Clemson at Georgia Tech Prediction For Week 1

Clemson Tigers

People literally seem to forget that Clemson won double-digit games last season. The bar has been set so unreasonably high under Dabo Swinney that 10-3 seems like a terrible disappointment, and it is when you compare it to how they have been doing during the duration of his tenure with the Tigers. The same argument will continue to be made very single year against Clemson, which is that they get a break of playing an ACC schedule and not being in the SEC. I don't know about you, but I think the Tigers have more than proven themselves in the College Football Playoffs. My point is, stop bashing this team. No, they didn’t win the national championship. They also didn’t go to the College Football Playoff, and didn’t win the ACC title. Clemson lost three games. Seriously, calm down.

They had a double-digit win season for the 11th straight season, which maybe isn't quite Alabama, but it's very hard to argue that kind of success. The team struggled on offense, suffered a slew of injuries to its NFL-caliber defensive line, finished dead last in the ACC in passing efficiency, second-to-last in total offense, and yet they still finished with 10 wins. The three losses were against the eventual national champion Georgia, a road game against the eventual ACC champion Pitt, and a double-overtime road loss to one of the league’s best teams in NC State.

If Clemson can be just okay on offense, they are a College Football Playoff and ACC Championship team again, and 2021 will be put in the rear-view mirror.

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Georgia Tech is a shell of what it once was, and the reality is that it wasn't that long ago. It seems like forever, but in 2012 and 2014, this team was hanging around in the ACC Championship. Now it feels like just making a bowl game would be a miracle for a program that has had three straight three-win seasons under head coach Geoff Collins. It gets worse than just losing, it seems like the team is just completely uncompetitive in most of their games. Since the last year of the Paul Johnson era of Jackets football in 2018, 22 of the last 29 losses were by double digits. They closed out last season by losing to Notre Dame and Georgia by a combined score of 100-0. That was just flat-out embarrassing, and the fans deserve better than that type of performance. It isn't like the team wasn't trying; changing from a triple-option to a more balanced attack to a pro-style offense can be a lot to learn.

Collins knows how to coach; he took Temple to two straight bowl games and 15 wins in two seasons before taking over the Yellow Jackets job. But he really needs to start showing some progress soon, which could just mean not losing by a billion. Big changes in the coaching staff are an effort to do that, but it has been four years. With an insane schedule and all of the changes the team has gone through, I would expect much of the same this season, unfortunately.

Prediction

I can't in my right mind pick Georgia Tech. Clemson is the team I'm backing against the spread, as they should destroy Tech by a large margin no matter where they are playing.

Early Lean: Clemson ATS