Georgia Tech has had a lot of success against North Carolina in recent years and in Atlanta. Georgia Tech has won 10 of the last 12 meetings between the two schools in Atlanta and that was a point of emphasis for Tar Heels head coach Mack Brown this week:
"Georgia Tech is a game that has been tough for us. Atlanta has not been good to the Tar Heels, we have lost 10 of 12. Hear me now. We have lost 10 of the last 12 games in Atlanta to Georgia Tech. Everyone thinks that we have Miami's number because we have beaten them five in a row, well Georgia Tech has had North Carolina's number, and before I got here, in Atlanta so that makes this a game where people project that we lose. Period. Because we have. 10 out of 12 is pretty good percentages. They will be excited and they will feel like they are going to win because they have and we will have our hands full.
Brent Key has done a great job, he is a Georgia Tech alum and has pulled them all together and they are playing really hard and he will have them ready to go with a whole lot of energy and we have to do the same thing"
Despite those trends, Georgia Tech finds itself as a near two-touchdown underdog in the oddsmakers and in SP+.
In SP+ this week, Georgia Tech is a projected 13-point underdog and is only given a 23% chance to win. The projected score on SP+ is 36-23.
Playing as an underdog has worked better for Georgia Tech under Brent Key. The Yellow Jackets have won multiple times as a multi-touchdown underdog, but are just 1-4 as a favorite under Key.
So what exactly is SP+ and what goes into making these rankings? Here is how ESPN's Bill Connelly formulates his rankings in his own words:
"I base SP+ projections on three primary factors, weighted by their predictiveness:
1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as possible to account for transfers and attrition. The combination of last year's SP+ ratings and adjustments based on returning production make up about half of the projections formula
2. Recent recruiting. This piece informs us of the caliber of a team's potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the past few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight). Beginning this season, I am also incorporating transfers -- both the quality and the volume -- in a different way. After last season's transfer-heavy recruiting shift, I've got a bit more data for how to handle that. This piece makes up about one-third of the projections formula.
3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from previous seasons (two to four years ago) gives us a good measure of overall program health. It stands to reason that a team that has played well for one year is less likely to duplicate that effort than a team that has been good for years on end (and vice versa), right? This is a minor piece of the puzzle -- only about 15% -- but the projections are better with it than without.
A reminder on SP+: It's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year."
Georgia Tech vs North Carolina kicks off Saturday in Atlanta at 8:00 p.m. on the ACC Network.
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