CFB Most Influential Programs
#36 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
School: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
First Game: November 5th, 1892
Winning Percentage: .581 (37th)
Appearances in AP/Rank: 306 (29th)
Average AP Ranking: 12.2
National Titles: 4
Claim to Fame: One of the schools to leave the original SEC when it looked like the conference was heading more towards a focus on football, and less on academics. Tulane was also one of the teams that left. Despite this, certainly one of the programs that helped build that conference, and football culture in the south.
Oh, and a guy named John Heisman also coached here, for 16 years.
Why I have them in my Collection: Georgia Tech in my lifetime certainly has not been a football power like it was back in the day. Like I said they left the SEC in early 1964 when the other schools were shifting their focus more towards athletics, mainly football. Given the academic prowess of the school, they felt they could not compete with the rest of the conference with their self-imposed scholarship limits, and opted to join the ACC.
Their biggest claim for fame as of late is that they are the most high-profile program that continued to run the triple option offense. An offense mostly run by service academies with higher academic and weight standards, this made Georgia Tech unique in the broader landscape of bigger college football programs. The triple option was the offense they ran under Bobby Ross when they claimed their last national championship in 1990, and it would continue under Paul Johnson.
The Georgia Tech Fight Song’s most famous phrase “Ramblin Wreck” is synonymous with college football, despite the team’s lack of success lately at the national level. However, the old timey car that Georgia Tech trots out for every home game might be the football team’s greatest claim to fame. In a sport with incredibly unique traditions, this one sticks out even amongst the most bizarre, and cool.
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