Georgia
Georgia Tech Football: ESPN’s FPI Gives Virginia Tech the Edge In Saturday’s Game
Georgia Tech is coming off a loss to Notre Dame in a game where they were without star quarterback Haynes King. The Yellow Jackets hung tight in the game in the first half trailing 14-7 before Notre Dame pulled away in the second half. Georgia Tech struggled to muster up anything on the ground rushing for only 64 yards in the loss. It will be interesting to see how well the Yellow Jackets run the ball. In wins, Georgia Tech dominates the run game and gives opposing defenses fits. They will need that in order to knock off the Hokies.
An interesting stat that pertains to this matchup is that Georgia Tech has not lost at Virginia Tech since 2012, and has won four consecutive games in Blacksburg. Virginia Tech leads the all-time series 11-8 but the Yellow Jackets have won five of the last eight contests.
Georgia Tech will leave the state one final time this season and hit the road. The Yellow Jackets are a heavy underdog for the second week in a row, with the spread at -9 for the Hokies. ESPN’s FPI gives the Yellow Jackets just a 36.1% chance of winning the game. Despite the loss to Notre Dame last week, Georgia Tech has moved up five spots to No. 37 and is now ranked as the No. 7 team in the ACC. Their chance to reach six wins has dropped down a little bit from 92.7 to 90.3. It remains to be seen if Haynes King will suit up on Saturday for the Yellow Jackets.
Virginia Tech has won two consecutive games after a 2-3 start to the season. The offense has been rolling as of late scoring 30 points in each of its last three games. The Hokies also scored a season-high 42 points against Boston College in their win at home. The offense gained 394 yards against Miami, 337 yards against Stanford, and 532 yards against Boston College. It will not be easy to slow down this offense on Saturday for the Yellow Jackets but it will be important they force some negative plays and turnovers.
Saturday provided a different test for the Yellow Jackets, especially with one of the better quarterbacks in the ACC. The numbers may not prove it, but coming into the season Kyron Drones was considered one of the best and a breakout candidate for Virginia Tech. He has started to heat up lately and has found his groove on offense. A win can help Georgia Tech clinch bowl eligibility and build some momentum for the rest of the season.
ESPN uses its FPI (Football Power Index) as an advanced analytical model to help look at matchups and predict outcomes. In ESPN’s own words: “FPI is a predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. The ultimate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through 128; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes. If Vegas ever published the power rankings it uses to set its lines, they would likely look quite a lot like FPI.”
Subscribe to the Clarion Ledger
If you are not a subscriber, consider subscribing now. You will also get access to the Clarion Ledger’s E-Edition, the electronic replica of the print publication along with print archives. The E-edition is also available on our app.
USA Today Network
Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
-
Minneapolis, MN5 minutes agoMinneapolis grocery store owner charged in $1 million food assistance fraud
-
Indianapolis, IN11 minutes agoThese vacant school district properties will become affordable housing
-
Pittsburg, PA17 minutes agoMan shot and killed in East Hills
-
Augusta, GA23 minutes agoAugusta factory to produce key component for drugs to fight malaria
-
Washington, D.C29 minutes agoDC weather: Sunny, mild Tuesday; showers return Wednesday
-
Cleveland, OH35 minutes agoGuardians Set Off Alarm Bells for Kwan Yesterday
-
Austin, TX41 minutes agoCancer case highlights gaps in Texas protections for women firefighters
-
Alabama47 minutes agoAlabama House race in Jacksonville area draws a crowded field