College football seasons are short.
They might drag on after the regular season with almost two months of time between the Notre Dame game at USC and the College Football Playoff National Championship, compared to other sports this really is a three month sprint.
With the big games coming up in November – Florida State and USC – this is when the Irish need to keep their focus.
If everything goes right, they should be able to handle Stanford, and dealing with Navy a week later really shouldn’t be a problem. Georgia Tech, though, has just enough pop to pull off something special if everything breaks right.
It’s Notre Dame’s first game outside of Indiana six weeks, and it should be interesting – but that’s not the norm between these two.
Notre Dame is 30-6-1 all-time, winning the last meeting in 2021 55-0.
Five things you need to know about Georgia Tech are …
This comes at an interesting point in the Georgia Tech season. It will have already travelled to Ireland to play Florida State, gone on the road to face Syracuse and Louisville, and it’ll come into this after going to North Carolina.
It won’t have two home games in a row until mid-November, and there’s a shot it’ll be slightly desperate when the Irish come to Atlanta.
It’s a better Yellow Jacket team than the one that went 7-6 last season, but the record might not reflect it. That can change with a few breaks, but …
Last year’s team lost games it wasn’t supposed to against Boston College and Bowling Green because of three turnovers in each. To be a broken record, this is a better team coming into the season, but it’s not Ohio State – it can’t screw up and win. It was 0-3 last year then when turning it over three time or more.
The takeaways will come from the Yellow Jacket defense, but multiple turnovers probably make this a walk for the Irish.
And they need to do that by moving the chains.
It’ll be the midway point in the season when these two meet, and of course things will change from last year’s Georgia Tech team and tweaks will be made, but the defense has to be way better on thrid downs and it’ll have to prove by this point that it can stop the run.
Almost everyone who came up with a sack last year has to be replaced, and again, by mid-October new guys will emerge. The pass rush should still be a bit of an issue, and the Notre Dame offense has to take advantage of it. However …
Assuming everyone stays healthy, the Georgia Tech front five will be among the most effective in the ACC. It won’t be the best or most talented – Florida State’s is REALLY good – but it’ll be a major strength.
Notre Dame has to be ready to not generate a ton of pressure. The Yellow Jacket line will be great in pass protection and should pave the way for another huge year for the ground game – the team led the ACC in rushing in 2023. If the line really is that good …
The parade of good quarterbacks Notre Dame has to face continues.
Every week the Irish will get some passer who can get hot and be a bother – okay, maybe not for Northern Illinois. On a national scale Haynes King won’t get a ton of attention, but he’s a veteran who can screw up the Irish with his legs as well as a deep arm.
Again, the offensive line is strong and King is a concern. The receiving corps is deep, and Jamal Haynes averaged over six yards per carry. The offense will keep on pressing.
There’s a lot of reason for Notre Dame to worry.
Georgia Tech might have several games it’ll have to find an extra gear for, but this is the team’s biggest home game of the season, at least until Miami and NC State come to town several weeks later.
Notre Dame should be coasting a wee bit before this, but it’ll be in a nip-and-tuck fight as the Yellow Jackets hang around deep into the second half. Expect this to be the closest game and biggest fight for the Irish since the opener against Texas A&M.
Notre Dame 27, Georgia Tech 23
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– Aug 31: Texas A&M
– Sept 7: Northern Illinois
– Sept 14: Purdue
– Sept 21: Miami Univ.
– Sept 28: Louisville
– Oct 12: Stanford