Georgia’s football team may not have blown Kentucky out in last Saturday’s victory, but the Bulldogs still have a chance to have back-to-back undefeated regular seasons.
After beating the Wildcats 16-6 in Lexington, head coach Kirby Smart’s team turns its attention to its longtime in-state rival: Georgia Tech.
The Bulldogs lead the Yellow Jackets 69-39-5 in the all-time series, and Georgia has won 17 of the meetings between the two since 2000.
In a press conference Monday, Smart talked about the rivalry.
“We’re on to Georgia Tech, a program I know a lot about. I’ve known Brent [Key] for a long time. He played at Tech while I played at Georgia,” Smart said. “They’re playing really hard now. And I think he’s done a tremendous job at getting these guys to compete.”
Georgia Tech comes into the contest essentially without an experienced quarterback.
The Yellow Jackets’ quarterback to start the year, Jeff Sims, is still nursing an ankle injury while backup Zach Pyron is out with a collarbone injury.
With interim head coach Brent Key’s offense ranking just 79th in rushing nationally, Georgia Tech will most likely struggle against the Bulldogs’ top-five defense.
Regardless, Smart believes the Yellow Jackets will play tough behind Key.
“They take on his personality of toughness, not beating themselves, being physical. You can tell they’ve probably honed down some things,” Smart said. “When you’ve got someone that played at that university and that’s their alma mater, there’s a certain level of desire to represent the university the right way.”
Smart hopes to represent his alma mater with another win over Georgia Tech this Saturday and has a great chance to do so.
Georgia will also have a couple of key players out on both sides of the ball. Linebacker Nolan Smith was injured in the Florida game, and wide receiver AD Mitchell is questionable. Smart commented on the two’s health and will most likely hold off on playing them until the SEC championship game.
“Nolan’s surgery was a repair. And he’ll be out -- hopefully make it back to his workouts and his combine stuff,” Smart said. “AD was similar last week as he’s been to the previous weeks. I mean, he did run. He had a little higher speeds, and he did some individual drills.”
Currently, the Bulldogs hold the No. 1 spot in the country and have already clinched an SEC championship berth.
Ultimately, Smart believes this is still an important game to win.
“It’s still a big rivalry. I mean, I think maybe it shifted in the dynamic of what their offense was, because it went from one extreme to the other in terms of that,” Smart said. “This is Stetson’s first opportunity to play Georgia Tech here unless one of those years he was here as a freshman that we played here against them.”