Georgia Tech debuts at No. 17 in first College Football Playoff rankings
In the first College Football Playoff Rankings of 2025 released Tuesday, Georgia Tech came in at No. 17.
The Yellow Jackets (8-1, 5-1) made their first appearance in the CFP rankings since the end of the 2014 season. They’re one of five ACC teams inside the initial ranking of 25 teams.
Virginia came in No. 14, Louisville at No. 15, Miami at No. 18 and Pittsburgh at No. 24.
Tech began the season with eight wins in a row. None of the opponents Tech beat in those eight games are in the CFP rankings. The Jackets suffered their first loss of the season Saturday, falling 48-36 at North Carolina State.
“Georgia Tech, quality team. I think (quarterback) Haynes King is everything to that team,” said College Football Playoff selection committee chair Mack Rhoades during a teleconference Tuesday. “We looked at Georgia Tech at North Carolina State and just felt like North Carolina State dominated Georgia Tech on both sides of the ball. A bad night for Georgia Tech, but again, a lot of ball still to be played.”
The 12-team CFP begins the weekend of Dec. 19 with four games, followed by the quarterfinals Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, the semifinals Jan. 8-9 and the championship game Jan. 19. The five conference champions ranked highest by the CFP selection committee, plus the next seven highest-ranked schools, make the field of 12.
The Jackets have three regular-season games left — one of those is against a 7-2 Pittsburgh team Nov. 22, and another is against Georgia (7-1), which came in at No. 5 in Tuesday’s CFP rankings, on Nov. 28.
Tech is off this weekend before playing at Boston College (1-8) on Nov. 15. It can’t afford any more slipups if it wants to keep its CFP hopes alive.
“We have a variety of tools at our disposal. Not one is weighted more than the other,” Rhoades said during the ESPN telecast of the rankings reveal. “We’re sitting here looking at head-to-head, we’re looking at common opponent, we’re looking at schedule strength, we’re looking at record strength. We’re looking at all of the analytics.
“We truly try to look at each team on its own, and its body of work, and I think that’s why we wait as a committee to begin our rankings at this point and time of the year where we’ve got a body of work that we can look at for each of the teams.”
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