Georgia Tech coach Geoff Collins’ comments following the Yellow Jackets’ 23-13 loss to N.C. State Saturday in Raleigh, N.C.
On N.C. State:
First and foremost, that’s a good team. I think they’ve ended up with eight wins now. That’s a good team. We went toe to toe with them the entire game.”
On the team’s play:
“Some unforced errors. Some things happen outside of our control. But proud of the way the guys competed. A bunch of young guys had to step up. Really proud of some of those guys that, on short notice, had to jump in and contribute and contribute at a high level.”
On red-zone play:
“And then there were some unforced errors that got us backed out. We were first-and-1 on the 1. Then we got back down, we’re second-and-1 on the 1. And so those are things that cannot happen when you’re in this kind of game against a really good football team.”
More about the red zone:
“I think when we go back and look at the season, and the times that we could have and should have finished in the red zone, that will be a story of a lot of the things that we will continue to work on and improve on throughout the offseason and getting ready for next year too, and the last couple of games of this year. We have to get better.”
On not having several key players in the lineup:
“Here’s the best thing. It wasn’t even a big deal to the guys. We didn’t miss the guys that couldn’t go tonight. Some we found out about today. So those kind of things, the resiliency even before we have to play in the game. It’s just next man up and guys are going to step up, we’re going to support them.”
On play of the defense:
“We got some really good stops. In the second half, in particular, (we) started getting a bead on what they were trying to do. I thought coach (Andrew) Thacker and the guys made some good adjustments. The leadership stepped up.”
On N.C. State wide receiver Emeka Emezie:
“He is a really, really good player. First of all, hats off to him. I mean, some of the catches that he was making – and we knew going into it, I even talked about it on Tuesday, that is one of the better 50/50 ball receiving cores that we’ve seen all year. They’re big in stature, they’re physical, they’ve got tremendous ball skills. We knew it was going to be a challenge, and they made a bunch of really nice plays today, so hats off to them. But what we do around here is we are aggressive. We put corners on islands. And we’re going to continue to do that.”
On Tech wide receiver Adonicas Sanders:
“I just love the way he works, I love the way he comes to the building every single day, his demeanor. He doesn’t say a lot, he just goes out there and competes and works, finds ways to get open. And tonight was a night that Jeff (Sims) was able to find him with some of the things that they were doing. And the cool thing is, whether he had had seven catches for 105 yards or he had had two catches for 20 yards, Adonicas Sanders would have still worked and ran his routes and blocked at a high level, regardless of getting the rock or not. And it was just one of those nights that he got it. And (I) was really proud of the way that he played.”
On playing Pittsburgh on Thursday:
“(After the game), I very rarely talk about the next week’s schedule. But it was a thing tonight after the game, I talked to them and told them things that we had to improve on, work on, that I went ahead and told them what this week was going to look like. Because it’s going to be a unique week, especially coming off the 28-day window that we had. And now we play the cumulative games in a short progression. So we’ll regroup and we’ll figure it out.”
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