Cross has a tall task ahead of him to get Georgia Tech back to relevancy in basketball. Tech was dead last in the ACC preseason media poll and lost both its preseason games. One could consider this another preseason game, as Tech started the season ranked 103rd per KenPom while Hampton was 242nd. What’s more important to learn than the score itself is how Cross builds and manages a rotation.
Cross decided to start his reign with a small-ball lineup; no center started either half. Colby Garland, Nasir Whitlock, Kam Craft, Jackson Fields and Jordan started both halves.
This isn’t akin to Mike D’Antoni’s micro-ball Rockets; Cross seemed to prefer center-by-committee, with Cole Kirouac and Jackson McVey playing 24 of 40 minutes at center, according to the official box score. Forwards played the five for the remaining time. Kirouac had an especially impressive day off the bench, with 10 rebounds in 19 minutes. Cross swapped four-for-four at 2:13 of the first half, and three went out and three came in at 4:24 of the second half, per the substitution log.
The standout player overall was definitely Tylis Jordan, who led the team in minutes with 31 and had five blocks. “I think his potential is through the roof, and I think, you know, we’re just starting to see a glimpse of it right now,” Cross said.
Eleven players got minutes, and nobody played more than Jordan. It’s worth waiting to see if this tendency remains in conference play. This is worth mentioning because Cross swaps groups, not single players, in his line changes.
Several aspects of Cross’ philosophy were visible throughout the game, like his defensive style. Hampton went 6-of-33 in the first half and 0-of-7 from three, while Tech blocked seven shots and won the battle in the paint 48-22. Tech primarily played man-to-man defense.
Another notable thing about the performance is Tech’s extreme offensive pace and aggressive transitions in attack; they immediately pushed off defensive boards. The game ran to roughly 77 possessions per team using the standard box-score estimate (FGA − offensive rebounds + turnovers + 0.475 × FTA). That’s fast at this level.
Tech went 4-of-28 from three and still won by 20. While this could be attributed to the gap in skill level between the teams, Cross didn’t seem to mind: “I know it wasn’t the best shooting night for us, but, again, that’s what I preach to these guys. Let’s get more shot attempts. Let’s block out. Let’s rebound. Let’s tag. Let’s get extra possessions. And, you know, when you do that, you don’t have to be perfect from the three-point line or from the field.”
What was most concerning, perhaps about the style of play or pace, was the second-half stumble: Tech went 4:14 without a point, exacerbated by three turnovers in 44 seconds and a fourth by Victor Valdes at 13:43.
Whether that’s early-season conditioning niggles or a mostly new roster struggling to gel as it was rotated is something we’ll find out.
Looking ahead to Georgia Southern, Cross’ Troy defeated the Eagles 77-61 to win the Sun Belt championship last March, and Tech hired him about 11 days later. He’s going to be seeing his old finalist opponent, Eagles coach Charlie Henry, again Friday, albeit with both having mostly new rosters. Does Cross continue to roll with small ball against a coach familiar with his game?
]]>Louisville is almost the opposite of Tech in terms of form, coming off a 52-24 win over Stanford and seeking a fourth straight win. They’re possibly one of the worst matchups for the ailing Jackets given how much Tech’s defense has struggled.
Through seven games, the Cards have had 52 plays of 20+ yards and led the FBS in plays of 40+, 50+ and 60+ yards. They also had 11 touchdowns of 50+ yards, the only FBS team with that many.
Much of this explosiveness comes on the ground: they’re averaging 5.9 yards per carry, fourth in the FBS, and 215 rushing yards per game, their best since Lamar Jackson’s final season in 2017.
Pitt just ran for 281 yards against the injury-stricken Yellow Jackets defense, and Boston College ran the ball at will for 399 yards and five touchdowns. I don’t see a realistic way for Tech to stop the Cardinals’ run game.
Kienholz is a former Ohio State QB who arrived at Louisville last winter, and he’s a threat on the ground: 11 rushing TDs through eight games. Only Lamar Jackson and Malik Cunningham have run for more touchdowns in a season at Louisville. His 82-yard touchdown at Syracuse was the longest running touchdown by a quarterback in school history.
In their victory against Stanford, he threw for 250 yards, junior RB Isaac Brown ran for 139 yards, and WR Tre Richardson had 140 receiving yards. Both are having big years: Brown has 707 rushing yards at 7.7 per carry, and Richardson has 633 receiving yards at 15.8 per catch.
That’s a big task for Georgia Tech’s wounded defense: a mobile QB with a strong supporting cast, against a unit that’s already struggling to tackle in space.
Kaleb Beasley was tied for the national lead with five interceptions, all in the last five games, fueling the Cards’ hot streak. He’s the first Louisville player with five INTs in a season since Jaire Alexander in 2016.
Pitt’s pass rush got five sacks and kept Alberto Mendoza and Grady Adamson from getting settled. Tech had only 106 total yards across 12 series before Adamson came in, and the season has gotten to the point where putting Adamson out there to see what he has may be worth it, especially considering he’s a sophomore and Mendoza has gone cold.
Tech does have a path to an upset. Louisville can be careless with the ball, and that has led to close losses. The Cards would have to catch the yips like they did against NC State, fumbling five times and losing three, all of which led to NC State points. Tech is 16-4 under Brent Key when it commits fewer turnovers than its opponent. Winning the turnover battle could make it competitive, but Beasley makes that a tall order.
My score prediction: Louisville 41, Georgia Tech 13. That’s nearly double FanDuel’s line, but I don’t see this defense getting enough stops to keep it closer. A competitive game, let alone an upset, would mean something for Brent Key and a program searching for signs of life. That’s not nothing.
]]>By late October, a different perspective was being shared on X by user T. McClure, with Tech at 2-5: “Too much money involved now to not acknowledge and make adjustments.”
This may seem like a change in sentiment from fans, but both opinions had always been present in the fanbase. In MACHETE’s StingTalk thread, a user named Buzzilla recognized the economic realities of Georgia Tech but argued that the program can recover financially and that economic strength does not guarantee success. “Money won't mean an automatic level up, but it will certainly mean you can weather the storms and course correct much more easily. But even that has its limits. Looking at you FSU.”
So who’s right? Are the Yellow Jackets structurally disadvantaged or failing to use the resources they have access to?
The modern landscape of college football hasn’t priced Georgia Tech out. Tech finished 9-4 in 2025 while spending below the ACC median and carrying heavy facilities debt. That team showed what the Jackets’ means could do in the ACC. This season’s collapse is a failure to convert those resources, not proof that Tech is uniquely disadvantaged in the NIL era.
Tech’s revenue was a record $175 million in fiscal 2026, up 12% from $156 million. It’s not all football money, though: the $110 million fundraising figure includes commitments, and concerts boosted the total.
The debt the Yellow Jackets carry puts a qualifier on the good news the numbers imply. The athletic association carried about $296 million in long-term obligations at the end of fiscal 2025, much of it facilities debt that has been refinanced multiple times since the turn of the century. About $15 million a year goes to principal and interest. That’s about three-quarters of the $20.5 million it budgeted to pay athletes. One bond, which still costs more than 5%, paid to unwind a bad interest-rate gamble from the mid-2000s. That’s not all: up to $70 million in stadium financing has received preliminary approval, continuing the pattern of borrowing for facilities. Tech paying off debts hasn’t made it poor, but it slightly hamstrings its financial muscle. Although Tech’s debt is about 3.5 times the median among ACC public schools, it isn’t the heaviest in the ACC: Florida State reported about $437 million in athletics debt in fiscal 2025.
The ceiling argument isn’t without merit, though. The ACC’s 14 full-share football members averaged about $47 million in distributions in 2024–25, compared with the Big Ten’s roughly $80 million and the SEC’s $72 million for full-share members. Tech has a ceiling nationally, but so does almost every ACC school.
That brings us to something more consequential for Tech than for many schools: the transfer portal and the opportunities that come with it, although a program must remain vigilant to maintain continuity and culture when using it.
Transfers still have to meet Tech’s academic and credit transferability requirements. That has always been a limitation of the Yellow Jackets but doesn’t obliterate the available player pool. Whether that limit survives the sport’s professionalization remains to be seen.
Coach Brent Key has spoken in detail about the transfer portal’s central role in roster building, particularly in an August Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, where he called it an inexact science and was frank about the risk: “And you put it all together,” Key said, “and then you cross your fingers and hope like hell that you get it right.”
The rankings suggest he has reason for that hope: the 2026 class ranked No. 28 nationally and No. 6 in the ACC in the 247Sports composite. That transfer class had 19 arrivals, including Alberto Mendoza from Indiana and Justice Haynes from Michigan.
A tempting parallel to draw is Indiana’s 2025 title, which came after Indiana took 52 transfers in two years. The portal is enticing to describe as an equalizer in the modern game, but much of that comes with the qualifier of Indiana’s access to Big Ten money as well as coach Curt Cignetti’s own system and familiarity with players from JMU he brought with him.
This season’s results are emblematic of the danger of this approach. They show the downside of relying on transfers as a strategy, as well as Tech’s failure to convert its resources into success. For all the talent the transfer class added, the players did not click with each other. Coach Key was also blunt about this: “I feel like at times we have 11 independent contractors on the field at all times,” he said in a September interview with the AJC. While that may be what a modern college football player largely is, professionalism needn’t remove team spirit. Its absence reflects a failure of roster management, and it shows in the results on the field this year. No amount of injuries, which Key cited in the article, excuses a failure like that, and the injuries also suggest issues in accounting for depth during roster construction.
That is a bigger issue for Tech’s future than whether it can compete in the current structure of college football. Programs like this live by the portal and die by the portal. The most famous example is conference-mate Florida State, which went 13-0 in the 2023 regular season and 10-22 in the years since, losing most of its top players and staff. Tech’s 2026 was similar, with a reshuffled line, new coordinators and a new quarterback. Continuity is a big problem for programs like these.
This article won’t become a referendum on whether Key deserves a mulligan, but it’s worth noting that Mike Norvell was fired Nov. 1 with portal misses and misread quarterback market listed among causes. The chaos of the modern sport would have been as good an excuse as any, and Florida State also spent the fourth-most of any ACC athletic department.
Perhaps MACHETE was right about coming to terms with what Tech football is, but that means accepting that the Yellow Jackets won’t outspend Michigan. It doesn’t mean accepting Tech as a P4 bottom-feeder.
The question isn’t if Tech can afford and assemble a winning team. It’s whether it can keep one together long enough.
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