SP+ predicts the final result between Yellow Jackets and Blue Devils

The game may not receive much national attention, but Georgia Tech welcomes an undefeated Duke to Bobby Dodd Stadium for a prime-time showdown on Saturday. Duke reached 5-0 for the first time since 1994 last Saturday when they staged a dramatic 20-point comeback against arch-rival North Carolina, and they have plenty of momentum going into this game. Georgia Tech, on the other hand, is trying to get back into the swing of things and has had a necessary week off. The Yellow Jackets had already played five games and needed the bye week after the loss to Louisville to address some of the issues they've had this season.

While Duke may be an undefeated team, Georgia Tech is a pretty big favorite on Saturday. At Fanduel Sportsbook, the Yellow Jackets are 8.5-point favorites against Manny Diaz and the Blue Devils on Saturday. Bill Connelly's SP+ sees the game differently. With SP+, Duke wins the game with a score of 28-27 and the Blue Devils have a 52% chance of winning the game.

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

“As always, these are based on three main factors: returning production (final rankings can be found at the end of this article), recent recruiting and recent history. How good have you been lately? Who do you think will come back?” How good are the players who aren’t coming back? That's largely the question we ask when setting expectations for a team.

As always: SP+ is a pace- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. This is a predictive measure of the most enduring and predictable aspects of football, not a resume ranking, and with that in mind, 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 off-season performance rankings based on the information we have been able to gather so far.”

Duke has been able to wreak a lot of havoc on defense, and Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key noted this in his press conference yesterday:

“You’re either first or second. I think they're maybe second in the country in TFLs right now and Havoc plays in stuffed runs that are 0 to minus 1, minus 2 yard runs. 42% runs filled right now, that's a credit to them. “The way they play, the physicality they play with, but when you look at who's bringing out the negatives, it's not just the D-lineman . There are many security printing, nickel printing inside and outside. That's what Manny is all about. They're able to execute their attacks because that's what they do for different moves and things, you know he's a good football coach and you know he's I'm a good defensive football coach that often competes against him in my career. I respect him because he's not just a coach, but as a person, as you know, I think he's a good man and he's a damn good football coach. I'm really happy to have him here, playing here with Bobby Dodd.

Georgia Tech vs. Duke begins this Saturday at 8:00 p.m. ET and will be televised on the ACC Network.