Quotes from Georgia Tech coach Geoff Collins' news conference after the Yellow Jackets' 20-10 loss to Pittsburgh Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
“Hard-fought football game. Our guys played hard. We talked all week that the margin of error as we’re building this thing is small. And you see that late in the third quarter, the score’s 17-10, we get down to the two-yard line, about to tie the thing up going into the fourth quarter and the margin of error being small, we fumble, they recover it, run it back down to our end of the field, get a field goal, the score’s 20-10. But proud of the way the guys fought, proud of the way that they played. Give them credit. That defense is really good. They’ve got a lot of really good players and they play at a high level.”
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“We made a point of emphasis and we’ve been making it for awhile that we need to create turnovers and we need to get the ball and I thought our guys did that at a high level and I think it’s the third game in a row we’ve had a blocked kick. So obviously proud of our special-teams coaches and the way our guys approach special teams since we place such a huge emphasis on that phase of the game. So getting turnovers was a big deal. We did that. The thing that, looking back, we need to capitalize on those turnovers.”
“Some things were happening outside of their control and they kept battling and kept fighting. So what we do and why we do it, the chaotic situations that we put them through to help them be able to handle those kind of thing. Obviously, we wish it was a better result, wish it would have been a win. Obviously, wish we hadn’t lost the ball on the goal line going into the fourth quarter, but we learn from those things and we build from those things. And just really proud of that group of guys and I know they’re going to come to work tomorrow with the right mindset, the right mentality to get better.”
On the run game:
“Just wanted to establish the run. We had RPO’s built off of it. Some of them just weren’t connecting. And then they’ve got a really good front four, they’ve got a really good front seven. And trying to get movement on them – at times, it was really good. At other times, we didn’t have success. But credit goes to them as well. Our guys are getting better and they have every single week and will continue to do that.”
On red-zone offense struggles:
“We’re getting better every single week. There’s no stone that’s left unturned. I’m going to leave it at that. The guys are working really, really hard. We’re going through every possibility to get different body types engaged on every side of the ball. But the coaches are very creative, we’ll focus on fundamentals, we’ll focus on being the best program that we can be so the guys are doing that.”
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