Haynes King was a young, freshman quarterback making his second career start the first and only time he’s played in Colorado.
King and No. 5-ranked Texas A&M came into Empower Field at Mile High on Sept. 11, 2021, to take on the Colorado Buffaloes, led by head coach Karl Dorrell and quarterback Brendon Lewis. King suffered a season-ending injury in the first quarter and A&M escaped with a 10-7 victory.
So much has changed for King and the Buffs since that day.
This summer, BuffZone will preview each of Colorado’s opponents for the 2025 season and in this first installment, we look at Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets will be led by King, now a sixth-year senior, when they visit Folsom Field on Aug. 29 to battle the Buffs, who are now led by head coach Deion Sanders and a starting quarterback yet to be determined.
Although the programs have been linked for 35 years, since splitting the national title in 1990, CU and Tech have never met on the football field. Their first meeting will be intriguing, as the Buffs look for a hot start with some new weapons and the Yellow Jackets aim for a win in what could be their best season in nearly a decade.
While Tech won’t be a top-5 team, Haynes is a much better and more seasoned player than the last time he came to the Centennial State. After three seasons at A&M, King is entering his third season with the Yellow Jackets, who could be a sleeper in the race for the ACC title.
Georgia Tech is entering its third full season under head coach Brent Key, a former Yellow Jackets offensive lineman who has brought some energy back to the program. Tech didn’t reach bowl eligibility in four years under previous head coach Geoff Collins, but has gone to two consecutive bowls with back-to-back 7-6 seasons under Key.
In the ACC, Clemson, Miami, SMU and Louisville are likely preseason top-25 teams. Florida State and North Carolina will get more attention. But Georgia Tech is an intriguing team that, even when it lost last year, wasn’t easy to beat. Perennial power Georgia needed eight overtimes to outlast the Yellow Jackets.
This year, they are led by King, a talented dual threat who had a nation-best touchdown-to-interception rate of 7-to-1 (14 TDs, 2 INT) and also ran for 11 scores last year. He has rushed for at least 500 yards in back-to-back seasons.
Now a third-year starter, King has several weapons around him, too. Tech returns leading rusher Jamal Haynes, top receiver Malik Rutherford and first-team All-ACC right guard Keylan Rutledge.
Although three offensive linemen need to be replaced, Tech appears to have the tools to possibly be better offensively after finishing top-60 nationally in scoring (28.9 points per game), total yards (424.5), rushing (187.0) and passing (237.5).
Defensively, they were solid last year, giving up 25.2 points (67th nationally) and 342.8 yards (42nd) per game. The Yellow Jackets brought in new coordinator Blake Gideon from Texas (where he was the safeties coach) and bolstered the defense through the portal, so there is hope for improvement on that side of the ball.
This spring, King expressed optimism in the 2025 Yellow Jackets, even if it is a work in progress with two dozen transfer additions.
“It takes time when there’s a lot of new faces and we’ve definitely got a lot of new faces on this team,” he said in an interview on YouTube. “But everybody is talented and I feel like everybody is picking up and meshing well.”
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Head coach: Brent Key, 4th season (18-16)
2024 season: 7-6, 5-3 ACC; lost to Vanderbilt in Birmingham Bowl
Series with CU: First meeting
The Game
Who: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at Colorado Buffaloes
When: Friday, Aug. 29, 6 p.m. MT (ESPN)
Where: Folsom Field in Boulder
5 Guys to Watch
LB Kyle Efford: Led the Yellow Jackets with 64 tackles last year, while also posting 5.5 tackles for loss and three sacks. He earned third-team All-ACC honors. He also led the team in tackles in 2023, with 81.
RB Jamal Haynes: One of the best backs in the ACC, despite spending his first two seasons at Tech as a slot receiver who didn’t record any stats. He moved to running back during fall camp in 2023 and rushed for 1,059 yards and seven TDs. Last year, he rushed for 944 yards and nine scores.
QB Haynes King: After starting his career at Texas A&M, he’s been the full-time starter at Tech the past two years, completing 66.4% of his passes for 4,956 yards, 41 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. He’s also rushed for 1,324 yards and 21 touchdowns. The Longview, Texas, native will be a sixth-year senior.
WR Malik Rutherford: Briefly entered the transfer portal, but chose to stay. He led Tech with 62 catches last year, racking up 702 yards and three touchdowns. In four years with the Yellow Jackets, he’s caught 136 passes for 1,491 yards and seven scores. He’s also a running threat, with nine carries for 87 yards last year.
DT Jordan van den Berg: Earned second-team All-ACC honors last year, posting 23 tackles, five tackles for loss, a sack and two fumble recoveries. He spent three years at Penn State before transferring to Tech last year.
Good to know
• In 1990, CU went 11-1-1 and was voted as national champion by the Associated Press, with Georgia Tech No. 2. The Yellow Jackets went 11-0-1 and were voted No. 1 in the UPI/Coaches poll, with CU at No. 2.
• Georgia Tech’s longest road trip in the last decade was a game against Boston College in Dublin, Ireland, in 2016. However, this will be the Yellow Jackets’ first game west of the Mississippi River since a trip to Provo, Utah, to face BYU on Oct. 12, 2013.
• King’s completion percentage of 72.9% last year tied for third nationally with Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel and only behind CU’s Shedeur Sanders (74.0) and Ohio State’s Will Howard (73.0).
• Tech lost receiver Eric Singleton Jr., who led the team in receiving yards (754) and average yards per catch (13.5) to Auburn. He was replaced, however, by Eric Rivers, who caught 62 passes for 1,172 yards at FIU and was fifth in the nation in TD receptions (12). The Yellow Jackets added a second FIU receiver in Dean Patterson, who caught 50 passes for 685 yards and seven touchdowns last year.
• Safety Savion Riley, who played at Colorado last year, transferred to Georgia Tech in the offseason. Riley, from Acworth, Ga., played a key role as an injury replacement in the Buffs’ opener last year but was mainly on special teams in the nine games he played.
Portal movement
Georgia Tech lost 29 players in the portal, but most of those were backups. They did, however, lose some key players in Singleton (Auburn), left tackle Corey Robinson II (Arkansas), edge Romello Height (Texas Tech), safety Taye Seymore (Auburn) and cornerback Syeed Gibbs (Kansas). Like just about every other team, though, the Jackets loaded up with transfers, adding 24. Rivers and Patterson lead the way, but several projected starters were added, including inside linebacker Melvin Jordan IV (Oregon State), edge rushers Brayden Manley (Mercer) and Ronald Triplette (UTSA), defensive linemen Matthew Alexander (UCF) and Akelo Stone (Mississippi), tackle Malachi Carney (South Alabama), tight end JT Byrne (California), cornerback Kelvin Hill (UAB) and punter Marshall Nichols (UNLV).
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