The Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry is commonly known as "good old fashion hate", but Georgia fans also tend to hate Notre Dame. They play Saturday night in the marquee game of the week. I call these games, where two teams that I really don't like face off, an "Injuries & Explosions" game, because those are the only two things in which I can have a rooting interest. PWD calls them "meteor games". The best examples are any game involving any two of Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, Georgia Tech.
Either way, there has been some talk amongst various UGA fans this summer about who to pull for in this game, and some are even advocating pulling for Tech to beat ND. Wrong. Any Georgia fan should be pulling for ND to stomp Tech, and it's pretty simple: recruiting. We recruit against Tech, but we don't recruit much at all against ND. Any marquee win by GT will of course help them in recruiting vis a vis UGA, especially in state. We certainly don't want to lose some instate bluechipper to GT because he was so impressed by them beating ND on national TV. We want them to get stomped so that said recruits will see clearly that the place to be is up in Athens. Typically a quick comparison of the girls on campus will always swing any 18 year old to choose Athens over North Avenue, but a huge win for GT over the historical "best" program in CFB history might be enough to sway some confused lad into signing on the dotted with Chan. In the past two years they have beaten Auburn and Miami, that is enough for a while. Some more home losses to Duke and annihilations by 5 loss Mountain West teams in 3rd tier bowl games are in order before their next marquee win methinks.
Yes, ND is annoying, especially when they do well and the bandwagoners come out of nowhere. But a ND win doesn't really affect UGA other than having to listen to Beano Cook and the rest guarantee that they will go 13-0, win the national title and Brady Quinn will be awarded not one but two Heisman's this year. But a GT win tangibly affects UGA in the battle for the hearts & minds of the state's top recruits.
What I really hope for is a 0-0 tie that goes to OT, where after 3 scoreless OT periods ND wins 3-0. That would be sufficiently embarrassing for both teams and put a big smile on the faces of all of us haters. But that is obviously not going to happen. So here's hoping the Oirish beat Tech in a lobsided game that ends with a score of way too many to not nearly enough, and that all of the recruits visiting GT for the game will leave extremely underwhelmed, searching for Rodney Garner's cell phone number.
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