Georgia Tech 2024 preview: Most important stretch of schedule

The following is the 10th and final part in a series of articles that will preview the coming Georgia Tech football season, which begins Saturday against Florida State in Dublin. In the series, we will examine several of the “Most important” things to watch as the Yellow Jackets’ season approaches. Today: Most important stretch of schedule.

October could certainly be scary for the Yellow Jackets.

Georgia Tech’s four-game month includes two road north to conference rivals and a neutral-site game against a College Football Playoff contender. Those matchups all come after a home game against Duke to start October.

On paper, Duke is a team Tech should be favored to beat even though the Blue Devils went 8-5 last season and won the Birmingham Bowl. Coach Mike Elko, however, departed for Texas A&M in the offseason, and Duke is under the direction of former Miami coach Manny Diaz. That game also comes after a bye week that ends September, which means the Jackets could come back well-rested or rusted.

After the Jackets face Duke, they head to the Tarheel State to take on North Carolina in a game ripe with storylines.

Tech topped UNC last year in dramatic, come-from-behind fashion at Bobby Dodd Stadium and that gives the Jackets a chance to make it four victories a row in the series with a triumph this October. Coach Mack Brown’s team was picked to finish eighth in the ACC’s preseason poll.

North Carolina also has a new defensive coordinator in one Geoff Collins, the former Tech coach who was fired in 2022 after going 10-28 in 38 games.

Tech then must return home to face Notre Dame, but at Mercedes-Benz Stadium instead of Bobby Dodd Stadium. The Fighting Irish begin the season ranked seventh nationally and are expected to compete for a spot in the new 12-team College Football Playoff.

The Jackets have lost the previous two matchups to the Irish by a combined score of 86-13.

If all that weren’t enough, the Jackets must travel to the always-tough Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech on Oct. 26, a game already announced as Virginia Tech’s homecoming affair. The Jackets have won their past four trips to Blacksburg, Virginia, but will be facing an improved Hokies team that was predicted to finish sixth in the ACC’s preseason poll.

If Tech can survive October, it will be faced with an equally challenging but perhaps far more manageable three-game slate in November (the first three-game November for the program since 2015, not including the 2020 campaign that was hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic). The Jackets host Miami and North Carolina State, respectively, before traveling to Georgia, and while all three of those opponents are in the preseason Top 25, Tech will have at least more than a week to prepare for each.

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