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Georgia Tech Football: Three Quick Thoughts on UCF Schedule Change

By Dylan Callaghan-Croley

ATLANTA, GA - OCTOBER 13: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Cheerleaders celebrate after a touchdown against the Duke Blue Devils on October 13, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - OCTOBER 13: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Cheerleaders celebrate after a touchdown against the Duke Blue Devils on October 13, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images) /
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On Thursday morning, the Georgia Tech athletic department announced that the Jackets game against the UCF Knights this season would be moved to Friday, September 18th after originally being scheduled for the 19th.

After announcing two schedule changes for the 2021 and 2023 seasons on Wednesday, the Georgia Tech athletic department announced a schedule change for the 2020 season on Thursday afternoon. The Yellow Jackets originally scheduled matchup against the AAC’s UCF Knights on September 19th will now be played a day earlier on September 18th.

The schedule changes comes with both positives and negatives for the football program to say the least. Here is one positive and two negatives about the Yellow Jackets schedule change with UCF.

Positive: National Exposure:

One positive is certainly the game being available on national television on ESPN or ESPN2. The Yellow Jackets in recent years haven’t been able to play on either channel, so it will give them an opportunity for a big win in front of a national audience. If the Jackets could earn a victory over a UCF team that has been one of the best teams in the country the last few years would be a huge win both on the field and off the field for the program and doing it on national television would up the victory even more. For the Yellow Jackets sake, they better hope the national exposure helps offset one of our following negatives.

https://twitter.com/GeorgiaTechFB/status/1233044298225995777

Negative: Short Schedule:

One major negative that you can never underestimate is turning around on a short schedule to play a game. That’s what the Yellow Jackets will be doing for their game against the Knights. The Yellow Jackets are scheduled to play the week before against the Gardner-Webb Bulldogs on September 12th. While it is against an FCS team, playing two games in six days is tough for any college football program but preparing for a team that is well coached as UCF is even harder. The Yellow Jackets have done it in the past but you’d still prefer not to have to especially against such a strong opponent.

Negative: Arguably biggest obvious negative of having the game moved to a Friday night is the recruiting impact. The recruiting turnout in the game will be smaller than it originally would’ve been due to high school games across the state of Georgia and surrounding states. The Yellow Jackets have been great on the recruiting trail under Geoff Collins and company which means it shouldn’t hurt the Yellow Jackets too much but it still hurts as its likely several of Tech’s top recruits that they originally would’ve hoped to get on campus that weekend will no longer be able to do so.

The Yellow Jackets still have plenty of work to do before next season begins, however. With spring practices set to begin shortly, the Yellow Jackets will be needed to work on several areas of their game in time for next season.