Pittsburgh visiting Georgia Tech was a ranked matchup as of last weekend. That is no longer the case after Notre Dame went into Pittsburgh last week and handed them a 22-point loss at home. Which sounds bad, but then you’re reminded that Georgia Tech needed a last-second field goal to beat *checks notes* 1-10 Boston College by 2. Now those results are very ugly and did not do wonders for the optics of this game. One truth does remain after last weekend about this game: it is a game where Georgia Tech can punch its ticket to the ACC title game. On the Pitt side of things, this is a game they need to stay alive in the race for the ACC title. Pitt only carries one conference loss as well.
Head Coaches
They both have a bit of storyline to follow entering this week.
For Brent Key and Georgia Tech, they will have to deal with the potential for some ramped-up discussions involving teams that are searching for a new head coach. Now I will start this by saying Brent Key was quoted as saying, “Cut me open and see what colors I bleed.” It is an obvious reference to his allegiance to Georgia Tech. However, it must be noted that this is not an outright denial. The devil can be in the details when it comes to how some of these coaches speak. A Lane Kiffin resolution appears to be on the way, and that will have an impact on how aggressively teams pursue Key. A place like Florida is somewhere that could have him as fallback option number 1 should they not land Kiffin.
On the Pitt side of things, for Pat Narduzzi, it actually has nothing to do with the craziest coaching carousel. It has everything to do with his quote last week, where he said, “I’d gladly get beat 103 or 110-10 in that game. They can put 100 up on us as long as we win the next two after that.” Well, it’s now the first of the two games that he needs to win. This one is more optical than anything for Narduzzi. Having a quote like that one and then losing convincingly, if I’m a Pitt fan, my expectation would be winning these next two. If they were to get run out of the building by Georgia Tech this weekend, it would be a really tough look for a Pitt program that had a lot of momentum entering that game against Notre Dame last weekend.
On to the Football
Now that we’ve gotten some of the off-field storylines out of the way, we move on to the actual football that will be played Saturday.
This is a clash of strengths for both of these teams. Georgia Tech is a team that prides itself on running the football. Offensive Coordinator Buster Faulkner is one of the best in the business in terms of his overall run scheme. They use a lot of motion to grab the eyes of linebackers and get them out of position. All of their run game revolves around one focal point in Haynes King. But Pitt sports one of the best Linebacker tandems in the country with Kyle Louis and Rasheem Biles. To go along with Biles and Louis Pitt has the #8 run defense in the country in terms of yards per carry at 2.8 ypc.
So in these matchups, it usually boils down to whose weakness is stronger. For Georgia Tech, they have one of the worst run defenses in the country, giving up an average of 5 yards a carry. That ranks 115th out of 136 FBS teams. Not to be outdone, though, Pitt only averages 3.4 yards a carry. That is also 115th out of 136 FBS teams.
One team relies heavily on its offense, the other leans on its defense.
Prediction+Analytics
I’m going to pick Pitt. I am reverting to an old way of thinking here: defense wins championships. I see a Georgia Tech team that has brought up more questions than answers over the past few weeks. On the other side, I see a Pitt team that was 5-0 (until last week) since they made the switch to Mason Heintschel at quarterback. While last week was a bit ugly for Pitt, I think they win and keep their ACC title and College Football Playoff hopes alive.
Georgia Tech is currently a 2.5-point favorite over Pitt. According to ESPN Analytics, they have a 57% chance to beat Pitt Saturday in the Flats.
