Ranking every team of the Paul Johnson era

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Dec 31, 2014; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets head coach Paul Johnson gets dunked with Gatorade by his players during the fourth quarter against the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the 2014 Orange Bowl at Sun Life Stadium. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets won 49-34. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /

Yellow Jacked Up ranks Paul Johnson’s Georgia Tech team’s by year

Chan Gailey was fired as the head coach of the Yellow Jackets on November 26, 2007. Gailey wasn’t necessarily a bad coach, but in six seasons at the helm for the yellow jackets, his teams were never able to beat Georgia, never won the ACC, never took the team to a BCS bowl, never won more than nine games, and never finished in the top 25. Needless to say, it was time for a change.

Tech fans needed someone who could compete for championships. Then, just over a week after Gailey was fired, Georgia Tech hired Paul Johnson to be the next head coach. “If I thought there was a ceiling here and we couldn’t compete for championships, I wouldn’t be standing here,” said Johnson in a press conference following his hiring.

Now, Paul Johnson is getting ready to take on his ninth season as the head coach of the Yellow Jackets. Looking back at it, it has definitely been a bumpy eight years – but overall, Johnson has been the guy that GT needed. From seasons consisting of three wins to almost being a contender for the national championship, Johnson knows what it feels like to be at the bottom and what it feels like to be at the top. So which team in the Paul Johnson era was the most successful? Let’s rank ’em by year from worst to best.