The 1956 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

team that represented

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

as a member of the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

(SEC) during the

1956 NCAA University Division football season The 1956 NCAA University Division football season saw the University of Oklahoma Sooners finish a third consecutive season unbeaten and untied to again win the national championship. The 1956 season saw the NCAA split member schools into two divi ...

. In their 12th year under head coach

Bobby Dodd Robert Lee Dodd (November 11, 1908 – June 21, 1988) was an American college football player and coach, college baseball coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Georgia Tech from 1945 to 1966, compil ...

, the team compiled an overall record of 10–1, with a mark of 7–1 in conference play, and finished second in the SEC. Georgia Tech was the preseason favorite to win the

, but their hopes of reaching the Sugar Bowl were crushed when the

Johnny Majors John Terrill Majors (May 21, 1935June 3, 2020) was an American professional football player and college coach. A standout halfback at the University of Tennessee, he was an All-American in 1956 and a two-time winner of the Southeastern Confe ...

-led

Tennessee Volunteers The Tennessee Volunteers and Lady Volunteers are the 20 male and female varsity intercollegiate athletics programs that represent the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Volunteers compete in Division I of the National Collegi ...

beat the Yellow Jackets in Atlanta, 0–6. Georgia Tech cruised through the rest of their schedule and finished the regular season with the Tennessee game as their only blemish, finishing second in the SEC and ranked number 4 in the country in the final

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broad ...

. They accepted an invitation to the

1956 Gator Bowl The 1956 Gator Bowl was an American college football bowl game played on December 29, 1956, at Gator Bowl Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. The game pitted the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the Pittsburgh Panthers. Background Georgia Tech bega ...

, where they beat

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

, in a rematch of the

1956 Sugar Bowl The 1956 Sugar Bowl featured the 7th ranked Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, and the 11th ranked Pittsburgh Panthers. The game was played on January 2, since New Year's Day was a Sunday. Much controversy preceded the 1956 Sugar Bowl. Segregationists a ...

, 21–14. This was the sixth straight season for Georgia Tech that ended with a bowl victory. The team was selected national champion by both Berryman and Sagarin (ELO-Chess).

Schedule

2011 Georgia Tech Media Guide
. p. 170.

References

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football seasons Gator Bowl champion seasons Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football {{GeorgiaUS-sport-team-stub