By: Kenneth Harrison

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The football season is over for Georgia Tech. For the second year in a row the Yellow Jackets finished 7-6. They lost the Birmingham Bowl last week to Vanderbilt, 35-27. The game was not as close as the score indicates.

They had seven players enter the transfer portal prior to the bowl game. That included their leading receiver, Eric Singleton Jr. and backup quarterback Zach Pyron.

“I think we made a tremendous amount of improvement throughout the course of the year. Excited where this team will continue to go,” Key said Friday after in the Birmingham Bowl at Protective Stadium. “You learn lessons through every experience in your life. A football team learns and grows through experiences.”

“Where this team is today compared to where this team was a year ago, I’m extremely proud of where they are, and I’m extremely excited about where we’re going moving forward.”

The record is the same as last year but I do agree, Tech has improved. In order to get to the next level they have to capitalize on opportunities and win big games. They had a 27-13 lead against #7 Georgia with less than 5 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. They lost that game 44-42 in the eighth overtime. That was their seventh consecutive loss to UGA.

They did beat #4 Miami 28-23 at home in November so that was a good win.

Midway through October Tech was 5-2. They beat North Carolina but starting quarterback Haynes King was injured and he missed the next two games. They lost those games to #12 Notre Dame and Virginia Tech. Key called a team meeting after the Va. Tech game, which was October 26.

“We knew we needed at that point in a time, a strong voice in front of ‘em. Something had to be said. They had some adversity hit, they had some adversity hit for two weeks in a row,” Key said Thursday in Birmingham. “Really from that point forward you’ve seen a driven team. You’ve seen a team that’s playing for each other, a team that’s playing together, a team that truly buys into the no-scoreboard, play-the-next-play, faceless-opponent (mentality). Because they could have gone one of two ways that night, they really could have.”

We can begin to look to the 2025 season and they have added some players in the transfer portal. They currently have the No. 31 overall portal class in the country and No. 5 class in the conference.

That looks good on paper but we did see how that worked out for Florida State this season. Out of those fifteen players I will highlight some of them. They are adding WR Debron Gatling (South Carolina), OL Andrew Rosinski (North Carolina), TE J.T. Byrne (Cal), TE Harry Lodge (Wake Forest), DT Matthew Alexander (UCF) and LB Melvin Jordan (Oregon State).

The UCF transfer Matthew Alexander (6’3, 295 lbs) played in 39 games over the last three seasons for the Knights. He had 34 tackles in 2024. I think he might have the biggest impact in this portal class.

They will start the 2025 season August 30 at Colorado. The Buffaloes were 9-4 this season but they will lose Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and starting quarterback Shedeur Sanders.

They play two games in September, both at home against Gardner-Webb and Temple.

These are games they can win but we will see how that plays out.