A Closer Look At Georgia Tech's Returning Production Numbers For the 2025 Season

Spring football is around the corner and it will be the first glimpse of what fans can expect their team to look like for the 2025 season. Some programs will already have a good idea of what to expect due to the amount of returning production their team has and one of those teams is Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are returning quite a bit of production for this upcoming season. Each offseason, ESPN's Bill Connelly releases his returning production numbers for each school and Georgia Tech ranks 26th nationally and third in the ACC, behind only Clemson and Stanford.

Now, it takes more than returning production to field a good team, and just because you have a large amount of returning production does not always equal success. An easy example of this is last year's Virginia Tech team. The Hokies returned a lot of production from their 2023 team and were seen as a potential threat to win the ACC, but they finished the season 6-7.

According to Connelly's numbers, Georgia Tech is returning 64% of their production on offense (45th in the country) and 65% of their production on defense (27th in the country).

On offense, Georgia Tech is going to be bringing back Haynes King and Aaron Philo at QB, their top four running backs from a year ago (including Jamal Haynes), Malik Rutherford at wide receiver, and three players along the offensive line (including guards Keylan Rutledge and Joe Fusile). The Yellow Jackets are going to be missing production at wide receiver and tight end, but have hit the transfer portal to address those needs.

Defensively, the line is where Georgia Tech is losing a lot of snaps. The only starter that Georgia Tech returns on the d-line is Jordan van den Berg, who should once again be one of their top defenders this season. Georgia Tech is returning Kyle Efford, E.J. Lightsey, Jackson Hamilton, and Tah'j Butler at linebacker. At corner, they will be missing Warren Burrell, but Ahmari Harvey, Rodney Shelly, and most of the depth is returning. Clayton Powell-Lee is back to lead the safety group once again. \

The average returning production in the ACC is 59.1 percent.

Let's look at Georgia Tech's 2025 opponents and where they ranked in the returning production numbers:

1. Colorado: 50%, 89th overall (99th offense, 66th defense)

2. Clemson: 81%, 1st overall (1st offense, 7th defense)

3. Temple: 51%, 87th overall (62nd offense, 109th defense)

4. Wake Forest: 50%, 88th overall (101st offense, 58th defense)

5. Virginia Tech: 54%, 77th overall (80th offense, 59th defense)

6. Duke: 58%, 59th overall (60th offense, 60th defense)

7. Syracuse: 50%, 90th overall (No. 115 offense, No. 34 defense)

8. NC State: 62%, 36th overall (18th offense, 72nd defense)

9. Boston College: 63%, 32nd overall (53rd offense, 29th defense)

10. Pittsburgh: 64%, 27th overall (31st offense, 43rd defense)

11. Georgia: 45%, 105th overall (108th offense, 93rd defense)

Here is how the entire ACC shakes out:

1. Clemson: No. 1 nationally

2. Stanford: No. 13 nationally

3. Georgia Tech: No. 26 nationally

4. Pittsburgh: No. 27 nationally

5. Boston College: No. 32 nationally

6. NC State: No. 36 nationally

7. Virginia: No. 46 nationally

8. Florida State: No. 47 nationally

9. Duke: No. 59 nationally

10. Louisville: No. 60 nationally

11. Miami: No. 75 nationally

12. Virginia Tech: No. 77 nationally

13. SMU: No. 78 nationally

14. North Carolina: No. 81 nationally

15. California: No. 83 nationally

16. Wake Forest: No. 88 nationally

17. Syracuse: No. 90 nationally

Additional Links

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