Where Is Georgia Tech Ranked In The Latest ESPN SP+ Ratings For 2023?

Georgia Tech's initial 2023 SP+ ranking is now here

Author:
Jackson Caudell
Publish date:
Feb 15, 2023 8:44 PM EST

In this story:

It has been a little more than a month since the 2022 college football season ended, but early projections are already starting to role in for the 2023 season.

Now of course, these projections are going to change a little bit, but they are a good baseline to use when starting to think about how the team is going to look in the upcoming season.

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. Georgia Tech is also hoping to have one of the best secondaries in the ACC with LaMiles Brooks and Clayton Powell-Lee as their safety duo.

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

Georgia Tech defensive back Clayton Powell-Lee — Georgia Tech is hoping to make a bowl game in 2023
Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

So what exactly is SP+ and what goes into making these rankings? Here is how Connelly formulates his rankings:

"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."

Georgia Tech running back Dontae Smith — Where will Georgia Tech finish in the 2023 SP+ Rankings?
Georgia Tech Athletics

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

42. Miami

52. Wake Forest

59. Syracuse

72. Boston College

76. Virginia

128. Bowling Green

Georgia has both the highest projected offense (6th) and the highest projected defense (2nd) that the Yellow Jackets will face next season.

Georgia Tech is ranked 12th in the ACC.

Playing six opponents in the top 50 is going to be tough, with half of the games being on the road, but there is a path to a bowl game for the Yellow Jackets. It will require a leap on offense and the defense maintaining its improvement from the second half of the season, despite losing Keion White, Charlie Thomas, Ace Eley, and Zamari Walton.

Keep in mind, this is an early ranking and can shift.

We are less than seven months from Georgia Tech opening the 2023 season against Louisville in Mercedes Benz stadium.

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