By: Kenneth Harrison

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Georgia Tech has started the college football season 5-0. That is impressive because most people did not predict this would happen. The Yellow Jackets beat Wake Forest (2-2) over the weekend, 30-29 in overtime. They dropped one spot in the AP Poll to #17.

“I’m extremely excited to win the football game,” head coach Brent Key said. “We’ve got two weeks now to deal with those things.”

It is tough to win games, especially against conference opponents. The two games Wake Forest has won were against Kennesaw State and Western Carolina. The Demon Deacons barely beat KSU in the season opener, 10-9.

We have to now ask, is Georgia Tech a legitimate contender to win the ACC and make the College Football Playoffs?

My answer is no and I have to use this Wake Forest game as an example. I know Tech was on the road but they trailed 20-3 early in the second half. The Yellow Jackets looked sluggish on both sides of the ball and let an inferior team dominate them for most of the game. I could argue that they showed toughness by coming back to win the game.

There was a blown offsides call against Georgia Tech with 1:50 left in the game and Wake Forest had the ball on third down. Quarterback Robby Ashford threw an incomplete pass, thinking he had a free play. That causes the Deacons to punt the ball with a three-point lead.

Wake Forest coach Jake Dickert told reporters Ashford “did what he’s trained to do, and that’s take a shot because he doesn’t know if it’s offside or not.”

An ACC spokesperson told the Associated Press that offside should have been called on the play. If officials had made the correct call, then Wake would have gained a first down with the penalty yards. Tech had no timeouts left, so the Demon Deacons could have secured the victory by running out the clock.

“I think there’s something special about this team, not even looking in the future, just the present with that just happened,” quarterback Haynes King said. “To overcome that, on the road, it’s just the maturity that we have. The trust that we have, players to players and coaches to players.”

Tech has a bye week coming up. Their next game is on October 11^th at home against Virginia Tech (2-3). The Hokies lost to Old Dominion 45-26, so this should be an easy win for the Yellow Jackets.

The rest of the season they should be favored against everyone except for #12 Georgia. After Va Tech they play at Duke, Syracuse, at NC State, at Boston College, Pitt and UGA. I think they will lose at least one conference game. I also expect them to lose to Georgia.

If Tech advances to the ACC Championship Game, they will probably play #3 Miami or #18 Florida State. Both of those teams are more talented, so I would expect them to beat the Jackets.

If Georgia Tech can get to nine or ten wins, that will be considered a good season. They were 7-6 last year so that is a major improvement.