A Friday night season opener, Georgia Tech’s first trip to Wake Forest since 2010 and a rare late-season matchup with Clemson are among the details of the team’s football schedule, released Monday by the ACC.
The 2023 schedule will be the first with the ACC’s new 3-5-5 scheduling model, in which teams will play three conference opponents every year for the next four years and then play the other 10 twice in that four-year span home and away. The conference had used a two-division format from 2005-2022 excluding the COVID-impacted season of 2020. Tech’s three primary opponents are Louisville, Wake Forest and Clemson.
Tech’s season opener against Louisville, a Chick-fil-A Kickoff game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, was moved from its original date on Sept. 2, a Saturday, to the day before. It will be just the second Friday night home game that Tech has played since the ACC began playing Friday night games in 2013 as part of its contract with ESPN. (Coincidentally, the first was also against Louisville, in 2020.) The move from Saturday was made at the behest of ESPN.
The game will be notable in that Tech coach Brent Key will make his debut as the Yellow Jackets’ full-time coach while Louisville coach Jeff Brohm also will coach his first game leading the Cardinals, both men at their alma maters.
After a home game against FCS South Carolina State on Sept. 9, the Yellow Jackets will play three of their next four games on the road: Sept. 16 at Ole Miss, Sept. 23 at Wake Forest and Oct. 7 at Miami. The only home game in that span is a nonconference matchup with Bowling Green on Sept. 30. The Wake Forest game exemplifies the planned benefit of the new scheduling model. Tech and Wake Forest, having been in opposite divisions, had played once in the past 12 seasons.
The Miami game is followed by the lone open date of the year. After that, Tech will be at home to play Boston College on Oct. 21, which will be the team’s first ACC home game at Bobby Dodd Stadium following its home and season opener at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
After Boston College, North Carolina will come to Bobby Dodd on Oct. 28 as the Jackets will seek their third win in a row over the Tar Heels, having upset them in 2021 and 2022 as double-digit underdogs. That will be followed by back-to-back road games, at Virginia on Nov. 4 and at Clemson on Nov. 11. The Cavaliers have won three in a row over Tech, the Tigers eight in a row.
In recent seasons, Clemson has generally been an early-season opponent, including the season opener last year and 2019. In fact, in the past seven seasons, the Tigers played Tech in August or September five times, often meting out decisive defeats. Nov. 11 will be the latest in the year that Tech and Clemson will have met since 2014, which was the last time the Jackets won in the series.
The final two games are at home, Nov. 18 against Syracuse and Nov. 25 against two-time defending national champion Georgia.
With the new scheduling model, former Coastal Division opponents Duke, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech will be left off the schedule until 2024 or 2025. The Jackets and Blue Devils will end a run of 90 consecutive annual meetings, which was Tech’s longest active streak.
2023 GEORGIA TECH FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
Sept. 1 Louisville at Mercedes-Benz Stadium
Sept. 9 South Carolina State
Sept. 16 at Ole Miss
Sept. 23 at Wake Forest
Sept. 30 Bowling Green
Oct. 7 at Miami
Oct. 21 Boston College
Oct. 28 North Carolina
Nov. 4 at Virginia
Nov. 11 at Clemson
Nov. 18 Syracuse
Nov. 25 Georgia
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