Inside The Chart: Double Vision

Double Vision: The Georgia Tech-Tennessee game features a rare matchup-within-a-matchup Saturday. For the first time ever, Yellow Jackets defensive ends coach Kyle Pope will match wits with Tennessee’s wide receivers coach – his twin brother, Kelsey.

Inside The Chart | By Andy Demetra (The Voice of the Yellow Jackets)

Kyle Pope is not on speaking terms with his family.

Temporarily. And with good reason.

The texts and calls that usually rattle Pope’s phone have gone silent for the past week. The group chat has gone on “Do Not Disturb” as well.

There’s no animosity behind the estrangement. Only common sense. After all, he can’t be caught talking with a member of the opposing team’s coaching staff on a game week.

Even if that coach is his twin brother.

“I’ve got to cut off communication with him, cut off communication with my nephew and sister-in-law right now. Right now, they’re an enemy for a second,” said Pope, laughing.

When Georgia Tech and No. 18 Tennessee meet on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field, the game not only reunites a pair of rivals who are separated by four hours. It will reunite a pair of brothers who are separated by two minutes.

The 34-year-old Pope is in his third season as Georgia Tech’s outside linebackers and defensive ends coach. Kelsey Pope, Kyle’s fraternal twin, is Tennessee’s wide receivers coach, a position he has held since 2022. He added pass game coordinator to his title this offseason.

That old bromide, the “coaching fraternity”? It comes from the Latin word frater, for brother – and it will gain an entirely different meaning on Saturday.

“For me, it’s just focusing on this game, focusing on getting guys better and ready to play. The family is probably way more excited than we are. We’re just focused on getting a win,” said Kyle (he’s the older of the two).

Fittingly, his twin gave an almost identical answer at Tennessee’s media availability this week.

“It’ll be something fun for our family. I think they’ll probably enjoy it more than me,” Kelsey said.

He’s right – for the most part.

“I'm like a ball of nerves,” admitted Risa Pope, Kyle and Kelsey’s mother.

“I'm excited for them and where they are in their professional careers. But at the same time, as a mother, my heart is just nervous,” she added.

They’ll occupy opposing sidelines on Saturday, but back home in Sylacauga, Ala., 45 miles south of Birmingham, Kyle says he and his brother were inseparable growing up. Kyle was the laid-back one according to Risa, Kelsey the more outgoing.

“If you saw one, you saw the other everywhere we [went]. We were always around each other, always talking with each other,” Kyle said.

“He probably can tell you what I’m thinking. I probably can do the same in certain situations.”

(For play-calling purposes, that trait may come in handy on Saturday.)

That twin telepathy extended to the football field, beginning as five-year-olds on the Broncos in a Sylacauga rec league and continuing at Sylacauga High School, where Kelsey starred at quarterback and Kyle played wide receiver and linebacker. For a while they considered playing in college together, but ultimately they found better fits apart. Kyle landed at nearby Jacksonville State, where he bulked up to 240 pounds and converted full-time to linebacker. Kelsey headed to Samford, where he blossomed into a prolific, 202-pound wide receiver. A three-time all-Southern Conference performer, he still holds the Samford school records for receptions (17) and touchdowns (4) in a game and ranks third in school history in career receptions (250).

After four years of playing in different conferences, the Pope brothers’ careers finally converged in 2013. Unfortunately, it happened in the first round of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) playoffs. Kelsey was a senior at Samford; Kyle was a redshirt junior at Jacksonville State, having taken a developmental year his first season. The family dubbed the matchup the “Pope Bowl.”

Jacksonville State routed Samford, 55-14. Effectively, Kyle ended his brother’s playing career that day.

“It was probably a little bit more bitter than it was sweet, just knowing the hard work he had put in and all that he had done that season but also in his career at Samford. But it was just a true blessing to be able to play against him,” Kyle recalled. The two shared a hug on the field afterwards, Kyle trying to congratulate and console his brother amid the fog of a career-ending loss.

Just like their births, Kyle arrived first in coaching, joining the staff of Holmes (Miss.) Community College as defensive line coach after his graduation from Jacksonville State in 2015. Kelsey tried to catch on as an undrafted free agent with the Arizona Cardinals, then worked a series of non-football jobs. He eventually followed his brother into the business, landing a gig as running backs coach at Division III Ohio Northern in 2017.

“I think (Kyle) influenced him a lot,” Risa said. “They had several talks along the way about the path that Kyle was taking and how it was going. I think that influenced Kelsey a lot to decide, hey, this is what I want to do as well.”

As they navigated the unglamorous life of young coaches together – the long hours, the low pay, the transience, the instability – the brothers knew they could always count on each other for support and encouragement.

“We always leaned back on each other, communicating, talking about those different situations of what’s going on in our careers, and just helping one another in any way that we can,” Kyle said.

After a year each at Holmes Community College and Presbyterian, Pope returned to his home state in 2017 to begin a two-year stint as a graduate assistant at Alabama. It was there that he first linked up with Brent Key, then the Crimson Tide’s offensive line coach. Six years later, Key pried him from the University of Memphis, where he had worked for the previous four years, to join his defensive staff at Georgia Tech. Kelsey climbed up the ranks as well, working as a wide receivers coach at Shorter, Tennessee Tech and Gardner-Webb before landing on Josh Heupel’s inaugural staff at Tennessee as an offensive analyst in 2021.

For a decade, their grinds followed parallel tracks. That ends on Saturday, when Kyle and Kelsey’s paths finally cross again.

More than 30 family members plan on making the 140-mile trip from Sylacauga to watch Risa’s sons. As their mother, she knows the zero-sum game that awaits her. One of her boys will end the night defeated. The other will end it delighted. She’s prepared for all the emotional swings that come with it.

Regardless of the outcome, though, she’ll come dressed for the occasion. Several months ago, Risa ordered a custom jersey on Etsy that features Georgia Tech’s colors on one side and Tennessee’s colors on the other. She wore a similar outfit for Kyle and Kelsey’s playoff matchup in 2013.

Georgia Tech’s players know that for their defensive ends coach, “it’s a little bit more personal this week.” Pope has tried to stay detached from the buzz that has built up in his family, preferring to keep his focus on preparing his team to stop Tennessee’s high-powered offense. But he’s well aware of the pride he and his brother have inspired, and how Saturday’s sellout at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (7 p.m. ET, Georgia Tech Sports Network) gives them a chance to spotlight their family’s love even more.

“It’s not something that they ever thought would happen, but now that it’s happening, they’re taking it all in and enjoying it,” Pope said.

And sometime Saturday, in an idle moment during pregame warmups, he expects to seek out his fraternal twin on the field, where they’ll finally lift their self-imposed speaking ban.

Briefly.

Said Kyle of that upcoming interaction with Kelsey: “Knowing us, it’ll just be a few laughs, a few jokes, and then just getting ready to play.”

2026 GEORGIA TECH FOOTBALL TICKETS

2026 Georgia Tech football mini-plan and single-game tickets remain on sale. In addition to the Saturday’s massive non-conference tilt against Tennessee, the remaining slate also features ACC battles against defending conference champion Duke (Oct. 10) and 2025 bowl winners Louisville (Nov. 7) and Wake Forest (Nov. 21).

Mini-Plan

The ACC Pick-3 Mini Plan offers a 15% savings over purchasing tickets on a single-game basis, allowing fans to choose three of the Yellow Jackets’ four ACC home games this season – versus Duke (Saturday, Oct. 10), Boston College (Saturday, Oct. 24), Louisville (Saturday, Nov. 7) and Wake Forest (Saturday, Nov. 21) – starting at just $96.

Single-Game Tickets

Single-game tickets start as low as $30. Tickets for the all-new Wreck Deck premium experience in the Fanning Center, available for purchase on a single-game basis only, start at $150.

For more information and to purchase 2026 Georgia Tech football tickets today, click HERE.

Full Steam Ahead

Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online. 

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