Georgia Tech Opens as a Big Underdog vs No. 1 Georgia
To no surprise, Georgia Tech is going to be a big underdog at home when they face their arch-rival this weekend.
Georgia Tech has won three of its last four games and is now going to a bowl game for the first time since 2018. The Yellow Jackets defeated Syracuse 31-22 last night in Atlanta and Brent Key is going to be taking his alma mater back to a bowl game.
According to odds released by DraftKings, Georgia Tech will be a 23-point underdog against the Bulldogs this weekend.
The Yellow Jackets have not beaten the Bulldogs since 2016 and have not won against Georgia in Atlanta since 1999. Since 2000, Georgia Tech has only beaten Georgia four times. Georgia is currently 11-0 and just finished SEC play 8-0 with a blowout win over Tennessee yesterday.
The Bulldogs defense gets a lot of the attention (as it should), but the offense for Georgia is as good as you'll find in the country and Carson Beck is playing as well as any quarterback in the country. It is hard to find a weakness on this offense and it will be a big challenge for the Yellow Jackets to stop them on Saturday.
Brent Key and Kirby Smart will face off again this Saturday
Georgia leads the all-time series 70-41.
In Brent Key's first matchup against the Bulldogs last year, the Yellow Jackets played them much closer than anyone could have anticipated. Georgia Tech led 7-3 at the end of the first quarter and only trailed the eventual national champions 10-7. Halfway through the third quarter, the game was 13-7, but tight end Brock Bowers scored to take a 20-7 lead and the Bulldogs finally pulled away and ended up winning 37-14.
Since the day he was hired as the head coach at Georgia Tech, Key has made it clear that he wants to close the gap with Georgia:
"There is one thing I want everyone in this room to understand and everyone associated with Georgia Tech understands... There is an opponent in this state we will work 365 days a year to defeat. We will work 365 days a year to dominate. When we all wake up in the morning, we want to dominate our opponent. The feeling of dominating your opponent is like no other and whatever team is on our schedule, that will be our goal. That is what we will work towards every single day.
Players in here, understand that. That is our goal and that is our mindset. We have an opponent in this state that is included in that. For 365 days, we will work to dominate that opponent. Understand that."
ESPN's David Hale wrote an intriguing piece during ACC Media Days this summer about how Key wants to change the narrative of the rivalry and Key made some interesting comments:
"Is it annoying? Heck, yeah," Key said Tuesday of the Georgia accolades. "Kirby [Smart] has done a great job -- he has. And I told him, 'We've got to do something about it."
"What pisses me off is to look at lists of the 10 or 20 best rivalries in the country and, not to have [Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate] on there, that's bulls---," Key said. "But at the present time, they're probably right. So we've got to do something about that."
Offensive lineman Jordan Williams also talked about the rivalry:
"It really gets on my nerves," Williams said. "But rivals or not, they're the best. You've got to beat the best, and it's kind of a burn-the-boats mentality, stake everything on it. That's the place we want to be."
Key has pulled off several big upsets in his short time as the Georgia Tech head coach and they will get to measure themselves against arguably the best team in the country next Saturday night.
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