What could have been?

Recruiting college sports is a funny thing. It's a quirky thing. It's a science, but possibly the most inexact one.

Coaches not only have to evaluate a player's physical tools or mental capacity, but also project their development, their potential upside, future value, and role within a college program.

Then they have to take all that, develop some sort of adequate cost-benefit rubric, and make decisions on what players to pursue, and how hard to pursue them. They do all of this, of course, with a rulebook thicker than a dictionary weighing them down and recruiting services offering fans an insider's glance into their work.

Mark Richt has long been a guy that's excelled in recruiting.

He goes toe-to-toe with every program in the nation, and has landed himself big-time names (Matthew Stafford, for example) and big-time classes (his overall hauls are rarely worse than top-15 material). Wisdom says—and wisdom is, to a certain extent anyway, right—that his team is stocked with talent.

But this Saturday in Atlanta, Richt could get a rudimentary yet insightful view of what might have been, just by looking across the sideline.

Demaryius Thomas. Morgan Burnett. Josh Nesbitt. Jonathan Dwyer.

All recruited by both Georgia and Georgia Tech, all wearing the white and gold when they run out of the tunnel on Saturday. Not by coincidence, the last three names on that short but talented list were all members of the 2007 class.

That 20-player haul, far and away Chan Gailey's finest whilst on the Flats, was good enough to rank 18th in the nation, according to Rivals.com. While nine spots lower than Georgia, the Yellow Jackets still celebrated the ranking, which was better than they were used to at the time.

Georgia's class that year ranked ninth, headlined by players like offensive lineman Justin Anderson, wide receiver Israel Troupe, quarterback Logan Gray, and running back Caleb King, considered by some the best overall prospect in the state of Georgia.

Compare those groups, three years later.

Gray, who was ranked just behind Nesbitt at quarterback nationally, has been unable to unseat starter Joe Cox this season, even when the latter has struggled.

Israel Troupe is listed as the Bulldogs' backup at one receiver position, with all-star starter A.J. Green out of the lineup.

Caleb King, once a Georgia high school darling (covered him for a time), has split carries with freshman Washaun Ealey, and has never locked down a starting place.

King might be the most relevant subject for our discussion. Now a redshirt sophomore, the Norcross, GA, native was one of the hottest commodities in Georgia high school football his senior season.

His blend of size, speed, and power, it was believed, would make him a great SEC back one day. For that, and as well, I'm sure, as several other reasons, Georgia went after King hard, and they got their man.

Three years later, King has 615 career rushing yards.

Dwyer went to Georgia Tech, and three years later, he's the top running back on most 2010 NFL Draft big boards.

The point is this: Talent is nothing if it's not developed properly, the same way you can't grow most plants in a lightless room, even if you water them every day.

Now, this one case study doesn't deny a body of work that suggests that Mark Richt certainly knows how to recruit. Just think of the number of players he's sent to the NFL. And his overall success at Georgia certainly suggests he knows what he's doing once he gets those guys, at least some of them.

But how often, in Richt's tenure at Georgia, has a player left without a ready-made replacement behind him? This isn't the first time the Bulldogs had to use tailback by committee, nor is it the first time the surprising lack of continuity at quarterback produced poorer-than-expected on-field results.

That also doesn't mean Richt would have automatically gotten those four guys had he not gotten other ones. In some cases—perhaps in all of them, I cannot say empirically, one way or the other—the player chose Georgia Tech over Georgia, as was the case with Thomas.

But even then, Thomas had already given a verbal pledge to Georgia Tech when Richt and Co. came in, essentially rendering Georgia's effort useless. And obviously, Georgia has A.J. Green, but right now he's injured, and might not play.

Whatever the reason, each of these players chose Georgia Tech over Georgia.

And on Saturday night, Mark Richt will look across the sideline and see a team that has a superstar running back, a top-flight wide receiver, a playmaker in its secondary, and a quarterback who is his team's unquestioned leader and obvious engine.

Richt would be hard-pressed to convince anyone that he wouldn't take any of that over his current options.

Background of "CLEAN, OLD-FASHIONED HATE"

Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate is the nickname given to the college rivalry between the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the Georgia Bulldogs. The two schools are separated by 70 miles (110 km) and have been heated rivals since 1893. The two schools, in essence, are not only competing in athletics but are also competing for government and private funding, potential students, and amongst other things academic recognition in the State of Georgia and the United States.^[1]

Georgia Tech and Georgia were founded over 100 years apart. Georgia was founded on January 27,1785, and Georgia Tech was founded on October 13, 1885. Patrick Hues Mell, the president of theUniversity of Georgia at that time, was a firm believer that the new school should be located in Athens with UGA's main campus, like the Agricultural and Mechanical School.^[2] Despite Mell's arguments, the new school was located near what were then the northern city limits of Atlanta.^[2]

The first known hostilities between the two schools trace back to 1891. The University of Georgia's literary magazine declared the school's colors to be "old gold, black, and crimson." Dr. Charles H. Herty, the first UGA football coach, felt that old gold was too similar to yellow and that yellow "symbolized cowardice."^[3] Also in 1891, a student vote chose old gold and white as Georgia Tech's school colors.^[4] After the 1893 football game against Tech, Herty removed old gold as an official school color.^[3] Tech would first use old gold for their uniforms, as a proverbial slap in the face to UGA, in their first unofficial football game against Auburn in 1891.^[5] Georgia Tech's school colors would henceforth be old gold and white.

Fuel was added to the fire in 1919, when UGA mocked Tech's continuation of football during the United States' involvement in World War I. At the time, Tech was a military training ground and had a complete assembly of male students. Many schools, such as UGA, had lost all of their able-bodied male students to the war effort forcing them to temporarily suspend football during the war. In fact, UGA did not play a game from 1917–1918.^[6] When UGA renewed its program in 1919, the student body staged a parade, which mocked Tech's continuation of football during times of war. The parade featured a tank shaped float emblazoned with the words "UGA IN ARGONNE" followed by a yellow-clad donkey and a sign that read "TECH IN ATLANTA." This act would lead directly to Tech cutting athletic ties with UGA and canceling several of UGA's home football games at Grant Field (UGA commonly used Grant Field as its home field).^[7] Tech and UGA would not compete in athletics until the 1921 Southern Conference basketball tournament. Regular season competition would not renew until a 1925 agreement between the two institutions.^[7]

The fight songs, sung at every sporting event, have even been tailored to the rivalry. The "Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" was first published in the Georgia Tech yearbook, The Blueprint,^[5] and was written following the first UGA football game in which UGA fans harassed the Georgia Tech players and fans.^[5] Hence the infamous chorus "To Hell with Georgia" was written.^[5] "Up With the White and Gold," published in 1929, featured the lyrics "Down with the red and black" and even "Drop the battle axe on Georgia's head."^[5] Georgia's fight song, "Glory, Glory," was arranged in 1909 and remains unchanged to this day. Officially, the end of the fight song is "G-E-O-R-G-I-A," but Georgia fans changed the lyrics to "And to hell with Georgia Tech!" ^[8]

The game has been played 103 times according to Georgia Tech and only 101 times according to Georgia record books. Georgia discredits two games in 1943 and 1944 (both years in which Georgia Tech won) because many of their players went to fight in World War II, though official college football records include the games.^[14] The game has been played in either Athens or Atlanta alternating every year since 1928. Georgia Tech holds 4 national titles and Georgia holds 2 national titles for a total of 6 national titles. The two schools also have a total of 29 conference titles (15 for Tech, 14 for Georgia) between them, making the rivalry a battle between two historically prestigious programs.

The record between the two teams is 59 Georgia wins, 39 Georgia Tech wins, and 5 ties. Georgia Tech's longest winning streak, and the longest in the series, was eight games from 1949–1956. Georgia's longest winning streak in the series was seven straight games from 1991-1997 and again from 2001-2007. Georgia Tech won the most recent game in the series on November 29, 2008, with a score of 45-42.

The first Georgia Tech football team

The first time the two teams met on the football field was on November 4,1893.^[15][16] The then Georgia School of Technology (Georgia Tech's original name) Blacksmiths led by coaches Stanley E. "Stan" Borleske and Casey C. Finnegan traveled 70 miles (110 km) by train to play the Georgia team coached by Ernest Brown in Athens at Herty Field.^[17] The Blacksmiths defeated Georgia handily 28-6^[18] on four scores by Leonard Wood,^[1] a thirty-three year old United States Armyphysician and future Medal of Honor recipient.^[19] During and after the game, disgruntled Georgia fans threw rocks and other debris at the Georgia Tech players and chased the victorious Blacksmiths back to their awaiting train.^[19]

“

At one time early in the last half of the game, a stone was hurled at one of the Tech players, striking him a cruel blow in the head... At another time, one of the Athenians drew a knife and threatened one of the Techs' better players... The Techs were also poked and gouged with canes on plays toward the boundary lines... Some of the crowd had the privilege of the gridiron equally with the players.[18]

”

The next day in the Atlanta Journal, an Athens journalist accused Tech of using "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."^[17] Hence, the sports rivalry was born.

In 1908, UGA attacked Tech's recruitment tactics in football.^[20] UGA alumni incited aSouthern Intercollegiate Athletic Association investigation into Tech's recruitment of a player UGA had recruited as well. The Georgia Alumni claimed that Tech had created a fraudulent scholarship fund, which they used to persuade the player to attend Tech rather than UGA.^[20] The SIAA ruled in favor of Tech but the 1908 game was cancelled that season due to bad blood between the rivals.^[20]

The only true break in the series dates back to 1917 and the United States entry intoWorld War I. The two institutions felt that the rivalry had grown too intense, fueled by Georgia's inflammatory accusations that Georgia Tech was cowardly because the school continued its football program during wartime while Georgia suspended its program for the football seasons of 1917 and 1918.^[15] The game renewed play again in 1925.^[15]

In 1932, Georgia Tech and Georgia were two of the original 13 charter members of the Southeastern Conference.^[21] Georgia Tech would continue its membership until 1964 after Tech Coach Bobby Dodd began a historic feud with Alabama Coach Bear Bryant. Georgia Tech left the SEC concerning the allocation of scholarships and student athlete treatment. Georgia Tech would later attempt re-entry but the re-entry was eventually voted down. The biggest opponent of Georgia Tech's re-entry was Georgia.^[22] Lacking a league to compete within, Georgia Tech helped charter the Metro Conference in 1975 for all sports besides football (where it remained independent for 15 years).^[23] Tech eventually joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1979.^[24]

TECH in the SEC? - DAWGS in the ACC?

by Mark Bradley AJC.com

Rank fourth in the ACC Coastal, second in the ACC Atlantic, fifth in the ACC overall.
That’s my opinion, anyway. I’d put Georgia behind Tech, Miami and Virginia Tech in the Coastal; behind Clemson in the Atlantic; behind all four in the overall power rankings.
A word of explanation: This whole thing got started, as whole things will, when I posed the question: Where would Tech rank in the SEC? (Fourth behind Florida, Alabama and LSU, I said.) One or two of you suggested an even better idea would be to ask the same of Georgia and the ACC. So I have. And here it is.
My rationale: I consider the 2009 Bulldogs a shade above mediocre. (Subject to change with the next few week’s results, obviously.) I’d put Georgia sixth in the SEC — behind Florida, Alabama, LSU, Auburn and Tennessee. I’d rate the Bulldogs above Ole Miss because the Rebels really haven’t beaten anybody and above South Carolina because Georgia beat the Gamecocks.

In my view, there’s not an ACC team as good as Florida, Alabama or LSU, but several belong in the next tier. Tech is the best of that bunch, with Miami and Virginia Tech and now Clemson fitting the description. Do I think Georgia would beat any of those four on a neutral field? I don’t.
I struggled most with North Carolina. The Tar Heels have a good defense and a decent record (6-3), but their only win of substance was over Virginia Tech, which seemed to peak a month ago. In the end I decided a 5-4 Georgia with wins over South Carolina and Arkansas was superior to that. But it was a tough call.
To Georgia fans who’ve maintained that even in a down year the Bulldogs could win the ACC … sorry, I disagree. It isn’t as if this team has suffered every loss by a field goal. Indeed, only the LSU defeat was close, and it probably shouldn’t have been. This is the weakest bunch of Bulldogs since 1996 (Jim Donnan’s first year). I couldn’t see this team winning the Mountain West.
Besides, this fifth-in-the-ACC rating does contain a silver lining, Dog lovers. I’ve still got your team ahead of Duke.

Dawgs vs Jackets

No matter how UGA and Georgia Tech's overall seasons are going, we can always expect thanksgiving weekend to produce an exciting rivalry game. To get this blog started I want to hear from both sides why either team will pull it out this year.

Will Mark Richt be able capture this rivalry and start another seven game win streak, or is Paul Johnson starting a streak of his own?