Schedule Advantages for our Opponents

I started a post the other analyzing our opponents schedules, to see which ones have certain advantages when the play us. I didn't finish it before I noticed someone at the Hive posted a similar concept.

First, here's an ACC Helmet Schedule for your review.

Now, let's breakdown the key scheduling advantages our opponents have going into the season.

GET US EARLY
Clearly, we all expect Georgia Tech to improve dramatically as the season goes along. That means those who play us early are at a distinct advantage. Putting aside the DI-AA teams, here are the teams we play prior to October:
@Boston College
@Virginia Tech
Mississippi State

GET A BYE WEEK
Completely whacky, different offense. Teams with one week to prepare will have tremendous difficultly preparing for the spread option.
Jax St has all the time in the world to prepare but no film to look at.
North Carolina and UGAg get a bye week before playing GT
Duke, Clemson, Miami have a bye week 2 weeks prior to playing GT

MAKE US TRAVEL
Home is home..... for whoever is home. BC, VT, Clemson, UNC and UGAg all force us to hit the road.

PLAY AN OPTION TEAM FIRST
Another advantage would be to have Wake Forest or another option team on your schedule prior to playing us. The Georgia Tech spread option is different than anyone else's but learning assignment defense certainly will carry over to other variations. Wake Forest is much less of an option team than a couple of years ago, but some elements are still there. Georgia will have faced spread teams like Florida and now Auburn, who is moving to the spread.

Mississippi St. plays Auburn the week before GT, a team moving to a spread offense.

DUKE plays NAVY 3 weeks before the GT game. If there's one team that can help prepare for our scheme, it's going to be NAVY. It's PJ's offense.

Clemson plays Wake Forest the week before they play GT, and they have a bye week prior to WF.

FSU plays Wake Sept 20, then GT Nov 1..... Miami plays Wake Oct 25 and GT Nov 22.

Georgia plays Georgia Southern in week 1, then Florida and Auburn later in the schedule.

CONCLUSION
Georgia has the best scenario of all our opponents. They will play at least 3 teams that highlight a spread attack prior to the Georgia Tech game, AND they have a bye week before our game. Working against them is playing us last on their schedule, when our offense should be running its best.

Clemson also has a great advantage. They have a bye week before playing Wake Forest, then they play GT at home. So they get to spend a lot of time preparing for assignment defense, then get a week to practice it against Wake.

DUKE may have the best advantage of all. They play Paul Johnson before they play Paul Johnson, because they have NAVY 3 weeks before GT. Then they get a bye week before playing UVA and GT consecutively.

North Carolina has a bye week before our game and in addition gets us in their house.