Before a string of seven consecutive ACC matchups, No. 18 Georgia Tech steps back out of league play at 4:30 p.m. Saturday to go against Temple at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
The Yellow Jackets are looking to start a season 4-0 for the first time since 2014. They’re also looking to win a game as a nationally ranked team for the first time since 2015 (the 2024 team was ranked No. 23 for one week in September before losing at Syracuse).
“We should be confident in our ability to go out and prepare, confident in our ability to play together as a team, and confident in each other that we are playing for each other, right?” Tech coach Brent Key said Thursday. “There’s a much bigger thing that you play for when you play for the person next to you than if you’re playing against or fighting against someone.
“So it all goes back to the belief I have in this team, the belief I have in this coaching staff to be able to take the message each week and get it through, but not just say it, not just hear it, but actually buy into it.”
Temple (2-1) comes to Atlanta for the first time in its program history (the Owls have lost games in Athens at Georgia in 1981 and 1983) hoping for a repeat of a 2019 matchup when it toppled Tech 24-2 in a game played in Philadelphia. The Owls are led by first-year coach K.C. Keeler who won 97 games at Sam Houston State and a 2003 national championship with Delaware.
Things to know about Saturday’s Georgia Tech-Temple game
Kickoff: Originally 4:30 p.m. Saturday but weather delay rescheduled for 5:05 p.m.
Where: Bobby Dodd Stadium (51,913)
TV: The CW
Streaming: None
Weather: 88 degrees at kickoff, 24% chance of rain
Tickets: Tickets are available on Tech’s official ticket site starting at $29 and via secondary sites starting at $29.
Temple football social media: X | Instagram | Facebook
Georgia Tech football social media: X | Instagram | Facebook
Storylines ahead of Georgia Tech-Temple
#HaynesForHeisman: Georgia Tech coach Brent Key is all-in on quarterback Haynes King being a viable choice to win the 2025 Heisman Trophy.
“This is a kid that truly epitomizes what the Heisman Trophy is,” Key said Monday on SiriusXM radio. “Who in college football elevates their team the way Haynes King does Georgia Tech? I would like to know that.”
King is 33-for-48 passing for 354 yards and an interception and has 259 yards rushing on 44 carries with four touchdowns in two games this season (he missed the Sept. 6 game against Gardner-Webb with a lower-body injury). Those numbers may not be gaudy enough (yet) for King to be included among players vying for the award handed out to college football’s best player each year, but King’s style of play, leadership and intangibles hold weight, Key added.
Yellow Jackets to wear gray: For the third time in as many home games, No. 18 Tech will wear a different color jersey at home.
Tech announced Thursday that the Jackets will wear gray jerseys and gray pants when it hosts Temple. The Jackets also will wear gold helmets with gray face masks.
Key said he sees the uniform combination as an analogy for Tech’s history as a historic steam engine going through the tunnel under a mountain and emerging as a new-age bullet train.
Crowds growing at Bobby Dodd: The Tech football program, week in and week out, strives for consistency on the field. It appears, through three games in 2025 anyway, that the Jackets are closer than they have been in quite some time to meeting that standard of consistency.
In the stands at Bobby Dodd Stadium, consistency pertaining to large crowds has yet to become the norm, although the trajectory is on an uptick.
Playoffs?! Can the Jackets make the College Football Playoff? This was Tech’s best chance to beat Clemson since the peak of the Paul Johnson years.
The close score in the 2021 game was a mirage of the regrettable Geoff Collins era. Key took over during the next season and turned the Jackets into giant killers, with the goal of becoming giants themselves.
That process accelerated when Aidan Birr’s 55-yard field goal sailed just inside the right upright at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday. The Jackets didn’t just end their losing streak to Clemson at nine games. They also cleared a plausible path to the College Football Playoff.
Jackets turned attention to Temple quickly: In an interview on SiriusXM on Monday morning, Key said that during Sunday’s team meeting he asked running back Jamal Haynes, linebacker Kyle Efford and safety Omar Daniels to relive some of their favorite football memories from high school, college and Saturday’s thrilling 24-21 win over Clemson.
Key then reminded that trio, and the rest of his Yellow Jackets, that all those moments had one thing in common: They are in the past.
Blake Gideon’s defense still solid: Three games, three positive results for the Jackets’ defense.
Tech’s first-year defensive coordinator, Gideon is a quarter of the way through the 2025 season, and so far the outcomes have been deemed a success. The defense has been a large reason why the Jackets are undefeated after three games for the first time in nine years and ranked No. 18 in the country.
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