No. 18 Tennessee (1-0) will play its first road game of the 2026 football season in Week 2. The Vols will travel to Georgia Tech (0-1) on Saturday.
Kickoff between the Vols and Yellow Jackets is slated for 7 p.m. EDT at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. ESPN will televise the contest between the two former SEC rivals.
Georgia Tech's stadium is named for Dodd, a head coach and athletics director at the school from 1945-1976. A three-sport athlete for Tennessee, Dodd played football and basketball for the Vols from 1928-30, and baseball in 1930.
Dodd began his football coaching career at Georgia Tech as an assistant in 1931, serving as the Yellow Jackets' backfield coach until 1944.
Tennessee and Georgia Tech were charter members of the SEC,
which began play in 1933.
The Yellow Jackets withdrew from the SEC in 1964 after Dodd had a long feud with Alabama head coach Bear Bryant over the 140 Rule, which limited teams to signing 140 combined athletes for football and basketball. The Crimson Tide and other schools in the league often over-signed players and cut players before the season to manage scholarship limits, a practice of which, Dodd was critical.
The feud between Dodd and Bryant escalated in 1961 on a special teams play when an Alabama player called for a fair catch of a Georgia Tech punt. The Yellow Jackets' Chick Graning pulled up on the play and was subsequently hit by Alabama's Darwin Holt and suffered significant facial injuries.
Dodd was upset after Bryant did not suspend Holt and Georgia Tech departed from the SEC in 1964. Georgia Tech competed as an independent from 1964-82 before joining the ACC in 1983.
Dodd, a two-time SEC Coach of the Year (1951-52), won two SEC championships and one national title in 1952.
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This article originally appeared on Vols Wire: Why Georgia Tech left the SEC
