Football
The football team is traditionally the most popular at the Institute. The games are played at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field or simply The Flats, which is the oldest on-campus stadium in Division I FBS football. The stadium was expanded in recent years, increasing the maximum capacity to 55,000.
Georgia Tech plays an Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal Division schedule in addition to yearly cross divisional games against Clemson and two other Atlantic Division teams. In addition, the team has a yearly out-of-conference meeting with Georgia at the end of the season known as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.
The football team is in the top 20 winningest Division I-A programs and was the first team to win all four of the historical big four bowls - the Rose (1929), Orange (1940), Sugar (1944), and Cotton (1955). Georgia Tech has won four national titles in the years 1917 going 9-0 under John Heisman outscoring opponents 419-17, 1928 going 10-0 under William Alexander outscoring opponents 221-47, 1952 going 12-0 under Bobby Dodd outscoring opponents 325-59, and 1990 going 11-0-1 under Bobby Ross outscoring opponents 379-186.
The Yellow Jackets have won a total of 15 conference titles. They won 5 SIAA titles in 1916, 1917, 1918, 1920, and 1921; 3 Southern Conference titles in 1922, 1927, and 1928; 5 SEC titles in 1939, 1943, 1944, 1951, 1952, and the 1990 and 1998 ACC championships along with the 2006 ACC Coastal Division Championship. Paul Johnson and Georgia Tech won the 2009 ACC Championship in Tampa Florida which was later vacated because a player accepted $75 dollars worth of free clothes. The team has played in 35 bowl games, posting a record of 22-13. The resulting win percentage of 0.629 is currently the second-highest among teams with over 20 bowl appearances.
The most recent head coach is former Dallas Cowboys head coach Chan Gailey. In five seasons, Chan Gailey posted a 37-27 record, 5 straight bowl berths, and a 2-3 record in bowl games. Chan's 5 straight bowl appearances have the Jackets at 10 in a row overall, an active streak tied for 5th longest in the nation. Chan Gailey was fired on Monday, November 26, 2007. A nation-wide search for a new head coach then began, which was ended when highly-regarded Navy coach Paul Johnson was hired on December 9, 2007.
Three Jacket players were named to the ACC 50th Anniversary Team in 2002: Marco Coleman, OLB; Joe Hamilton, QB; and Ken Swilling, DB. Some notable and more recent Georgia Tech football players are three-time All-American Calvin Johnson, Keith Brooking, Joe Burns, Marco Coleman, Joe Hamilton, Tony Hollings, Dorsey Levens, and Arizona Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt. Three Atlantic Coast Conference Players of the Year hailed from Georgia Tech. They were Joe Hamilton (1999), Calvin Johnson (2006), and Jonathan Dwyer (2008).
See also: List of Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Starting Quarterbacks and List of Georgia Institute of Technology alumni#American footballRead more about this topic: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)