In less than two weeks, Georgia Tech begins its 2024 season with a big overseas game against reigning ACC champion Florida State. The Seminoles enter this game as favorites, but Georgia Tech has a great chance to pull off an upset and show that they are a contender in the ACC.

One of the best power rating and predictive ranking systems is ESPN college football analyst Bill Connelly’s SP+. Today, Connelly released the final SP+ rankings for the 2024 season. Georgia Tech will begin the season ranked 58th, with the projected offense at 33rd, the projected defense at 94th, and the projected special teams unit at 68th. I think it’s obvious that if Georgia Tech’s offense stays at that projected level and the defense improves significantly, that ranking will rise as the season goes on. Head coach Brent Key has had high praise for the defensive line so far during fall camp, and it appears they are making the necessary progress. They’ll have to show it on the field, though.

What exactly is SP+? This is how Connelly describes it himself:

“As always, these are based on three main factors: the performance of the returning players (final rankings are at the bottom of this article), recent recruiting, and recent history. How good have you been recently? Who have you brought back? How good are the players replacing the ones not coming back? That’s pretty much what we ask when we set expectations for a team; it’s also what these projections objectively try to do.

As always, SP+ is 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 resume ranking, and in that sense, these projections are not intended as a guess as to 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 so far.”

This is the ACC ranking in SP+ at the start of the season:

1. Florida State (ranked 12th nationally)

2.Clemson (16)

3. Miami-Dade County (19)

4. SMU (27)

5. NC State (29)

6. Louisville (31)

7. Virginia Tech (36)

8. North Carolina (40)

9. Duke (51)

10. Cal (52)

11. Georgia Tech (58)

12. Pitts (66)

13. Syracuse (67)

14. Boston College (73)

15. Wake Forest (74)

16.Stanford (77)

17. Virginia (78)

I would say Georgia Tech belongs above Cal, North Carolina, Duke, and SMU. I think the Mustangs are ranked way too high because of their success in a lower division and could struggle in their first year in the ACC. Duke has a chance to be one of the worst teams in the ACC in year one under Manny Diaz, Cal has questions about its passing game, and North Carolina has big questions at quarterback and defense.

Here is how Georgia Tech’s opponents rank in the SP+ rankings for 2024:

1. Georgia (1. national)

2. Notre Dame (9.)

3. Florida State (12.)

4. Miami (19th place)

5. NC State (29.)

6.Louisville (31.)

7. Virginia Tech (36th place)

8.North Carolina (40.)

9.Duke (51.)

10. Syracuse (67.)

11. Georgia State (106th place)

VMI is of course not listed.

As if it needed further confirmation that Georgia Tech has a tough schedule, only two of their 11 opponents are ranked lower than them in the SP+ rankings. One can certainly argue that teams like North Carolina and Duke shouldn’t be ranked higher, and teams like NC State and Louisville aren’t far ahead of Georgia Tech. Still, this team is expected to face eight top-40 opponents according to SP+. The Yellow Jackets have their work cut out for them when it comes to reaching another bowl game.