In the year 2022, when you think of Georgia Bulldog football rivals a couple teams immediately come to mind. Officially you’ll think of the Florida Gators and the pageantry that surrounds that weekend in Jacksonville, or maybe the Auburn Tigers and just the tradition and history of that back-and-forth. Over the past couple years the Alabama Crimson Tide have gotten up there, and if you want to go recent up to this calendar year, the Tennessee Volunteers are definitely climbing the ranks. 

After thinking over all of those teams, one may have slipped your mind. The guys in Georgia’s backyard– quite frankly the guys in Georgia just a mile away. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. 

You may be more familiar referring to them as Georgia’s little brother because of the lopsidedness of the rivalry, but they’re there. Coach Kirby Smart wants to make his team remember and appreciate the Clean Old-Fashioned Hate. 

“Teaching the history of that (the rivalry) is important because it’ll mean something to the Georgia Tech players and the Georgia players 20, 30 years from now,”

Smart said in previewing the Tech game yesterday.

In his time here, excluding his inaugural year, the rivalry has heavily swung the Bulldog’s way. Five out of the last six to be exact. The Dawgs came in ranked for five of those wins. For the second year in a row they’ll come into the game ranked No. 1 in the country according to the College Football Playoff committee, but something is just a little different than last year.

It looks like the Jackets have found some fire under interim head coach Brant Key. They’ve gone 3 and 3 with Key with notable wins against Pittsburgh who was ranked No. 24 at the time and No. 13 ranked North Carolina which was just last week. 

A win against Georgia would not only give Tech insane bragging rights, but it would make them bowl-eligible as well. Tech has a lot to play for this time especially with Key being a former Yellow Jacket himself. 

“You know, he (Key) played there (GA Tech). And when you’ve got someone that played at that university and that’s their alma mater, there’s a certain level of want to desire to represent the university the right way,” Smart said.  

If Tech brings their A game, we may have a nice game in our hands. They just beat the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill, so they’ll be looking to do the same thing in Athens soon enough.