Georgia Tech Football: Staff Predictions
Ed. Note: Due to the confusion on the last two posts, those were our best- and worst-case scenarios for the season. This post will contain our actual predictions for this season.
Benjamin Tankersley
With so many changes coming this season, it’s tough to be confident in any kind of prediction. I truly believe Tech could win anywhere from 3 to 8 or 9 games. Sure if everything broke the right way, Tech could win 11 games like I said on Monday, but that seems the least likely option. If you were to sim the season 1,000 times, I think the most likely outcome would find Tech at 5 or 6 wins. Personally, I think this team is capable of getting to a bowl game. Having games against UGA, Ole Miss, and Clemson will certainly make that difficult, but hey, maybe I’m hopping on the hype train. Tech finishes 6-6 and goes to a bowl game for the first time since Paul Johnson retired.
Jack Purdy
6-6. A little bit of everything with a lucky win, a bad loss, and some injuries.
Jake Grant
6-6, because Tech has a pretty high likelihood to at least take care of business in most games. There are enough coin-flip or competitive games to certainly put Tech in the hunt for a bowl, and perhaps better than 6-6, if things break right and things start to click.
Christopher Paschal
5-7. SC State, Bowling Green, Boston College, Virginia and then one of either Louisville, Miami, or UNC. I wouldn’t feel terrible about 4-8 with just those first four either.
Jeff Cramer
A season opening matchup with Louisville is a great start as Georgia Tech scores a solid win while the Cards are trying to find the identity of their team with all the transfers and new coaches. South Carolina State is actually a comfortable lead by halftime and the Jackets start the season 2-0. They drop a road game at Ole Miss but the Rebels never get to breathe until the clock runs out. They come back strong at Wake Forest and keep the momentum against Bowling Green at home. The lose another nail biter to Miami down in Coral Gables and enter the bye week at 4-2. Boston College will be a trainwreck of an offense and Georgia Tech claims their largest margin of victory in the ACC matchup since demolishing Louisville under Paul Johnson. North Carolina comes back for revenge and the Yellow Jackets fail to slow down Drake Maye this go around. On the road to Virginia has never been fun and it’s an uncomfortable game against a lesser opponent but Georgia Tech manages to even up the series against the Hoos. Clemson is much better than last year and Georgia Tech can’t keep up late in a primetime night game in Death Valley. Dino Babers has his seat on fire at Syracuse by this time and Georgia Tech capitalizes on it to finish with a 5-3 ACC record. Georgia comes to town, and while they don’t run Georgia Tech off the field the game is in hand in the second half. Georgia Tech finishes with a 7-5 record and earns a modest bowl game that fans are thrilled to see again.
This may sound overly optimistic, but this would just be a 2-game improvement to overall record from last year and a 1-game ACC improvement. Perhaps had Brent Key got the job before UCF or Pyron didn’t get hurt against Miami this would be a very similar record to last season.
Logan Sandor
So lets go through the teams we play again and try categorizing this. SC State and Bowling Green are should wins, so that should in theory be 2 games in the win category. BC might also fit into the should win category, but I chose to put them in the next category instead. The next and largest category is “challenging but winnable” so we are looking at Louisville, Wake Forest, Boston College, Virginia, and Syracuse. These are games you could reasonably expect us to win but that we’re not exactly favored in either. I expect us to at get about half of those games, so lets say we get around 2.5 wins from that group. Then we have the “Winnable Upset” Category that includes UNC and Miami. These are teams which should have an advantage over us in talent but would not be impossible to pull an upset against. I say we win at least 1 of those games. Then we get into “More than likely lose” Which includes Clemson and Ole Miss. For arguments sake I’ll say we win 0.5 games. Then we have the “Not gonna win” category, I think we know who is in that category. So, if we ignore the nonsense of using .5’s in my projections that should put us with a 6-6 record that could get an extra win or loss depending on a couple of games. I am usually an optimist, but this year I am going to expect a 5-7 and hope the team surprises me.
