Georgia Tech hopes it can use Saturday’s matchup with Virginia Military Institute as an opportunity to get right and get back to winning. After all, coach Brent Key’s team is a humbled and hobbled bunch after a physically tough setback at Syracuse on Saturday.
“When you lose a game, things become magnified with it, but we try to make sure, whether we win or lose, you’re addressing the things you have to get better at,” Key said Tuesday. “That’s always the challenge is ignoring the external, focusing on the process on what you have to do to improve as a football team. That really starts individually, it starts with myself, the coaches, the players and no different.
“We have an opportunity now to go back out and prepare and practice to be able to earn that opportunity this week with the challenge we have coming for us.”
Tech, 2-1 overall and 1-1 against ACC foes, hosts VMI at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The Yellow Jackets opened as 42.5-point favorites over the Virginia school and should, on paper, have enough in the tank to handle their visitors.
Even with players such as safety LaMiles Brooks, running back Jamal Haynes, wide receiver Malik Rutherford and tight end Avery Boyd all dealing with bumps and bruises stemming from the 31-28 loss at Syracuse, and with the Jackets already having played three games while most of their college football brethren have played two, Key’s program is in position to be 3-1 for the first time since 2017.
Tech also has a trip to No. 19 Louisville (2-0) coming up next week, a vital matchup if the Jackets want to remain in the ACC title race.
“We’re a banged-up team. It is what it is this time of year. But you know what? You can sit around and complain about it and say you’re hurt,” Key said. “It’s the game of football. We know what the game of football is, and we have to man-up and go out and practice and prepare and get ready to play another game.
“It’s something all the way back in May and June have been working toward knowing that this stretch was coming, of how we’re preparing our guys and how we get them ready to play.”
Tech is 14-1 all-time against VMI, the one blemish a 14-13 loss during a four-game losing streak in the 1950 season. The Jackets have won five in a row since against the Keydets in a series that dates to 1914.
VMI, a school of about 1,500 students, has never scored more than 14 points against Tech in a single game. Competing in the Southern Conference in the FCS, the Lexington, Virginia, school made the FCS playoffs in 2020 but has gone only 12-23 since.
Danny Rocco became the VMI coach in 2023 and finished that season at 5-6. He previously was head coach at Liberty, Richmond and Delaware and an assistant at Virginia, Maryland, Texas and with the New York Jets. Rocco was a linebacker at Penn State and Wake Forest in the early 1980s.
This year’s VMI squad opened the season with a 41-7 loss at William & Mary on Aug. 29 and lost 35-28 Saturday at home to Bucknell. The Keydets have allowed 290.5 passing yards per game thus far and have given up six red-zone scores in six red zones chances. Running back Hunter Rice has 247 yards on 35 carries.
“When you watch these guys on tape, they pose a lot of problems,” Key said. “They pose a lot of problems of things that we’ve got to improve on. They play a three-down front. They like to bring different backers and safeties and blitz. We’ve got to be able to handle those things.
“(Rocco) believes in the core principles that we do here of how to build a football team that we do here, of being tough, looking to establish the line of scrimmage. You know they’re gonna be well-prepared, they’re gonna be well-coached and they’re gonna play a full 60 minutes.”
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