Georgia Tech One of the Most Improved Teams in the Country per SP+
There have been frustrating moments for Georgia Tech this season in Brent Key's first full season as the head coach. They lost to Bowling Green and Boston College, blew a second-half lead against Louisville, and looked overmatched against Clemson this past weekend.
But anyone who has been watching this team this season knows that Georgia Tech is one of the most improved teams in the country.
Offensively, the Yellow Jackets are miles ahead of where they were last year. They are third in the ACC in total yards per game and have the third-ranked rushing attack in the conference. Quarterback Haynes King has been one of the best stories in the country for turning his playing career around at Georgia Tech and the offensive line has turned into a strength instead of the biggest weakness on the team. There is still a way to go defensively, but Key is showing big improvement in the program in year one.
Bill Connelly's SP+ system agrees with that and he has Georgia Tech as the fourth-most improved team in the Power Five this year.
Last year: -12.6 (105th)
This year: -2.5 (70th)
Improvement: +10.1
"The Yellow Jackets got knocked around by Clemson on Saturday, but they had won three of four before that, and they can bowl if they win a tossup game against Syracuse this Saturday. We'll see what kind of ceiling Brent Key's program can create, but the floor's much higher than it was under Geoff Collins."
Haynes King has helped Georgia Tech be one of the most improved teams in the country
The only teams that have shown a bigger improvement this year according to SP+ are Colorado, Miami, and Arizona.
So what exactly is SP+ and what goes into making these rankings? Here is how ESPN's 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."
Key can further show the improvement this Saturday in a lot of ways. With a win against Syracuse, Georgia Tech can make their first bowl game since 2018 and they will get a win as a favorite. The Yellow Jackets are known as a team that plays well as an underdog but they have struggled when favored. This team has a lot in front of it and can show they are moving in the right direction with a win on Saturday.
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