SP+ Predicts Georgia Tech vs North Carolina Final Score

Georgia Tech vs North Carolina is going to kickoff at Noon today and the Yellow Jackets are going to be trying to reach 5-2, while North Carolina is trying to stop a three game losing skid. If Georgia Tech wins and gets to 5-2, it will be their best start since 2014, the last time they went to the ACC Championship game.

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.

🫡😤 WEEK 7 SP+ PICKS 😱😼

Ohio State 29, Oregon 26
Texas 33, OU 19
Ole Miss 34, LSU 28
PSU 33, USC 24
Utah 28, Ari St 22
Vols 34, Gators 23
BYU 30, Arizona 26
Iowa St 29, WVU 26
K-State 34, Colorado 25

It's Football Every Day time!https://t.co/w7ALlZmRqT pic.twitter.com/TesaEVmxwU
— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) October 6, 2024

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.