A third game, a third city and stadium and a third unique challenge for Georgia Tech this week. Can the Yellow Jackets handle the next test?
Coach Brent Key’s squad is scheduled to head to New York on Friday ahead of a noon Saturday matchup with Syracuse. After wins over Florida State in Dublin and Georgia State at Bobby Dodd Stadium, the Jackets (2-0, 1-0 ACC) now must dip their toe back into ACC play and win a tough road game to start 3-0 for the first time since 2016.
“This, hands down, will be the biggest challenge we have as a football team this week,” Key said Tuesday. “This is going to be a game, and I just told the team, this has nothing to do with plays, calls, runs, passes, coverages, fronts — ain’t none of that. This game’s about our ability to go be the most physically tough football team we can possibly be from 12 until about four o’clock on Saturday.
“Hands down, that is the only thing. How physical we play, how tough we play, how much discipline we play with, how we’ve improved on things that we’ve done in the first two games or haven’t done well in the first two games, that’s what this game’s about.”
Tech is unbeaten thanks to Saturday’s 35-12 victory over Georgia State, a victory that wasn’t super pretty but was a victory, nonetheless. The Jackets had eight penalties, allowed 5.7 yards per play to the Panthers and turned the ball over once via quarterback Haynes King’s third-quarter interception.
Yet, Tech still prevailed by 23 points and its new-look defense got two fourth-down stops, two red-zone stops and nine third-down stops. And the Tech offense scored at least 30 points for the eighth time in the Key Era.
So there was plenty of good to go with the bad when Key’s team got back to the practice field this week, especially when it comes strengthening the team’s identity, the second-year coach said.
“We’ve been physical at times. We hadn’t been physical at times. There’s a lot of things we have to do better,” Key said. “There’s no ceiling on the toughness and physicality you have as a football team. At least for me there’s not. My vision and standard of what that is is extremely high, and I challenge every single person on this team, coaches, players, staff, myself, to elevate their standard every single day.”
Syracuse (1-0) began its season by defeating Ohio 38-22 at the JMA Wireless Dome on Saturday. The Orange got 354 passing yards and four touchdowns from Kyle McCord, an Ohio State transfer, and 98 yards rushing from LeQuint Allen in the victory, but also allowed 255 yards rushing to the Bobcats and led only 17-16 with less than seven minutes to play in the third quarter.
That win was the first one for coach Fran Brown, formerly the defensive backs coach at Georgia who was part of the Bulldogs’ 2022 national title team and the 2023 squad that went 13-1. Hired by Syracuse in December, Brown was a cornerback at Western Carolina from 2003-06 — Key was on the Catamounts staff in 2004 as a running backs and tight ends coach.
“They got good players. (Brown’s) done a good job of instilling his personality into that team,” Key said of the Orange. “I know the men he’s worked for, I know the program’s he’s been involved with, and they are physical, tough, hard-nosed programs. He’s worked for some good football coaches, and you see that, really, in just one game. You see that in his program from top to bottom.”
Tech and Syracuse met only five times previously, and the Jackets have been to the upstate New York school only once before, losing 37-20 in 2020. Tech won the other four meetings in the series that dates to 2001.
A victory would make Tech 2-0 in ACC play for the first time since 2017.
“We have to understand, this game is about us and what we bring on that plane when we leave Atlanta, Georgia, and head to Syracuse, New York, on Friday afternoon,” Key added. “It’s about the energy we bring, it’s about the physicality that we’re prepared to play with. It’s about the toughness, the mental toughness to able to play on the road in a 12 o’clock game. That’s what’s important.”
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