Three Questions Entering Clean Old-Fashioned Hate

Nov 25, 2022 - 6:00 PM

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It’s simple. Georgia should not and cannot lose to Georgia Tech in football. Sure, a few once-in-a-while instances may happen. But ask anyone who regularly is around fans from The North Avenue Trade School. To say that the GT fan base is insufferable for those 365 days after an upset win is a gross understatement.

Ray Goff had his shortcoming as a Georgia coach, some not of his own making, but he understood this - that things are unpleasant if you lose to Georgia Tech. It’s similar for Kirby Smart, too, and you'd expect that from a player who played for Georgia. He knows what these rivalries mean to Georgia people, and this is among them.

Here are three questions going into Saturday’s noon kickoff.

Can Georgia coast into next weekend?

As much as fans hate the noon kickoff, a clear advantage for UGA is that this game will end at Noon while LSU has a night kickoff in College Station. In a world where time is everything going into a big game, that could work very well in Georgia’s favor.

But that only helps Georgia if it plays well. If the Dawgs play mistake-free football, get up by two scores by half, and cover or come close to covering the spread, it sets them up well to take on LSU. If not, next week will be rather anxious, so say the least/.

Can Georgia’s crowd overcome the Noon start time?

Students are on Thanksgiving break, it's an early kickoff and some families may be traveling for the Thanksgiving festivities. It's the perfect storm for a slow start. Georgia’s crowd can impact that, however, and frankly, it needs to.

Yes, Tech has played at FSU and Virginia Tech. I know ACC purists would disagree, but when Sanford Stadium is electric, neither of those places compares to how loud it is Between The Hedges.

Tech has nothing to lose, and I’d expect it to play like it. Georgia can mentally wreck that focus, no pun intended but taking advantage of a raucous crowd early on.

Were the last two weeks an offensive fluke?

When you looked at this year’s schedule, the four-game stretch was pointed to as key. If Georgia could get through that unscathed, the consensus was that it’d be in very good shape, and that’s the case.

In the second half of that span, Georgia’s offense looked very spotty, at times. Sure weather has been a factor, but it should not impact the entire body of work.

Depending on what forecast of weather you put stock in, rain should not be a factor Saturday, so this is a golden chance for Todd Monken’s offense to get on track in a big way - not to mention putting up points and yards against Georgia Tech.

Go Dawgs!