It isn’t quite how Georgia Tech wanted to get to the Orange Bowl, but the Yellow Jackets have their invitation nonetheless.
As expected, with Florida State’s elevation into the College Football Playoff after winning the ACC title over Tech late Saturday night, the Jackets were the next highest-ranked ACC team, which earned them a spot in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Eve night opposite Mississippi State. Tech had hoped to go to the Orange Bowl as the ACC champion, but was denied in Saturday’s 37-35 defeat to the Seminoles.
“They’re going to be excited about it and excited to have a chance to play a quality opponent, like I said, that’s been ranked in the top 10 pretty much all year and was No. 1,” coach Paul Johnson said Sunday on a teleconference with Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen.
Mississippi State earned its Orange Bowl spot by being the highest-ranked non-champion from the SEC, Big Ten or Notre Dame, by the judgment of the College Football Playoff selection committee. When the top 25 was released Sunday, the Bulldogs had managed to leapfrog Michigan State from last week’s ratings without either having played a game. Mississippi State went from No. 10 to No. 7. Michigan State stayed at No. 8. The Spartans would otherwise have been Tech’s Orange Bowl opponent. Tech dropped from No. 11 to 12.
Like Tech, Mississippi State began the season unranked. The Bulldogs roared into the rankings and reached No. 1 with a 9-0 start. They finished the season losing two of their final three, to Alabama and Ole Miss, to drop out of the playoffs. It’s the Bulldogs’ first trip to the Orange Bowl since 1941. The Bulldogs are led by quarterback Dak Prescott, who is No. 6 in the country in total offense at 327.9 yards per game.
Said Mullen of his players, “I don’t know if they could be happier going to any (other) bowl out there.”
With Tech at 10-3 and Mississippi State at 10-2, both will have a chance at 11-win seasons. The Jackets have four 11-win seasons in school history.
“You’d like to have a win to springboard into the next season and spring football,” Johnson said.
Mississippi State and Tech most recently played in 2008 and 2009, with the Jackets winning both. The 2009 game was in Mullen’s first year. On the teleconference, Mullen shared a story about how Johnson reached out to him the following year to offer his sympathy and support after a team member died. Mullen called Johnson’s act “something that always sticks with you.”
Johnson said the team will be off until Thursday before it begins bowl preparation. The team typically takes the week following the end of the season off to recuperate, but will have to compress its bowl practice schedule having played in the ACC title game.
Johnson didn’t have an injury update on three players who left Saturday’s game with injuries — defensive back Lawrence Austin, offensive tackle Bryan Chamberlain and A-back Tony Zenon — but said that “I don’t think we lost anybody seriously for the long term. I think they’ll be OK for the bowl game.”
Tech is on a bit of a streak in playing Mississippi schools, particularly notable because coaching great Bobby Dodd famously refused to schedule Ole Miss and Mississippi State when Tech was in the SEC, asking “Whatever is there to go to Mississippi for?”
Beyond the 2008-09 series with Mississippi State, Tech played Ole Miss in the Music City Bowl at the end of last season and has a two-game series scheduled with the Rebels for 2022-23. Before 2008, Tech had played both schools a total of five times, with two of the meetings in bowl games. Tech is playing a third Mississippi school, Alcorn State, to open the 2015 season.
