in Atlanta in a game in which UGA tailbacks King and Washaun Ealey rushed for a combined 349 yards with "I Run This State" famously written under Ealey's eyes and on King's arms.

King said he has been getting calls this week from friends demanding to know: "What are you going to write this year? What are you going to write?"

The NCAA this year outlawed writing on eye black, "but I think we can still write on the arms," King said. "I don't have a clue what I'm going to write, if I write anything. ... Last time it just came at the last minute, so hopefully the same thing happens."

Tech, of course, hopes to write an altogether different script this year.

"Any time you have an opportunity to win a rivalry game, there's always that little extra bit of incentive," Jackets center Sean Bedford said. "We can't do anything about the losses we've incurred over the course of the season, but we can take care of what we have moving forward from here."

The game will mark the first time Tech and Georgia have begun a game in Sanford Stadium at night. It also might be the last game in Sanford Stadium for A.J. Green, Georgia's star wide receiver, a junior who is eligible to enter the 2011 NFL draft.

In the end, it's a game that, for one team or the other, can soothe -- although not erase -- all that went wrong this season.

"The records won't diminish the importance of the game or how the kids view it," Johnson said. But he added: "Nobody's going to deem their season a success, win or lose, with the way we've played. I know I wouldn't."

"It's a forgettable season as you look at it," Georgia defensive end Demarcus Dobbs said, "but [winning this game] would be something to hang your hat on. ... It's a way to salvage the season and a way to move forward."

-- Staff writer Doug Roberson contributed to this article.