I thought the below history lesson in Ga vs. Ga Tech was worth posting....GO DAWGS!!!!!!!!
"It has been said that Football is the secular religion of the South and that the rivalry between Georgia and Georgia Tech is that religion's Genesis story of the battle between Good and Evil. Sounds about right to us.
The Evil Nerds of NATS (North Avenue Trade School) are set to invade Athens on November 29th for this year's version of the game known as Clean Old-Fashioned Hate. Aside from their usual acts of petty vandalism, they are not expected to leave behind much of a mark when they begin departing town, which the Bulldawg Club estimates should happen somewhere around the middle of the 3rd Quarter, since the Nerds will not care to be in Sanford Stadium to see the clock run out on the game where Georgia, for the first time ever, beats Tech for the eighth straight time.
Georgia and Georgia Tech first played each other on the gridiron in 1893 at Herty Field in Athens. The Tech team, which was then known as the "Blacksmiths" and allegedly actually included a few Tech students, won the game 28-6 on four touchdowns scored by Leonard Wood, a 33 year old U.S. Army doctor and the future Medal of Honor winner for whom Fort Leonard Wood would later be named. After the game a hostile mob of irate, rock throwing Georgia fans chased the Tech Team and its followers back to their awaiting train. The next day an article in the Atlanta Journal described the Tech Football Team as "a heterogeneous collection of Atlanta residents - a United States Army surgeon, a medical student, a lawyer, and an insurance agent among them, with here and there a student of Georgia's School of Technology thrown in to give the mixture a Technological flavor."
After getting off to such a warm and friendly start in 1893, relations between Georgia and Georgia Tech have gone to hell in a hand basket. For the last 100 years or so each side has sung out its opinion that the other deserved to join General Sherman in the infernal regions. It's not hard to see how two teams who have always held each other in such high regard managed to develop such an intense rivalry.
Georgia, stripped of it's able-bodied men by World War I, did not play football in 1917 and 1918. Tech, on the other hand, was a military training facility during World War I and Tech had a full compliment of students during the war. Tech naturally fielded teams flush with ringers throughout the Great War.
When Georgia resumed football in 1919, the UGA student body celebrated the event with a parade. The parade included a float which mocked Tech's continuation of football during the war. It was a tank-shaped float which bore the wording, "UGA IN ARGONNE" and was followed by a donkey dressed in yellow with a sign that read, "TECH IN ATLANTA". Tech was so outraged that they suspended all athletic ties with Georgia and revoked the agreement that allowed Georgia and Auburn to use Grant Field as the neutral site for their game. It was 1925 before things calmed down enough for the rivals to resume playing each other on the football field.
Aside from the fact both Georgia and Georgia Tech agree that General Sherman belongs in hell, there isn't much on which they agree, including how many games have been played in the series. Georgia doesn't count two games that Georgia Tech won during World War II. The 1942 Georgia Bulldogs won the National Championship by beating UCLA 9-0 in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1943. A few months later the draft was extended to men in college. Charlie Trippi, Frank Sinkwich and other returning members of Georgia's National Championship Team joined the military. By the time football season rolled around, Georgia's team had been decimated by the draft leaving Georgia's Freshman Team and a few 4F's to stand in for Georgia's Varsity in 1943 and 1944. On the other hand, Georgia Tech was one of a handful of colleges across the country to be awarded the Navy's V-12 Officer Training Program. As a result, the Navy filled Georgia Tech's team with experienced players from Alabama, Clemson, Michigan, Vanderbilt and other college football teams. Since Tech basically beat Georgia's Freshman Teams in 1943 and 1944 with what amounted to All Star Teams provided by the Navy, Georgia doesn't consider those two games official.
When the Southeastern Conference was formed in 1932, both Georgia and Georgia Tech were charter members. In 1964 Georgia Tech left the Southeastern Conference in a huff over several issues, but primarily because Bobby Dodd was feuding with Bear Bryant and Tech was unhappy with having to share their bowl revenues with the SEC. Before long the Techies realized their monumental mistake. Dodd and Bryant reconciled and Alabama sponsored Tech's application for re-entry into the SEC. Georgia was the biggest opponent of Tech's re-entry and Tech's application was voted down by the SEC. Glory, Glory to Old Georgia... and to hell with Georgia Tech! Go Dawgs!
There are many famous rivalries in college football. None begin to approach the intensity of the rivalry between Georgia and Georgia Tech. Northerners who move South are usually astonished when they begin to understand that Good Old-Fashioned Hate is a very appropriate name for the rivalry game. Southerners excel at some things and feuding is definitely one of them. Bulldawgs and Yellow Jackets would rather sit down for Thanksgiving dinner with a bus load of William T. Sherman's descendants than with each other. Yankees are easier to tolerate. Many Bulldawgs absolutely refuse to eat mustard, because it reminds them of Georgia Tech and Yellow Jackets immediately throw the red crayon away as soon as they leave the store with their school supplies. Psychiatrists in Dixie will tell you that Yellow Jackets begin to swarm to their offices every December to complain about red being one of the Christmas colors and that they know it's some kind of diabolical Bulldawg conspiracy, because any fool can look at Santa's outfit and tell right off that he's a Bulldawg! They're right, of course, but it sure is great fun to keep our mouths shut and let the shrinks tell the Tech Nerds that they're delusional.
The series record stands at 59 Georgia wins, 37 Georgia Tech wins and 5 ties. Georgia has won 14 of the last 17 games, including the last seven in a row.
The Bulldawg Club estimates that about 50% of Georgia Tech's fans, which total about 25,000 if you count a few hundred Tech students, will make the trip to Athens for the game on November 29th. So, if you're watching the game on TV, do not attempt to adjust your set. The approximately 12,000 Tech fans in attendance really will be wearing the 12,000 different shades of yellow you'll see on your screen, ranging from Gulden's mustard to every possible shade of urine and infection imaginable. To make it even worse, after years of work, paint pigment blenders at Georgia Tech's School of Wall Paint Engineering have finally succeeded in discovering what can only be described as absolutely the ugliest shade of Georgia Tech Mustard their team has ever worn. So don't mess around with the settings on your TV. Your poor TV will just be doing its best to handle the sickening display of colors worn by the Techies".
Tech's official colors are "Old Gold and White". One thing you can be sure of: not a single Tech fan or player will be wearing "Old Gold". Come to think of it, I haven't even seen a pack of Old Golds since about the time that Bobby Dodd retired from coaching at Georgia Tech, which was about the same time that Tech's Football Teams started dressing funny. Coincidence? I don't think so.
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