It’s certainly not as a dire as a psychological thriller or an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” but Georgia Tech is still mired in the murky land of alternating losses and wins.
Tech coach Brent Key, speaking about his team on a Halloween Tuesday, knows it’s his job this week to find a way to help his players finally avoid yet another letdown and to keep the momentum going following a 46-42 win over North Carolina.
“There’s four one-game seasons left. This is a season in and of itself right now. That’s all that we’re concerned about,” he said. “I talked to the team about this on Sunday because I know that externally that everywhere they go, everywhere they turn, people are going to ask them the question, people are going to ask me the question, you guys are going to ask them the questions. So I brought it up to them on Sunday night, and we talked about it, and we said, ‘We choose the event right now. The response you have to any event is what’s going to give you the outcome. The event right now that everyone wants to make is the fact of not winning back-to-back games and being the favorite, whatever that is, in games and not winning. That’s what it is.’
“I said, ‘That is the event, and we are not going to respond to any event that’s in the past because you can’t change that event, you can’t do anything about it, there’s nothing that can be done about it. We can sit here and have hypothetical conversations about those things and never have truth.’ That’s what I told team.”
Tech (4-4, 3-2 ACC), for the fourth time this season, will try to start a win streak. It has come up empty in its three previous endeavors to do so.
The Jackets found themselves in a similar position just a few weeks ago having beaten a ranked Miami team on the road, a victory which garnered national attention not only for the result itself but for the way the final seconds played out. Tech had a week off after that win, then came back and fell apart in the fourth quarter of a loss to Boston College. Tech also followed a win over South Carolina State with a loss to Ole Miss and a win at Wake Forest with a loss to Bowling Green.
Now Key’s team must meet the challenge of back-to-back road games to start November, the first coming at 2 p.m. Saturday at Virginia.
“The thing we can have response to is how we prepare. We can choose that. How we practice. Our film study, our nutrition, our sleep habits, all the things that go into winning football games. If we respond to those things correctly throughout the week, and we respond to the challenge we have on Saturday, then we’ll be in the position to have the outcome that we want.
“I actually had the E+R=O (event plus response equals outcome). I had (junior long snapper) Henry Freer come up in front of the entire team and had him write the formula on the board. He tutored the entire football team on exactly how to solve that equation. To put something that seems so general in the form of an equation and a formula? I think it hit our Georgia Tech football players right where it needed to.”
Virginia (2-6, 1-3), meanwhile, has played better than its overall record as of late. After an 0-5 start, which included three defeats by a total of seven points, the Cavaliers beat William and Mary and then North Carolina on the road. On Saturday coach Tony Elliott’s team went to south Florida and nearly stunned Miami before falling in overtime.
The Cavaliers have struggled to run and defend the run. They’re also allowing almost 31 points per game. But receiver Malik Washington and safety Jonas Sanker are two of the best players in the conference and senior quarterback Tony Muskett has provided an offensive spark with his steady play over the last four weeks.
And no matter how well or poor Virginia is currently playing, Scott Stadium has not been a place where Tech has enjoyed much success. The Jackets have wins there in 2013, 2009, 1990 and 1986 out of 19 trips since its first visit in 1984.
“They’re playing with a lot of confidence, and that’s very evident when you watch the film,” Key said. “It’s four games they’ve lost by a total of 10 points. Then three out of four they’ve been up double digits on teams and ended up not winning the game. Whose that sound like? This is a carbon copy that two plays here or three plays there in any given game, records can be totally different.
“Records don’t mean anything. They mean absolute zero in November. That’s the challenge to the team and the coaching staff and the support staff and everyone in the building. Unless you’re sitting down and watching the tape and seeing what a team is and what your opponent is, there should be no judgment about who should win and who shouldn’t win.”
Key said his team also will be battling to recover this week because of the physical nature of Saturday’s bout with UNC. But their willingness to play that taxing style gives him hope they turned another corner in the season, and that they can go play that way again.
“In my time with these guys, I have not seen a group of young men lay it on the line like they did on Saturday night. You could feel it on the sideline. You could feel the contact, the hits, you could feel those things,” he added. “The managing of those guys now through the week and getting ‘em to the point where we’re able to play at 2 o’clock Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, where we’re able to play the same way. That’s the expectation.”
King receives more recognition
On Tuesday, Tech quarterback Haynes King was named the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback of the Week and the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award Player of the Week. The Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award recognizes the top performer of the week that plays in, or is, from the state of Texas.
King totaled 377 yards of offense (287 passing, 90 rushing) and threw for four touchdowns while leading the Jackets back from four different double-digit deficits in the victory in the win over 17th-ranked UNC. He completed 23 of 30 passes, good for the second-highest single-game completion percentage (76.7) in Tech history. His final pass of the night was a 5-yard touchdown throw to tight end Brett Seither with 4:28 to go that capped a 22-point fourth quarter.
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