SP+ Predicts Georgia Tech vs Boston College Score

Will Georgia Tech get their fourth win of the season on Saturday?

Author:
Jackson Caudell
Publish date:
Oct 16, 2023 1:00 PM EDT

In this story:

With their bye week behind them, Georgia Tech now turns its attention to the second half of the year, with a bowl game being within reach.

The last we saw of the Yellow Jackets, they were winning in unbelievable fashion against Miami, bouncing back from a disappointing result against Bowling Green the week before. Georgia Tech has a home game against a 3-3 Boston College team this Saturday (12:00 p.m. ACC Network) and for the third time this season, the Yellow Jackets are going to be favored.

Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key is 3-0 vs ranked ACC teams on the road and has built a reputation as being tough to beat when the Yellow Jackets are underdogs. When Key has been a favorite in the conference has been a different story. Georgia Tech was favored against Virginia and Miami at home last season and lost both games. In non-conference games, Key lost to Bowling Green as a favorite and did not cover against South Carolina State earlier in the year.

When the Sportsbooks opened up yesterday, Georgia Tech was a four-point favorite. According to ESPN Analyst Bill Connelly and his SP+ system, Georgia Tech should be favored by more than four.

Connelly released his game projections for the upcoming week eight slate and he currently has Georgia Tech favored by nine over the Eagles and winning the game 32-23. He gives Georgia Tech a 71% chance to win the game.

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.

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."

Boston College is coming off of a win over Army a couple of weeks ago and seems to have found a playmaker at the quarterback position in Thomas Castellanos. The Eagles have had an up-and-down year that started with them losing to Northern Illinois at home and nearly losing to Holy Cross. BC is 1-2 in ACC play, with their lone conference win coming against Virginia and the losses to Florida State and Louisville. Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley is on the hot seat and a win here would be huge for him

The Eagles have a two-game winning streak going against Georgia Tech coming into this game. Boston College won in 2021 by a score of 41-30 and won 48-27 in 2020. Georgia Tech's last win against the Eagles came in 2016 in Ireland, a game that Georgia Tech won 17-14. Georgia Tech leads the all-time series 7-4, but the series has been 3-3 since Boston College joined the ACC.

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