It has been a long time since Georgia Tech football has been nationally ranked, perhaps too long for a program which used to be a fixture in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
But the Yellow Jackets (2-0, 1-0 ACC) made a triumphant return to the rankings Tuesday when they popped up as the nation’s 23rd-best squad, according to the poll. Tech had not been ranked since September 2015. Following a loss to Duke on Sept. 26, when Tech was ranked No. 20, the program fell out the Top 25 and hadn’t returned until Tuesday.
“That’s a territory that comes with winning football games. It’s a new territory, but this is the new normal,” Tech coach Brent Key told 680 The Fan on Wednesday. “People can’t be surprised when people start talking about things that are good. Those kids deserve people to talk about them. But at the same time that’s my job to keep them grounded. We just came off the practice (Wednesday) and I don’t think there’s any question that’s taking place right now.”
The almost nine years between appearances in the poll was the program’s longest drought ever. Tech had previously gone no more than seven years between rankings after starting 1971, ranked No. 20, and then falling outside the Top 25 until the end of the 1978 season when it was ranked No. 20 before back-to-back losses to Notre Dame and Georgia. (The Jackets were ranked No. 20 in the final AP poll after the conclusion of the 1972 season.)
The AP poll began in 1936, with Tech’s first appearance in 1939. The AP ranking expanded to 25 teams in 1989, just before the program’s 11-0-1 season in 1990, in which the team was named the Coaches Poll national champion and ended the season as the No. 2 team in the AP ranking.
Tech never has had the No. 1 ranking in the AP Poll.
Being ranked in the Top 25 is a baby step for coach Key’s program, which has wins over No. 10 Florida State (winless and no longer ranked) and Georgia State. Since taking over the program, first on an interim basis in 2022, Key has compiled a 13-10 record. His team has now won six out of its past eight and Key is 5-0 against ACC teams who are ranked.
“There’s a reason why they’ve beaten so many ranked teams. (Key) injects positivity into his players, and I think they like to be that underdog,” ACC Network analyst E.J. Manuel recently told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They like to be that team that nobody thinks they’re any good and nobody thinks they got a shot. He embodies that. I really think he’s able to harness the negativity, or the lack of attention that Georgia Tech football gets on a national basis and use it to a positive for his ball club. That’s coaching.”
Of course, the underdog role may not be something the Jackets can lean on for much longer.
Tech is a field-goal favorite at Syracuse at noon Saturday. It will also be heavy favorite Sept. 14 when it hosts the Virginia Military Institute (0-1).
September then ends with a trip to No. 22 Louisville, a team that is 1-0 with a win over Austin Peay and plays only Jacksonville State between now and Tech’s visit to the Cardinals. That could be a matchup between ranked teams — something Tech hasn’t been a part of since being ranked No. 14 and losing to No. 8 Notre Dame on Sept. 19, 2015.
But the Jackets still have work to do before then.
“Everything that we do, they set, really, a standard for the way to play,” Key said Thursday about his team during his weekly radio show. “The thing about a standard is it can get better or worse. It never stays the same. Now, the next step is, really, creating an identity. The difference in the two is a standard is what you do, an identity is who you are. It’s no different than your last name.
“I gave the analogy to the team that there’s a reason why when you’re driving in a car that you don’t look in the rearview mirror. You glance in the rearview mirror and then you move forward, you move on. If you look in the mirror too long you’re gonna have a wreck.”
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