Georgia Tech Football: Bold Predictions for the ACC in 2021

We’re almost there. There’s some weird Week 0 games in 15 days, and toe meets leather on the Flats in a mere 22 days! We’ve covered the ACC in depth this week, and now it’s time for the staff to offer some bold predictions for what will transpire in the conference this fall!

Robert Binion

• FSU finishes no better than 4th in the Atlantic. Too much is riding on a transfer QB who, unfortunately, hasn’t played in two full seasons. The rest of the roster still has plenty of holes left over from the Taggart era.
• UVA finishes ahead of VPISU in the Coastal. I’m a believer in Brennan Armstrong; I’m not a believer in Braxton Burmeister. I believe Bronco Mendenhall has institutional support; I don’t believe the same for Justin Fuente.
• Georgia Tech places Jahmyr Gibbs on the All-ACC 1st team and Jordan Domineck on the 2nd team.
• This might be more like a lukewarm take, but the ACC still only has 14 member schools by the end of this football season.

Jake Grant

• At least three — and probably four — coaches are out of a job come December.
• The ACC makes a move to drastically improve its revenue projections, despite maintaining the television deal, that goes by the name of “Comcast.”
• Boston College finishes second in the Atlantic and has a very real opportunity to scare Clemson.
• My ACC Coastal Preview is actually right for once. The odds (and history) are not in my favor!

Logan Sandor

• Clemson wins all their games in the regular season only to lose in the conference championship.
• VPISU surprises pretty much everyone and wins the Coastal and the ACC Championship, they achieve this because...
• UNC loses to NC State and Wake Forest. UNC will drop at least 3 other games and end up 7-5 on the season.
• Miami loses to VPISU, FSU, and NC State. This happens after D’eriq King suffers an injury in the UNC game.
• Because of all the chaos I listed above, no ACC teams end up in the CFB Playoffs.
• Georgia Tech ends the year with at least 1 player on the All-ACC First team who IS NOT Jahmyr Gibbs. Jahmyr Gibbs may also be on the All-ACC First team, but GT will have at least one player other than him on the All-ACC First team as well.

Justin Dottavio

• The PAT/FG team won’t scare the crap out of us every time they jog out onto the field. I think those issues are cleaned up in ‘21. Closer in line to typical college kicking.
• Georgia Tech makes a bowl game at 6-6. NIU, Kenny State, Duke, Virginia Tech, and Pitt are the 6 wins to get there.
• Geoff Collins lets someone else wear a vest on game day. Something has to give eventually, right? Right?!

Stephen Murphey

• I will consume more fluid ounces of beverage during each tailgate than the Over for each game, and it won’t even be close
• Pitt, VPISU, Duke, Louisville, Syracuse, and NC State all have new head coaches going into 2022
• We confidently beat our FCS opponent, with zero moments of existential dread after returning the opening kick to the house
• Over 10 Field Goal Attempts for the season, a true shock to this regime

Carter Templeton

• Justin Fuente saves his job by beating UVA again when, for once, Hokies fans would have actually just preferred to lose this time
• Miami loses to App State in week 2, and no, please, I need this to happen so bad
• Wake Forest
• no, that’s the whole thing, just Wake Forest
• Dave Cutcliffe contemplates retirement after fourteen mostly successful seasons at Duke, but then remembers that, with Mike Krzyzewski’s impending retirement, he will become the longest tenured coach in Durham, and vows to remain until Krzyzewskiville is renamed Cutcliffeville.
• Notre Dame is — wait, they’re not ACC anymore, no one cares
• Dabo Swinney, unable to bear the thought of his team succeeding while getting paid handsomely by NIL deals instead of simply being happy for God’s grace, actually makes good on his promise to retire from college football and moves to a quiet house in the mountains. One day he hears strange noises from the woods, but he can’t find out where they’re coming from. They continue for weeks. They keep him up at night. Then, one day, he sees it. Just for a moment. But he knows the face that has tormented him for so long. It’s always been there, laughing at him. The creature haunting the woods is..... Steve Spurrier, and those strange noises are his golf cart.
• Georgia Tech sets new records in the Geoff Collins era by converting more than three field goals on the year

Jeffrey Cramer

• The PAC-12 will put a team in the playoffs this year but they just won’t be in it, they will win the title. I’m picking Oregon to beat Ohio State in the second week and continue to roll with a perfect record on the year. The SEC will also petition the Department of Justice that somehow Oregon violated a law when they rout Bama in the title game.
• Georgia Tech will finish with 5 wins on the season but one win will come against UNC or Notre Dame.
• UGA loses three regular season games this year to Clemson, Florida, and almighty Kentucky. Athens calls in the national guard to prevent the town from being burned to the ground.
• Michigan finally beats Ohio State and Michigan mandates everyone wear khaki pants for the rest of the year.
• No G5 team will make it to the end of the regular season with an undefeated record but somehow UCF will argue they deserve the patent for the invention of outer space.

Benjamin Tankersley

(Ed. Note: Hi, don’t mind me running behind on adding in my predictions)

• West Virginia will not join the ACC as much fun as that would be
• North Carolina takes the Coastal and gives Clemson a good game in the first half
• None of Sam Howell, D’Eriq King or DJ Uiageleilei will be the best QB in the ACC
• From 1 to 3 schools will fire their head coach this season, but at least 1 school will lose their head coach to another school
• Georgia Tech finishes 4-4 in the ACC, coming in fourth in the Coastal behind UNC, Miami and insert third team that inexplicably beats Georgia Tech