Game Analysis

Georgia Tech (-3)  24   Boston College  20

Georgia Tech went from 11-3 in 2014 to falling off he national map with a 3-9 disaster in 2015. Paul Johnson’s consistently efficient option offense had their worst rating in his 8 years at as the Yellow Jackets’ head coach. Justin Thomas is back for his 3^rd season as the starting quarterback and I expect a return to normalcy for the Georgia Tech attack. They won’t be as good as they were in 2014 (1.4 yards per play better than average) but they should be as good as the 2012 and 2013 editions, which were both 0.5 yppl better than average.

Boston College had one of the nation’s best defensive teams last season, allowing only 4.6 yppl in their 10 games against FBS opponents that would combine to average 6.1 yppl against an average defensive team. The Eagles return 7 starters from that unit but defensive coordinator Don Brown was lured away to Ann Arbor by Jim Harbaugh and BC is likely to suffer some regression to the mean – although I still rate their defense at 1.0 yppl better than average. Boston College is particularly good defending the run, but being a good run defense against normal teams doesn’t necessarily qualify a team as being able to defend the option offense. In fact, the correlation between the level of a run defense and defending an option running attack is much lower than the correlation between the level of a run defense against a normal offense. So, option teams tend to perform relatively better against better defensive teams since the quality of the defense has less of an impact on the performance of the option offense. That should give Georgia Tech a relative edge but the Yellow Jackets are still likely to perform worse than normal offensively.

Boston College can’t get worse offensively than they were last season when the Eagles averaged a pathetic 4.1 yppl and 10.6 points per game. The Eagles should be much better throwing the ball with former Kentucky starter Patrick Towles behind center but the BC rushing numbers are probably going to be worse given that quarterback Jeff Smith led the Eagles in rushing last season and averaged 8.4 yards per run (not including sacks, which I count as pass plays). BC is still projected to be 0.7 yppl worse than average offensively, but that is significantly better than last season’s -1.3 yppl rating.

My ratings project 308 total yards 5.0 yppl in this game against a slightly worse than average Georgia Tech defense but the Yellow Jackets’ option attack is projected to tally 347 yards at 5.2 yppl. Overall the math favors Georgia Tech by 4 points with a total of 43 ½ points, so I don’t see any value in this contest and it’s not compelling enough to wake up extra early to watch (being played in Ireland at 4:30 am Pacific). Sleep in.