As dream matchup shapes up, Georgia Tech and Georgia are quite alike

The Bulldogs’ loss to Alabama and lackluster wins by Tech created doubt.

But an impressive Saturday in October, as the Bulldogs and Jackets both cleared probably their most difficult remaining obstacles, fed the belief that this dream Clean Old-Fashioned Hate game will actually come to pass.

They’re now both in the top 10 — Georgia at No. 5, Tech at No. 7. The most recent time both were in the top 10 this late in the season was 2014, when both were ranked in the top 10 of the final poll.

Can you imagine?

Tech at 11-0 and Georgia at 10-1 at a sold-out Mercedes-Benz Stadium on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Both in the top 10, maybe even in the top five. Both looking for statement wins to secure spots in the College Football Playoff. A national television audience of millions with no other games of consequence on in the same window.

It would be bonkers.

The last time Tech and Georgia met with both having a path to finishing No. 1 was 1942. (Going into the matchup in Athens, Tech was No. 2 at 9-0 and Georgia was ranked fifth at 9-1. The Bulldogs won 34-0 and finished second in the AP poll behind Ohio State, although other selectors awarded the title to the Bulldogs, who claim it as a national-championship season.)

What makes this season and the prospect of a top-10 meeting at MBS even more delicious is this.

While neither team presumably wants to be favorably compared with its archrival, Tech and Georgia mirror each other in their ability to outlast opponents with physical play, determination and withering run games. Saturday offered further evidence.

The Bulldogs trailed Ole Miss 35-26 going into the fourth quarter and then scored all 17 points of the final period while outgaining the Rebels 143-13.

Georgia outrushed Ole Miss 221-88. Tech’s ground advantage for the game was 171-68.

Of its six wins, Georgia has won three times (Tennessee, Auburn and Ole Miss) by overcoming second-half deficits. The three-point loss to Alabama could easily have been a fourth.

Of their seven wins, the Jackets have trailed in five of them. In four (Colorado, Clemson, Wake Forest and Duke), the score was tied in the fourth quarter before the Jackets prevailed.

Saturday, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin credited coach Kirby Smart and methods learned from the legendary Nick Saban at Alabama.

Smart has the ability to “install belief like, ‘Hey, we’re going to find a way,’” Kiffin told media in Athens. “And when you play Alabama before or now Georgia, these two coaches, I feel like, you have to win the game. They’re not going to lose it at the end in the fourth quarter. You have to win the game.”

In Durham, Duke coach Manny Diaz shared a lament about the game and coach Brent Key’s team that contained notes similar to Kiffin’s praise of Georgia. (Key, of course, is another Saban disciple.)

“We felt like we had ’em pretty much under control,” Diaz said. “But these are really good players, a really well-coached team and a good football team. So, it stands to reason they were going to be able to make a response.”

After an open date, Georgia has Florida (in Jacksonville, Fla.), at Mississippi State, Texas and Charlotte before Tech. The Longhorns figure to be the most trouble, but all four are games that Georgia ought to win.

The Jackets are home against Syracuse, travel to N.C. State and Boston College and are home against Pitt before the Bulldogs. The Orange, Wolfpack and Eagles are a combined 2-9 in ACC play. (Pitt is 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the league.) Tech could lose any of them but will almost certainly be favored in each.

One way of framing the Jackets’ series of narrow wins is that they continue to play with fire. But another is that they just know how to win.

The envisioned dream matchup at MBS isn’t quite within reach.

But, with more than half the season in the books, you can see it from here.