Joe Hamilton’s three years as a leading role in the Georgia Tech-Georgia rivalry are hard to match for drama.
The 1997 game was the College Football Hall of Fame member’s first as a starter in the rivalry, as an ankle injury kept him out of the starting lineup as a freshman. UGA quarterback Mike Bobo threw the game-winning touchdown pass to Corey Allen with eight seconds left in a 27-24 Bulldogs win at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
In 1998, Tech ended Georgia’s seven-game win streak in the series with Brad Chambers’ 35-yard field goal with two seconds left to lift the Jackets to a 21-19 win in Sanford Stadium.
The 1999 game in Hamilton’s final season produced arguably the most memorable game (at least for Tech fans) of Clean Old-Fashioned Hate. Tech won 51-48 in the first overtime game of the series.
“It was always tough games,” Hamilton said. “It’s always going to come down to the wire and you would have bragging rights. To me, that Governor’s Cup trophy, to hold that one year, was going to be humongous because you’re the state champion.”
Talk of bragging rights, “the Cesspool of the South” (a favored Tech term for Georgia) and “the Joke by Coke” (how Bulldogs refer to Bobby Dodd Stadium) has had to tempered this year, as the Tech-Georgia rivalry was put on a one-year hiatus because of the SEC’s decision to play a conference-only schedule.
This year’s game would have been played Saturday at Sanford Stadium, with the Yellow Jackets trying to break Georgia’s three-game win streak in the series, including last year’s 52-7 triumph for the Bulldogs.
Like probably all Tech fans, Hamilton yearns for the series to regain its sizzle from his era. From 1998-2001, both teams were ranked in the Top 25 going into the game, the only four-year stretch when that has occurred.
Hamilton holds the rivalry dear, its importance having been instilled in him by coach George O’Leary. When it comes to rivalry games, coaches often fall back on truisms such as taking games one at a time or valuing each game the same, Hamilton said that O’Leary didn’t approach it that way.
O’Leary didn’t want to see the color red used within the football facilities, not only for Georgia week, Hamilton said, but throughout the season.
“Everything we were doing was to prepare the team full steam ahead going into the Georgia game,” said Hamilton, who can be heard daily from 9-11 a.m. on The Fan with Brandon Leak.
Such focus helped the Jackets beat the Bulldogs in three successive seasons (1998-2000), the first (and only) time since coach Bobby Dodd’s retirement after the 1966 season that Tech has managed that feat.
In his final Tech-Georgia game, Hamilton accumulated 435 yards of offense with four touchdown passes in the last of his 30 wins as a starting quarterback for the Jackets. He still has the miniature replica of the Governor’s Cup trophy that is awarded to the winning team, kept at his mother’s house.
“I’ve been telling her that I’ve been setting up a room so I can get it back,” he said.
Having come to Tech from South Carolina, Hamilton believes he sees the rivalry differently than his in-state teammates did. Where players on both sides grew up dreaming of playing for Tech or Georgia – and also of beating their rivals – Hamilton did not live it that way. He quickly understood the passion of it, but he said he reserves his hatred for Georgia only for the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
“I understand the rivalry, but, anytime I see a red truck or a Bulldogs license plate, I don’t want to run them off the road,” he said.
