Georgia Tech wide receiver Malachi Carter was having a conversation with a family member the other day, he said, about how he has been handling his team’s on-field struggles.
“And I was just telling ‘em, it’s kind of crazy that I still come here every day, and everybody’s still got smiles on their faces, and we’re still bumping music in the locker room. We still come out here (to practice) hype like we’re undefeated or something,” he said.
The Yellow Jackets would have reason for morale to dip. In a season with hopes and plans for a winning record in coach Geoff Collins’ third season, they are 3-6 with a three-game losing streak. The possibility of salvaging a bowl trip rests on winning out against Boston College, No. 9 Notre Dame and No. 1 Georgia.
In that climate, Carter and others Wednesday described a team that continues to practice hard and be upbeat.
“It may not be going well on the field, but we know what type of team we could be,” Carter said. “We’ve lost, what, five games this season by less than 10 points. So it’s like we know what we should be or we could be, so I think that is what keeps everybody’s heads up.”
Safety Juanyeh Thomas said that the team’s focus, attitude and excitement level haven’t changed throughout the season. That perception is borne out in the resolve that the team has shown, such as the team rallying against Virginia from a 48-27 deficit with 3:50 remaining in the game by scoring two touchdowns, recovering two onside kicks and then having a chance to force overtime on the final play of the game, or Thomas’ defensive two-point conversion against Miami, when he intercepted Hurricanes quarterback Tyler Van Dyke in the end zone and went the length of the field, collapsing in the end zone for the score.
“Literally, if you had never come to this program and you came to our practice, came to our locker room, you would never know we lost because our attitude, our spirits are still high even though we haven’t been winning,” he said. “Really proud of this team and the way we still attack every week even if we have little bumps and bruises.”
Left tackle Devin Cochran said that he and other offensive linemen have kept their focus on improving under the direction of offensive-line coach Brent Key.
“As an individual, it’s good to be able to go out there every week, find a new deficiency, work on that during the week, come out and practice it,” he said. “It’s not necessarily where I wanted (the season) to go. However, every week is another experience that I look forward to. Every day with coach Key, with the guys, with (left guard) Paula (Vaipulu), it’s always another thing I look forward to.”
Cochran said that, particularly after the return to standard time, it becomes more difficult to wake up for early-morning practices.
“But Collins does a really, really good job of keeping guys in, keeping guys juiced,” he said.
Defensive end Jared Ivey acknowledged the frustration created by the way the season has unfolded.
“When you know you’ve put it all out there, you’re giving all the effort you can give, it’s frustrating when the ball doesn’t roll your way at the end of the night,” he said. “We work our best to try not to let that discourage us. We’re going to come with the same energy, same focus, day in and day out, and it’s the Lord’s will whether we come out on top or not.”
Ivey has tried to use the losses as a motivating force.
“We’re just hungry,” he said. “We want and need to get this win, so we’re going to put it all out there. Everybody’s 100% bought in. We still have trust in each other. There is no wavering inside the locker room. We’re just going to use this hunger to go out and get another ‘W.’”
The effort level is something Cochran likewise has noticed, that is to say he hasn’t seen a lack of it in practice. He gushed about the scout-team defense, reeling off the names of several of its members (Taylor McCawley, Grey Carroll, Makius Scott, Kevin Harris, Akelo Stone and Antonneous Clayton, among them).
“There’s competing, there’s always talking back and forth, and I find myself being able to get better because of it,” he said.
Carter offered a perspective that went beyond wins and losses.
“Whether you’re winning every game or losing every game, it would be a waste of time to come out here and act like it doesn’t matter and kind of waste a practice, waste a day,” he said.
“You’re kind of doing yourself a disservice at that point. I think just for everybody having that mind-set of, as long as we’re out here together, we’re good. ‘We’re all we’ve got, we’re all we need’ – that’s what we say. And as long as we believe that, that’s what keeps morale so good around here.”
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