Haynes King was a young, freshman quarterback making his second career start the first and only time he’s played in Colorado.

King and No. 5-ranked Texas A&M came into Empower Field at Mile High on Sept. 11, 2021, to take on the Colorado Buffaloes, led by head coach Karl Dorrell and quarterback Brendon Lewis. King suffered a season-ending injury in the first quarter and A&M escaped with a 10-7 victory.

So much has changed for King, and the Buffs, since that day.

This summer, BuffZone will preview each of Colorado’s opponents for the 2025 season, and in this first installment we look at Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets will be led by King, now a sixth-year senior, when they visit Folsom Field on Aug. 29 to battle the Buffs, who are now led by head coach Deion Sanders and a starting quarterback yet to be determined.

Although the programs have been linked for 35 years since splitting the national title in 1990, CU and Tech have never met on the football field. Their first meeting will be intriguing, as the Buffs look for a hot start with some new weapons and the Yellow Jackets aim for a win in what could be their best season in nearly a decade.

While Tech won’t be a top-5 team, Haynes is a much better and more seasoned player than the last time he came to the Centennial State. After three seasons at A&M, King is entering his third season with the Yellow Jackets, who could be a sleeper in the race for the ACC title.

Georgia Tech is entering its third full season under head coach Brent Key, a former Yellow Jackets offensive lineman who has brought some energy back to the program. Tech didn’t reach bowl eligibility in four years under previous head coach Geoff Collins but has gone to two consecutive bowls with back-to-back 7-6 seasons under Key.

In the ACC, Clemson, Miami, SMU and Louisville are likely preseason top-25 teams. Florida State and North Carolina will get more attention. But Georgia Tech is an intriguing team that, even when it lost last year, wasn’t easy to beat. Perennial power Georgia needed eight overtimes to outlast the Yellow Jackets.

This year, they are led by King, a talented dual threat who had a nation-best touchdown-to-interception rate of 7-to-1 (14 TDs, 2 INTs) and also ran for 11 scores last year. He has rushed for at least 500 yards in back-to-back seasons.

Now a third-year starter, King has several weapons around him, too. Tech returns leading rusher Jamal Haynes, top receiver Malik Rutherford and first-team All-ACC right guard Keylan Rutledge.

Although three offensive linemen need to be replaced, Tech appears to have the tools to possibly be better offensively after finishing top-60 nationally in scoring (28.9 points per game), total yards (424.5), rushing (187.0) and passing (237.5).

Defensively, they were solid last year, giving up 25.2 points (67th nationally) and 342.8 yards (42nd) per game. The Yellow Jackets brought in new coordinator Blake Gideon from Texas (where he was the safeties coach) and bolstered the defense through the portal, so there is hope for improvement on that side of the ball.

This spring, King expressed optimism in the 2025 Yellow Jackets, even if it is a work in progress with two dozen transfer additions.

“It takes time when there’s a lot of new faces, and we’ve definitely got a lot of new faces on this team,” he said in an interview on YouTube. “But everybody is talented, and I feel like everybody is picking up and meshing well.”