Josh Pate Tips Overlooked ACC Team as 2025 Dark Horse After Near-Upset of SEC Giant

Josh Pate is the kind of college football analyst who wakes up every morning and chooses chaos. While half the sport’s media clings to safe picks and predictable narratives, Pate rummages around in the bargain bin of the AP Top 25. Take his latest antics with Florida and Oklahoma. This guy looked at Florida, which many have left for dead, and stirred up an entire online hornet’s nest by not only refusing to shovel dirt on the Gators’ grave.

Same goes for Oklahoma: while most treat last year’s Sooners meltdown as radioactive, Pate put on his lead vest and started selling stock in “Sooners bounceback season,” pointing to their transfer portal additions and a staff overhaul. And yet again, Pate doesn’t throw around the phrase top 20 team lightly, so when he calls Georgia Tech not just a Top 20 squad but a legitimate ACC dark horse, it makes you perk up. In the recent talk with Gramlich and Mac Lain, Pate breaks it down as to why he is so high on Georgia Tech.

“There’s no difference in your quality of your team whether a bounce goes your way in overtime or not. So, if I’m projecting forward, I think of you the same way,” Pate says. “And I also think, look, they lost the game. If they won the game, whatever the case may be, I don’t think you can look at a single program in the country and say over the last two years, the fundamental like vibe and identity of the place has changed to reflect that of the leader more than Georgia Tech has”. Two years ago, Tech was still dragging around the lingering cobwebs of the post-Paul Johnson hangover. Fast forward to now, Brent Key has changed the entire climate in Atlanta. His team isn’t just tougher, they believe, and that starts with a culture overhaul.

Key and his star staff have built something that’s hard-nosed, physical, and now competent, where Georgia Tech once sputtered through lost seasons. Don’t just take it from the fan base; anonymous ACC coaches are hyping Tech’s assistants as future head coaches. OC Buster Faulkner is turning Haynes King into one of the league’s scariest dual-threats. King has racked up 2,114 passing yards and 14 TDs, plus 587 rushing yards and 11 more scores. Returning talent is everywhere: King is back. Jamal Haynes returns to the backfield. The offensive line keeps All-ACC guard Keylan Rutledge. Even better, the best coordinator duo in the ACC, Faulkner and Santucci. They aren’t going anywhere, and keeping that coaching chemistry is a massive win.

Pate also adds, “Georgia Tech, okay, they’d love for things to go as scripted, but they’re also the kind where when two of the tires are flat and the door gets dented and they have to roll up their sleeves and like the shirt sleeve is ripped, I trust them. I trust them to get a little dirty and to, in a game that goes off the rails, just be the one that, when the smoke clears, they’re the one who comes crawling out and they got cuts and gashes all over their face.” The 2024 Miami game might as well be a gritty manifesto for this. Georgia Tech’s star QB Haynes King was still not 100% and attempted just 10 passes total, but what did they do?

They rolled up their sleeves (or what was left of them), put the ball on the ground, and gnashed out 271 rushing yards against a fearsome Miami defense. King, patched up and gritty, ran 20 times himself for 93 yards and a touchdown, while RB Jamal Haynes barreled in for 83 more. But that’s just the dirty work on offense. Defensively, Georgia Tech wasn’t always pretty. Miami’s Cam Ward threw for 348 yards and three scores, but Tech’s mentality was simple: bend, don’t break, and when it got ugly late, be tougher. When the dust cleared, it was Tech. Muddy, bruised, bleeding, but somehow standing, who’d pulled off the 28–23 stunner. It’s true, Key is recruiting the right guys, keeping them engaged, and building the kind of momentum that makes other programs sweat.

Georgia Tech’s easiest tests in 2025

When you crack open Georgia Tech’s 2025 schedule, it’s not just daunting showdowns and rivalry throwdowns; some golden, downright winnable games should have Tech fans circling dates in bold. First up on everyone’s “must-win” list is the Gardner-Webb game. This one is as close to a gridiron gimme as Tech will get all season. The Yellow Jackets roll into Bobby Dodd Stadium to face an FCS opponent they’ve handled before. And given Brent Key’s track record versus smaller programs, anything less than a two-score cruise would be a headline nobody wants to see.

Then, on September 20th, comes Temple. If you’ve followed the Owls the past few years, you know misery when you see it: not a single winning season since 2019, and the 2025 roster doesn’t exactly suggest a sudden pivot back to glory. Temple’s lack of offensive punch and depth should allow Tech’s defense to feast and build some swagger. Lose this game? That’s a full-on five-alarm fire drill in Atlanta. The sneaky (but essential) third pick: Wake Forest.

Sure, it’s on the road. But the Demon Deacons are entering a rebuild under a new head coach, Jake Dickert, with a quarterback carousel that would make even the most loyal fans queasy. Additionally, they have lost key experienced players in the portal, and have got a matchup where Tech’s experience and talent are. It may not be a cakewalk, but it’s a game Georgia Tech absolutely can, and really, should win if they want to keep trending upward in the ACC pecking order.