Only on the Internet does the Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry play out as mildly competitive. Facelessly, namelessly, representatives of both sides wage their tedious, puerile back-and-forth on every available comment page.
In a venue where nobody really wins, it’s always a wide-open affair.
Among the fully employed and emotionally stable, however, there is the realization that this thing is as one-sided as a bathroom mirror.
The Bulldogs are 11-2 in the 2000s against the Yellow Jackets, with victories in the past four games by increasingly large margins.
A victory over Georgia would be a season-making event on the Flats. On the other side of the divide, a victory over Tech has come to be regarded as practically a given in Athens.
Such a difference in perception and attitude is a most unhealthy development, hardly becoming of a rivalry known as “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.” Hate of any kind requires a two-party commitment.
No one can say that this is how it has to be until the end of days. Coaches change. Injuries happen. The NCAA can hobble anyone. There are enough uncertainties around both teams even this season to keep the coming game in doubt.
Still, there is reason to wonder when there will come a significant shift in the balance of power between Bulldog and Jacket, to where a Tech victory might be a sign rather than an anomaly.
Georgia enjoys so many built-in advantages.
Its reach and reputation around the state is a powerful recruiting tool. Tech is a wonderful institution with a proud football tradition, and even that has not been enough for it to avoid being outgunned in the battle of perception.
Membership in the SEC lends Georgia such wide exposure, not to mention all the financial windfalls.
While it is not a university’s top priority to restock the NFL, there is no disputing the fact that the Bulldogs hold a sizable edge over Tech in players taken in the pro draft — 32-10 in the past five years. And such a disparity in top-shelf talent tends to be self-perpetuating.
Bottom line: For the long-term good of this series, Tech has to find a way past all these and other sizable disadvantages. And you can’t say the Jackets are going to achieve any of it until they actually do it. They have lost the benefit of any optimistic assumption.
For the time being, all hope for Tech in its blood feud against Georgia has moved indoors, to where they play basketball.
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