Georgia Tech vs North Carolina: Yellow Jackets Close as Road Favorites vs North Carolina

Will Georgia Tech Defeat North Carolina on the road today?

Oct 28, 2023; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets quarterback Haynes King (10) throws against the North Carolina Tar Heels in the first half at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images / Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Kickoff is getting closer for Georgia Tech and North Carolina and while the Yellow Jackets opened the week as five point favorites, but as we get closer to kickoff, the Yellow Jackets are only 3.5 point favorites according to Fanduel Sportsbook and the total is 59.5.

While the Sportsbooks have Georgia Tech favored, Bill Connelly's SP+ is giving a very slight edge to North Carolina. SP+ give North Carolina a 54% chance to win and predicts the final score to be 30-29 in favor of the Tar Heels.

What is SP+? In a single sentence, it's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with both college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.

SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling -- no good predictive system is. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. If you're lucky or unimpressive in a win, your rating will probably fall. If you're strong and unlucky in a loss, it will probably rise.

If Georgia Tech wants to win on Saturday, it will have to slow down North Carolina's rushing attack, led by the nation's third-leading rusher, Omarion Hampton. North Carolina has not had a strong passing attack this season, and its offense runs through Hampton. Hampton is capable of winning the game by himself, and stopping him is one of the keys to the game on Saturday.

Hampton is a future NFL starter at running back and has 764 yards in six games this season. He is averaging nearly six yards per carry and has only one game this year in which he did not total 100 yards. Yesterday, head coach Brent Key highlighted Hampton as a great player in this offense, but also thinks there is more to this North Carolina offense than just Hampton:

"Yeah you know they're you hear about about the running back all the time time, and rightfully so. He's a good, good, good football player, a really good player. But when you look at their offense, they're pretty balanced. I think they're 55 -45 somewhere in there as far as run past. So it's not like they're lining up and running 65 -70 % of the time, you can just load the box. I mean they are gonna add in the RPOs and the And then they take their shots down the field, which, you know, their last game, they were trying to get a few more of those shots down the field vertically. So, you know, it's a challenge. We've got to be able to make sure we read our keys, we get aligned with the tempo, reading our keys. That's going to be big, especially at the second and third level, you know, for the run pass. And then we've got to be able to control the front, you know, control the game up front and not to, obviously, D -Lines is the one position that didn't have conflict run pass he played the game, so we've got to be sharp with our keys and our read"

Hampton is having a fantastic season for North Carolina and poses a huge challenge to an improved rush defense. Let's see if the Yellow Jackets can contain one of the best running backs in the country.