At his Monday press briefing, Paul Johnson told reporters: “Last year was a great year. You win 11 games and win a BCS bowl game and beat your instate rival – that probably hasn’t happened here a lot.”
If we tweak the criteria to “win 10-plus games” – teams didn’t play as much back in the day – and “win a major bowl,” that trifecta had occurred only three times in Georgia Tech annals. The first was in 1928 under William Alexander: Tech went 10-0 and beat California in the Rose Bowl. The other two times came in consecutive seasons under Bobby Dodd: The 1951 Yellow Jackets were 11-0-1 and beat Baylor in the Orange; the 1952 team was 12-0 and won the Sugar over Ole Miss.