Breaking Down Georgia Tech's 2020 Schedule Using SP+
Yesterday, ESPN writer and college football statistician Bill Connelly released the first SP+ rankings for the 2020 FBS season. As described by Connelly himself, SP+ is a "tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency."
In the first round of 2020 rankings, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets were ranked 58th out of 130 FBS teams, with an SP+ rating of 1.3. While the offense garnered a rating of 22.3 that leaves much to be desired (104th in FBS), the defensive side of the ball is much better off with a rating of 21.0 (35th in FBS).
With the release of this SP+ list, we start to get some idea as to what to expect when toe meets leather in 2020. Plugging in the numbers from each team's SP+ rating, we can figure out the win percentage in each game (accounting for home vs. away) and the expected wins mark at the end of the season.
Before we dive into that, let's take a look at the metrics for each team on Georgia Tech's 2020 schedule:
| Overall SP+ | Offense | Defense | |
|---|---|---|---|
Clemson | 27.0 (3rd) | 43.4 (4th) | 16.4 (13th) |
Gardner-Webb | N/A | N/A | N/A |
UCF | 14.8 (18th) | 34.1 (26th) | 19.3 (26th) |
North Carolina | 16.0 (17th) | 39.7 (8th) | 23.7 (44th) |
Virginia Tech | 10.2 (32nd) | 29.9 (46th) | 19.7 (29th) |
Virginia | 5.2 (44th) | 27.7 (64th) | 22.5 (37th) |
Pitt | 6.0 (42nd) | 22.4 (103rd) | 16.4 (12th) |
Syracuse | -6.4 (95th) | 25.5 (85th) | 31.9 (91st) |
Duke | -1.7 (69th) | 19.0 (116th) | 20.7 (34th) |
Notre Dame | 18.5 (12th) | 37.6 (13th) | 19.1 (24th) |
Miami | 12.6 (23rd) | 27.6 (63rd) | 15.2 (9th) |
Georgia | 25.8 (4th) | 32.3 (33rd) | 6.4 (1) |
Theres no question that Georgia Tech has one of the most difficult schedules in all of college football. They play 6 teams with a top 25 SP+ rating, 5 teams with a top 25 defense and 3 teams with a top 15 offense. While Tech has certainly made strides to become a better overall football program, the schedule could make it difficult to reflect the successes of year 2 of the Geoff Collins era.
With that being said, here are the win probabilities for each game in the 2020 season. Accompanying that is the statistical wins likelihood for each point of the season. Home/Away/Neutral advantages are accounted for.
The rigorous schedule isn't kind to Georgia Tech, as they have a win probably of over 50.0% in just 3 of their games (Gardner-Webb, Syracuse, Duke). By regular season's end, the Yellow Jackets have an expected wins mark of just 4.27. Since Tech is expected to win at least 4 games but are favored in just 3 of them, one can deduce that the 4th win could come against Virginia by the way the chart probabilities pan out.
Related Notes:
- 71.01% chance of landing between 3 and 5 wins.
- 70.06% chance of increasing their win total from last season of 3.
- 9.99% chance of decreasing their win total from last season of 3.
- 19.02% chance of winning 6 or more games and becoming bowl eligible.
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