Despite late-season fizzle, Georgia Tech raises the bar with 9-3 year
One of Georgia Tech’s goals in 2026 will be one of the same goals it has had for a very long time now: beat Georgia.
But that won’t be the only goal.
“We’re not gonna go into next season being like, ‘Oh, let’s go beat Georgia.’ We’re trying to win every game,” Tech junior E.J. Lightsey said Friday after the Yellow Jackets lost, 16-9, to Georgia at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Tech didn’t win every game in 2025, nor did it beat Georgia in an eighth-straight attempt. But it came darn-near close to doing both, and there’s something to be said for a program that suffered four straight losing seasons from 2019-22.
The Jackets finished 9-3 in the regular season, their most wins since a 9-4 campaign in 2016. Their six wins in ACC play were their most since going 6-2 in 2014.
And while, yes, the disappointment of going 1-3 over its final four games overshadows an 8-0 start to the season, coach Brent Key’s program undoubtedly took a major step toward becoming a major contender on the national stage.
“Continue to recruit. Continue to coach,” Key said on his program taking the next step in 2026. “Continue to become better versions of everything we do.”
When Key was named Tech’s interim coach in September 2022, the Jackets had lost 30 of 40 games. After back-to-back 7-6 seasons with Key as the program’s full-time coach, Tech exploded onto the national consciousness this season by winning eight games in a row and rising to No. 7 in The Associated Press Top 25.
An ACC championship game berth and College Football Playoff bid were very real possibilities at that point. Then the bottom fell out.
A 48-36 loss at North Carolina State brought the Jackets down to Earth. A 36-34, last-minute win at Boston College was more than worrisome. A 42-28 loss to Pittsburgh at Bobby Dodd Stadium was excruciating.
Then came Friday’s loss to Georgia, the third straight defeat against the Bulldogs in which the final margin was by a single score.
The Jackets will move on and play in a bowl game looking to avoid a three-game losing streak. They’re not playing close to the level of football they had been showcasing by the end of October, but a win in Game 13 would help erase some of the pain going into the offseason.
“You never know when you’re in the moment,” Key said Monday when he was asked if his team peaked too early this season. “Game seven, eight, we’re in there, we’re hoping we hadn’t peaked. And obviously we’ve come down the last few weeks and haven’t played up to anyone’s expectation of the way that I thought we’re capable of playing. I hope we still have some peaking left in us.”
Key’s hopes did not come to fruition. The only saving grace for this team will be to try to muster up enough motivation to go win a bowl game.
A win then would give Tech 10 wins in a season for the first time since its 11-3 season in 2014. That’s a far cry from the program’s recent history.
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