Normally, when one looks over the University of Georgia's football schedule, a home game against Tennessee would almost certainly include a big red circle around it.
Yawn.
Not this year.
The Vols come to town as heavy underdogs, and it's hard to believe they could get lower than last year's 4-8 debacle — but Jeremy Pruitt arrived, and somebody handed him a shovel.
Let's get digging, too.
The last time...
1) These teams met:
Though the game was in Knoxville, yours truly was actually in attendance. My birthday present from my parents was a pair of tickets in the upper deck of Neyland stadium, where — tightly packed amongst other Georgia fans — I got to see Georgia rip and shred Tennessee, 41-0.
The seating became much more comfortable in the third quarter, when Sony Michel's touchdown run made it 31-0.
Suddenly, the Orange Sea parted.
Right into the stairwells, and out the gates.
2) Georgia shutout Tennessee two years in a row:
For all the things that have to break correctly just for a single shutout to happen, let alone against a program as traditionally good as the Volunteers, I'd still file this into the "not likely" category, but I'd also throw in the caveat that, hey, if it's going to happen anytime soon, this is the chance.
Should the Bulldogs shutout Tennessee on Saturday, it would be the first time since 1906.
In the teams' second meeting in 1903, Georgia got the win 5-0, then endured a scoreless tie, 0-0, in 1906.
Since then, the Bulldogs have shutout the Vols just four times in 44 tries.
3) Tennessee beat a conference opponent:
The Vols actually have something in common with the Bulldogs. Both team's most recent conference win came against Missouri. Georgia just got a win against Missouri and its talented Sr. QB Drew Lock.
The problem for Tennessee is that haven't beaten Lock since he was a sophomore.
On Nov. 19, 2016, Butch "Leadership Rep" Jones led the Vols to a 63-37 win over Mizzou in Neyland Stadium.
Since then, nothing but misery on Rocky Top.
10 consecutive conference losses.
Somewhere, Vandy is laughing.
BONUS: Tennessee beat a conference opponent on the road:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the last such win came...in Athens.
It was the Hail Mary, which for some reason Vol Twitter still finds relevant.
Since then, nada in conference road games.
4) Georgia got interceptions from all three position groups on the defense in a single season:
First off, yes, I know that there are outside and inside linebackers, or that "defensive backs" include both safeties and cornerbacks.
For this exercise, we're just putting it into: defensive line, linebackers and defensive backs.
So far this year, the Bulldogs have gotten interceptions from all but the line, with DeAndre Baker and J.R. Reed notching a total of three interceptions in the secondary and Tae Crowder getting the linebackers on the board in the Missouri game last week.
All we need is a defensive lineman to snag an interception to complete the trifecta, though it would be the first one since ... well, hold on we've got a potential technicality on this answer.
Justin Houston had a pick to seal the win against Georgia Tech in 2010, but he was more of an outside linebacker than a true defensive end by that point, though he did start his career on the D-line.
I'm not counting it.
Let's keep leafing through old box scores, taking us back to 2008, when defensive end Damarcus Dobbs actually snagged TWO interceptions.
The second was his leaping, one-handed grab to preserve a 42-38 win over Kentucky in Lexington.
5) Tennessee lost three of its first five games:
A loss Saturday would push the Volunteers to 2-3 on the season, a game worse than they started in 2017. (Ouch.)
But it's hardly uncharted territory. In 2015, everyone's favorite brick layer led Tennessee to a 2-3 start, with losses to Oklahoma, Florida and Arkansas by a combined 12 points.
The ship was then righted...against Georgia.
Could history repeat itself?
(Nah.)
6) Georgia scored at least 30 points in seven consecutive games against any opponent:
The Bulldogs have scored this many points in the last six against the Tennessee: 51, 34, 35, 31, 31 and 41, good for 4-2 record in the past 6 matchups.
Georgia is one game away from making seven straight 30-spots on Big Orange.
As best as my research can tell, the Bulldogs have only done this to one other opponent in their history.
And shockingly, it is neither Vanderbilt nor Kentucky.
Only Georgia Tech has given up 30 or more points seven consecutive times to Georgia, a span that stretched from a 31-17 victory in 2017 to a 41-34 double-overtime thriller in 2013. The only loss came in 2008, a 45-42 come-from-ahead loss in Paul Johnson's first season.
But Mr. Johnson might get some company on this list, if the Dawgs break 30 on Saturday. (Which still wouldn't be enough to cover the spread.)
7) Tennessee had a 50-yard play against Georgia:
For this one, we need to dive back to the third quarter of the 2012 contest, when Vols QB Tyler Bray found WR Mychal Rivera for 62 yards and a first down deep in Bulldog territory, trailing 51-37.
It would set up a missed field goal attempt in an eventual 51-44 Georgia win.
But wait. There's more.
You know who coached Tennessee's offense that year?
Jim Chaney, who now runs the Bulldog offense.
And by the way, if you're wondering, since the Vols last 50-yarder, Georgia has had four of them in the series (on offense, at least), including one on Chaney's watch — a 50-yard Jacob Eason-to-Isaac Nauta touchdown in 2016.
8) Georgia had a 125-yard rusher:
So far this season, Elijah Holyfield has the highest single-game yardage total on the ground, hitting exactly 100 yards against Middle Tennessee State.
He's the only Bulldog running back since the Rose Bowl to hit triple-digits.
That game, by the way, saw both Nick Chubb and Sony Michel eclipse the century mark, with Michel topping out at 181 yards and three touchdowns and Chubb at 147 yards and two touchdowns.
I think that technically Chubb got to 125 scond in that game, so he's the official answer I'm going with.
9) A Tennessee head coach beat Georgia in his first season:
Jeremy Pruitt is currently 0-0 as a head coach in this rivalry.
A win Saturday would put him in the rarified company of ... Lane Kiffin?
Kiffin led the Volunteers to a 7-6 record in his lone timultuous season on Rocky Top, and it included a 45-19 rout of whatever was left of Willie Martinez's dignity a hapless Georgia team in Neyland Stadium.
Since then, Derek Dooley and Jones each lost their first meetings with the Bulldogs, in 2010 and 2013, respectively.
A few others, before we move on, who knocked off Georgia in their first attempts: Phil Fulmer, Bill Battle and Robert Neyland.
So that makes this list: the current Tennessee ahtletic director, the former Alabama athletic director, the man the Vols named their stadium after ... and Kiffin.
10) Georgia led the overall series:
As it stands, the series currently has the Vols up by a single game, 23-22-2.
The closest the Bulldogs have gotten recently was tying the series at 20-20-2 with a win in 2014, but with back-to-back losses in 2015-16, they set themselves back just a smidge.
But a win Saturday and a win in 2019 would give Georgia its first lead in the series since 1993, when a Tennessee win evened the series at 10-10-2.
That was the second of nine consecutive Volunteer wins in the series.
***
Last I had seen (as of this writing) Vegas liked Georgia by 32.5 points.
That's a mighty big spread, but Tennessee is also mighty bad.
I think, were I a betting man, I wouldn't touch this one with a 10-foot pole, but if there was a knife to my throat and I absolutely had to choose ... give me Kirby and the points.
I suspect Georgia wins this game somewhere in the ballpark of 45-10, but you can never discount the possibility of turnovers, trick plays, garbage time touchdowns, etc.
But even with all that, it still might be worse for Big Orange. If Marty McFly showed up at my door holding Sunday's newspaper with the headline "Dogs rout Vols, 59-0" I wouldn't be completely shocked.
I'm thinking it's gonna be a fun afternoon in Athens.
