For the first time since 2015, Georgia Tech is back in the Associated Press Top 25.
The Yellow Jackets earned a No. 23 ranking in the Week 2 poll with 161 votes. It’s the first time Tech has been among the nation’s top 25 teams since the end of September in 2015, when the Jackets were ranked No. 20. A loss at Duke knocked Tech out of the poll, and it hasn’t been ranked since.
Tech is off to a 2-0 start, with a 1-0 mark in ACC play, after a win over then-No. 10 Florida State in Dublin on Aug. 24 and victory over Georgia State at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday. It’s the team’s first 2-0 start since 2016.
“If you wanna play 15 games in a season, you better not be peaking at Week 1 or 2. No one really cares what you do in September. People care what you do as the season goes on. You’ve gotta continue to build and get stronger as a football team,” Tech coach Brent Key said Tuesday before the poll had been released. “When we win football games, we have to enjoy winning football games. I don’t care if you win a game by 60 points or you win a game by one point or who you play. We got put a lot of work and a lot of time into 12 guaranteed opportunities to play this game. That’s one thing that, as an entire program, and that starts with me, that we have to enjoy these things.
“We gotta enjoy these things – now it’s a double-edged sword where there’s an expectation internally from coaches and from players alike that they wanna play at a certain level. And when they don’t, guys aren’t gonna be running around doing cartwheels and flips. But at the same time we work our tails off to go enjoy those opportunities on Saturday and have fun playing together.”
The Jackets also received 86 votes in the coaches poll, which also was released Tuesday, putting them just outside that ranking’s top 25 teams with the 26th most votes, nine points behind No. 25 Washington.
Tech is one of five ACC teams ranked in the latest AP poll: Miami (12), Louisville (22), North Carolina State (24) and Clemson (25). Key’s team goes to Louisville on Sept. 21, hosts Miami on Nov. 9 and hosts N.C. State on Nov. 21. It also plays No. 5-ranked Notre Dame on Oct. 19 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The Jackets travel to Syracuse (1-0) for a noon Saturday game, televised live by ACC Network.
