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Georgia vs. Tennessee: The exquisite agony of a long rivalry losing streak

Late in the instant classic that was Saturday’s Georgia-Tennessee overtime thriller, cameras found two Vol fans who summed up the entirety of what it is to be a Volunteer facing the mighty Bulldogs.

First, there was the woman imploring her companion not to jinx the upcoming would-be game-winning field goal with seconds left in regulation. She held out hope, yes, even as she knew there are fates that control teams’ destinies, and you tempt them at your peril:

And then there was the older Vol fan, arms folded and disgust evident. Fates and hope be damned, he knew exactly how this nightmare was going to unfold:

That’s a man haunted by nightmares of games lost and spirits crushed, a man who knows he’ll have to deal with HOW ‘BOUT THEM DAWGS for another 364 days … or go through this all over again in the CFP.

Hoping for the best, expecting the worst. Praying for salvation, knowing that damnation is coming. That’s what it’s like being a college football fan on the losing end of a rivalry

Georgia-Tennessee doesn’t have a fancy name like Georgia-Georgia Tech (Clean Old-Fashioned Hate) or a definitive date like Tennessee-Alabama (Third Saturday in October), but it has three of the four hallmarks of a great rivalry: Proximity, Meaning and Spite. The states share a border, meaning you’re likely to run into your rivals at work, at parties, and perhaps even inside your own home. With both programs reaching the college football playoff last year, their matchups now have national significance. And as for Spite, well … just look at Georgia head coach Kirby Smart wagging his tongue at the Neyland stands and tell me there’s no bad blood here.

“I lost a lot of times [to Tennessee] as a player,” Smart said after the game. “It still sticks with me.”

What Georgia-Tennessee doesn’t have right now is the fourth element of a great rivalry: Parity. Georgia has now beaten Tennessee nine times in a row, one of the longest current rivalry streaks in the country. (Georgia is keeping all of its biggest rivals at arm’s length; the Dawgs own a seven-game winning streak over Georgia Tech and an eight-game run over Auburn.)

That kind of sustained success isn’t the norm. This weekend will see the 129th installment of the battle formerly known as the Civil War, Oregon vs. Oregon State. And even given all of Oregon’s recent success and Oregon State’s recent struggles, the Ducks’ win streak currently stands at … 2. Ole Miss’s run against Mississippi State, Notre Dame over USC: also 2. Florida’s current streak against Florida State? Exactly 1.

There’s an easy benchmark for determining the exact point where a losing streak crosses over from frustration to actual pain: four years. The length of the average undergraduate tenure in college, in other words.

If an entire graduating class goes from callow freshmen to “Pomp and Circumstance” without ever seeing a win over a rival … that’s rough, man. Because you carry that with you forever. You never get the chance to say you celebrated a win over those bastards from State U. while you were still in college and able to make bad decisions without putting your job in jeopardy.

The most notable of these four-plus-year streaks right now has to be Michigan’s mastery of Ohio State from 2021 to now. Yes, Ohio State has a national championship in that run, but ask an M-hating Buckeye if they’d rather have that national championship or that four-game win streak, and they’d have to think about it. Same goes for Auburn, which is now on the losing end of a five-game run of futility against Alabama in the Iron Bowl. These are the kind of losing streaks that burn, from the moment the clock hits zero right on through until next year’s kickoff.

Certain long losing streaks don’t really carry quite so much emotional weight, because one or both of the teams don’t really invest a whole lot of energy into the “rivalry.” Florida won 31 consecutive games over Kentucky from 1987 to 2017, for instance, but aside from the heavy sighs during the week of the game, there wasn’t much larger resonance. Two states and a world of culture separate Gainesville and Lexington.

Same goes with Florida State and Duke, where the Noles won 22 consecutive games until the Blue Devils finally broke through last year. And Alabama didn’t consider Vanderbilt as anything more than an Express-Lane toll booth — maintain current speed, cruise on through — until last year, when the Dores snapped a 23-game losing streak that stretched almost back to the Bear Bryant era.

The thing about rivalries is, in any given year, virtually anything can happen. For all its W-and-L mastery of Tennessee and Georgia Tech, Georgia needed overtime to beat both in their last two games. Alabama has required a four-overtime masterpiece and a fourth-and-31 miracle to beat Auburn in two of the last four years. Michigan only beat Ohio State last year on a field goal with just 45 seconds left in the game.

A rivalry game is always a tipped pass, an ill-timed penalty or a missed field goal from swinging the other way. Stack enough of those on top of each other, and you’ve got yourself a run in the other direction. And that’s when even the crustiest old curmudgeons in the bleachers will crack a smile.

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