In the energized minutes after Georgia Tech rallied from a two-touchdown deficit to defeat Louisville in October at Bobby Dodd Stadium, coach Geoff Collins made a proclamation. His team was 2-2, having beaten Florida State in the season opener and now the Cardinals, both as underdogs.
“This group, and I told them, has a chance to be really good in the present,” Collins said to media. “I don’t think we have to talk in the future tense.”
In the next game, however, the Yellow Jackets were clobbered by No. 1 Clemson, followed by decisive defeats against Boston College and Notre Dame. Tech won one of its final six games, over a downtrodden Duke team, to finish 3-7. Evidently, the future tense was still necessary.
Said Collins after the 73-7 defeat to the Tigers, “We’ve got to learn how to handle success.”
Tech faces a similar challenge this week as the Jackets prep for a matchup Saturday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium with No. 21 North Carolina. The Jackets nearly pulled off the upset of the season Saturday, losing 14-8 at then-No. 6 Clemson. On Tuesday, Collins praised his team for its effort against the Tigers, saying that the team’s wearable GPS performance-tracking system recorded the highest scores for effort and other metrics since he began using the Catapult system at Temple in the 2017 season.
“They never quit, they just kept battling and they kept playing and they kept fighting,” Collins said. “That’s the way you’ve got to play. I think they’ve learned it, the way to focus, the way to prepare, the attitude, the mind-set, all of those things, and we just have to replicate it week after week after week after week. That’s what big-time programs do.”
And so, in the fourth game of Collins’ third season, another defining moment has arrived. After far exceeding expectations in pushing Clemson to the brink (while losing), the Jackets will seek to demonstrate that they can handle the relative success of that game in a way that they could not a year ago.
A week after registering the highest metrics for effort for a Collins-coached team in four-plus seasons, can they summon the will to reach that peak a second time in eight days?
Collins expressed his faith in his team to do so.
“Two completely different football teams,” he said, comparing the 2020 and 2021 teams. “Two completely different locker rooms, two completely different sets of leadership.”
Collins lauded the coaching staff and strength staff for developing players and shaping their preparation and mind-sets.
“So now our players are saying the right thing,” Collins said. “Even at the end of that (Clemson) game, the conversations that were being had were different. They’re the right conversations, but the challenge is to keep building that until the tip on Saturday.”
Collins was encouraged by what he saw through Tuesday. He said that players were focused at their Monday practice and did “really good” at the Tuesday practice.
Through Collins’ two-plus seasons, Tech is 0-7 after winning the previous game. Among the more discouraging results after wins were the overtime loss to The Citadel in 2019 (after beating South Florida) and losing 49-21 to Central Florida after the season-opening road win at Florida State last year.
Tech’s game against Clemson, following the win over Kennesaw State, was easily its best performance after a win, although the circumstances (FCS opponent followed by a top-10 team) were atypical.
Saturday’s game against the Tar Heels will be a window into the Jackets’ progress in their ability to consistently prepare and play with the effort and attention to detail that Collins has urged. North Carolina will be armed with the best offense and quarterback (Sam Howell) that the Jackets will have faced this season, having rung up 59 points in consecutive wins over Georgia State and Virginia.
“This is a great football team we’re playing, and we’ve got to be ready to play at a high level, to step on that field and compete with them,” Collins said.
That’s what big-time programs do.
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