Notre Dame football: Ranking the Irish's 2021 schedule game-by-game

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SOUTH BEND, IN – SEPTEMBER 19: C.J. Prosise #20 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish dives into the end zone for a one-yard touchdown against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the fourth quarter at Notre Dame Stadium on September 19, 2015, in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame defeated Georgia Tech 30-22. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

Notre Dame football: Ranking the Irish’s 2021 schedule by entertainment value

No. 11: Georgia Tech, Week 12

Georgia Tech has six SEC championships and was once the biggest thorn in Alabama and Bear Bryant’s side. That was before the conference looked to expand the scholarship limit, and to maintain academic standards Georgia Tech and Tulane pulled out from the SEC.

Now, the Yellow Jackets have managed success since that time, managing three conference championships, a national championship, and developing a fairly extensive series with Notre Dame during their decades as an independent. After all, it was Georgia Tech who Rudy managed to play against.

The good times, they had to end, though. Balancing high academic standards and a good football team isn’t impossible. Notre Dame has done it for a very long time. Stanford from time to time has too.

So, Georgia Tech chose a coping mechanism. They hired former Navy coach Paul Johnson to run a traditional triple-option offense. In doing so, for years they were the only non-academy school to run that offense. In all fairness, it did work at times too. Johnson went 82-61 in 11 seasons, going to nine bowl games.

Now, this wasn’t exceedingly better than his predecessors Chan Gailey and George O’Leary, but it was a good program.

Then, Johnson retired. They made what looked like an inspired hire in Geoff Collins, who is looking to reenergize to program and its Atlanta base. The problem is that it’s taking a long time. That was always to be expected, though.

He’s moving from the triple option to a modern offense. Every position needed to be turned over or taught a completely different style of play. Heading for year three, it’s time for Georgia Tech to take a stride forward.

The question is just how big of a stride do they take? Jeff Sims is an exciting, young, quarterback, but he was largely alone on offense last season. They need to find him help. Notre Dame played a fairly unremarkable game against Georgia Tech in Atlanta and won 31-13. In South Bend, there’s no reason to expect it to be any closer.

Notre Dame leads the all-time series 29-6-1. They last met in 2020, when the Irish won 31-13.

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