Georgia Tech Moves Up In Latest SP+ Rankings on ESPN

Georgia Tech kicks off the 2023 season against Louisville on Sept. 1st

Jackson Caudell | May 25, 2023

In this story:

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Spring Football is over and with that comes new power rankings and new updates to power ratings and advanced analytics systems.

Georgia Tech is going to look different than it did last season, with a new coaching staff and new incoming transfers, the Yellow Jackets are going to hope this is the kind of change that can lead to the first bowl appearance since 2018. Texas A&M transfer quarterback Haynes King is one of the high profile transfers that the Yellow Jackets have and he is hoping to become the steady presence at quarterback that this team has been lacking, if he can beat out Zach Pyron and Zach Gibson. The quarterback battle is the main question on the team right now and it is going to go into the fall. Georgia Tech is also hoping to have one of the best secondaries in the ACC with LaMiles Brooks, Clayton Powell-Lee, and Jaylon King as their safety tro.

Bill Connelly at ESPN released his initial SP+ rankings for the 2023 season in February and he had Georgia Tech at 70th, with a -2.4. Connelly currently had the Yellow Jackets projected to be 86th in offense and 51st in defense.

Connelly updated his SP+ numbers today and it saw a slight bump for Georgia Tech. GT is now ranked 67th, with the offense projected as 89th and the defense 53rd.

Georgia Tech opens the 2023 season vs Louisville on September 1st

So what exactly is SP+ and what goes into making these rankings? Here is how 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.

I will update these numbers in May and August, after further transfers and roster changes have come about (and after I've had a bit more time to tinker with handling transfers and other factors). But for now, let's look at what SP+ has to say about the college football landscape.

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. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date."

Tech is projected to be 12th in the ACC behind Florida State (10th overall), Clemson (12), North Carolina (28), Louisville (36), Miami (37th), Pitt (41st), NC State (43rd), Wake Forest (51st), Syracuse (52nd), Duke (55th), and Virginia Tech (65th). They are ahead of only Boston College and Virginia.

Here are the rankings for all of Georgia Tech's 2023 opponents, except for South Carolina State.

1. Georgia

12. Clemson

18. Ole Miss

28. North Carolina

36. Louisville

37. Miami

51. Wake Forest

52. Syracuse

74. Boston College

79. Virginia

125. Bowling Green