CU-Georgia Tech To Meet In Football For The First Time
March 31, 2016 | Football
BOULDER — Thirty-five years later, they'll settle it on the field: Colorado and Georgia Tech, the national champions in the two largest polls in 1990 will finally meet on the gridiron for the first time in a home-and-home series to open the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
The first game will be in Boulder on Aug. 30, 2025 at Folsom Field, with the return trip by the Buffaloes to Atlanta and Bobby Dodd Stadium on Sept. 5, 2026. They are the first games CU has scheduled for both those seasons and the furthest out an opponent appears on any schedule.
In 1990, Colorado was 11-1-1 and was just the second program, along with the 1982 Penn State team, to win a national championship playing the nation's toughest schedule; the Buffs were crowned Associated Press champions. In that one, CU received 39 of 60 first place votes (Tech had 20), and CU outpointed the Yellow Jackets by 34 points. But Georgia Tech, 11-0-1, won the UPI Coaches balloting, gathering 30 of 59 first place votes (CU had 27) and had an 847-846 edge in points to win a share of the title.
(When Miami-Fla., and Washington split the 1991 title, it eventually led to the Bowl Alliance, 1992-97, to try and create Nos. 1 vs. 2 games in the bowls wherever possible; that then grew into the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), 1998-2013, and now the College Football Playoff.)
“It's important for us to play games in parts of the country where we can't get to very often for our alumni bases, and we have a good one in Georgia,” CU athletic director Rick George said. “It will be a terrific high profile series, and I am sure some fans will use it to settle the bragging rights back to 1990.”
Over the next decade, Colorado now has non-conference home-and-home series scheduled with former Big 8/12 rival Nebraska (a four-game set in 2018-19 and 2023-24), Minnesota (2021-22), Air Force (2020-22), Texas A&M (2020-21), TCU (2022-23) and now Georgia Tech (2025-26), while holding openings for in-state rival Colorado State from years 2023 and beyond (the two are currently playing every year through 2020).
Though seldom meeting in any sport, the schools have two very significant ties: CU head coach Mike MacIntyre is a 1989 graduate of Georgia Tech, where he lettered twice (1987-88) at free safety and punt returner for legendary head coach Bobby Ross. And current Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson was the chancellor of the CU-Boulder campus from 2006-09 before accepting the presidency at Georgia Tech.
“Playing my alma mater, Georgia Tech, will be both a unique and marquee series since both schools shared the '90 championship,” MacIntyre said. “Both have great histories in college football, and it will be a great intersectional non-conference game.”
Unless the Buffs appear in a postseason game in the south between now and 2026, it will be a 17-year span where Colorado hasn't played a game in the region. The last trip to the deep south came in 2009, when CU played Florida State in Jacksonville; other recent trips to the area were the 2007 Independence Bowl against Alabama in Shreveport, La.; a regular season game at Georgia in 2006, CU's only contest to date ever in the Peach State, and two games in Florida in 2005, at Miami and versus Clemson in the Champs Sports Bowl.
The Buffaloes are currently winding down their spring practices, with just four remaining prior to the annual spring game, which will at Noon on Saturday, April 9 at Folsom Field, with the event to be televised live by the Pac-12 Networks (main and Mountain). CU opens the 2016 season on Friday, Sept. 2, in Denver against CSU.