There Are No Participation Trophies in College Football — Unless You Play for Georgia Tech

I guess I should start this column with an admission: As a Georgia Bulldog, I loathe the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. They’re not necessarily our biggest rival, but they’re our in-state little brother, which makes it fun to dunk on them. There’s a reason the rivalry has earned the nickname “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.”

Tech fans are insufferable, too, because they let us live rent-free in their heads all year long. Third-year head coach Brent Key might be the real estate tycoon of Georgia Tech. He’s been vocal about how his highest ambition is to beat Georgia. And he’s kind of a jerk about it; where most coaches approach rivalries with a sense of humor or a more casual attitude, Key doesn’t.

I say all this to admit that I’m coming into this story with a massive bias, but Georgia Tech might have made the weirdest flex in college football with a gift to its players this week.

Derek Peterson explains at Saturday Down South:

Georgia Tech handed out some flashy rings recently. The only problem: Georgia Tech didn’t do much to warrant a ring in 2024.
Rings to commemorate a season are typically handed out to champions, be it conference or otherwise. Teams will give out rings for major bowl victories. Sometimes, teams give rings merely to commemorate a season. If you fall into the latter camp, it’s usually best not to show them off on social media. That will get your program roasted by all corners of the internet.

The Yellow Jackets went 7-6 last season, which is barely enough to be bowl-eligible. In that bowl game against Vanderbilt, Tech lost by 8. That didn’t stop the school from adding the bowl logo to the ring.

Summer Ice 🥶 #StingEm🐝 pic.twitter.com/vxYsEOnQ4G
— Georgia Tech Football (@GeorgiaTechFB) May 27, 2025

Side note: I feel so dirty for embedding a Georgia Tech post.

To be fair, Tech boasted a 5-0 record at home, which even I can admit is impressive, and part of the ring’s design commemorates it. But the ring also commemorates the team’s wins against Florida State and Miami. That’s all well and good unless you consider what a strange flex boasting about beating Florida State is.

In 2024, the Florida State Seminoles went 2-10, only defeating the University of California and Charleston Southern University. This came after preseason polls predicted that Florida State would finish atop the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Peterson points out that “Florida State was awful in 2024. The Seminoles went 2-10, enduring their worst football season since 1974. When Georgia Tech beat them by 3 points in Dublin to begin the year, FSU was ranked in the top 10. But 3 straight losses to begin the year proved quickly that Florida State was massively overvalued.”

Needless to say, bragging about a win over a team that fell so flat looks weird. Social media gave the Yellow Jackets a hard time for what many thought amounted to a participation trophy.

What did yall do to earn a ring???
— P2ALM23 (@P2ALM23) May 28, 2025

Tennessee makes coffee table books and y’all make rings for meaningless football wins.
Congrats I guess?
— Eddie from Acworth (@eddyfromacworth) May 28, 2025

Acceptable reasons to get a championship ring:
High School State or National title
College national title
Pro national title

Unacceptable reasons:
Travel ball (especially for 2nd place)
Whatever Georgia Tech was thinking

Make Championship Rings mean something! https://t.co/WB9iQp4naD
— A.B. Williams (@abwilliams_71) May 29, 2025

Who needs a participation trophy when you can get a participation ring?
— Gene Moody (@opiedawg) May 28, 2025

For the Birmingham Bowl?? pic.twitter.com/Pmemevd3Qf
— Chandler Pettyjohn (@chandlerpj_5) May 28, 2025

But they lost... 🤷🏿‍♂️🤦🏿‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/3S9XFg4U0V
— Memphis Spence 🏈🏀⚾ (@MemphisSpence) May 28, 2025

Even one alumnus expressed his horror at the gesture:

I have marinated on this for a day now, and there’s still not a single positive I can take away from this post. It’s so bad.

This kind of stuff just does not contribute anything positive to the perception that Brent Key wants the program to have. It’s the total opposite. https://t.co/ImnBDGYYKS
— Jared Halus (@JaredHalusGT) May 28, 2025

I’m not going to resist any chance I get to dump on Georgia Tech…