Comments from Georgia Tech coach Geoff Collins after the Yellow Jackets' 16-13 win over Florida State Saturday in Tallahassee, Fla.
On Florida State’s fast start on offense:
“I thought they had a good opening script, right. They were fast, they were tempo and it took us a second to get used to them. We’ve been in a bubble, right? And we’ve had to follow these protocol (that limited up-tempo pace at practice) … And we tried to get tempo and simulate tempo, but it’s hard because it’s the first time that they’ve seen that, that level of tempo in a live situation. And I thought (defensive coordinator) Andrew Thacker and our defensive staff did a great job with adjustments. They got our defensive players on the sideline, talked them through the things that they were seeing.”
On the defense’s rotation:
“I bet when we look at the stats (Sunday), and we look at the number of plays each kid played, I bet there were 27 to 28 defensive players that played significant time. So our (“Above the Line”) philosophy, how polarizing it may have been when we first got here, pays dividends in situations like this. We were rolling guys in, rolling guys out, and we were able to finish strong in the fourth quarter and close the game out.”
On Jeff Sims:
“The best thing about him is on the sideline, he was not fazed. He was not flustered. He stayed poised. He never got too high, he never got too low. Learns from his mistakes. I mean, there’s not many true freshmen quarterbacks that can come in, and whatever his stats are, they’re pretty good.”
On last year’s seniors:
“The only thing I want to say about last year is the experiences that we had last year — the leadership that we had last year — set us up to have this kind of night (Saturday). All the things that (Brentavious Glanton) did, all of those guys, Omahri Jarrett — he texted me this morning — Tyler Cooksey, Tyler Davis. I don’t want to leave anybody out. Nate Cottrell, Christian Campbell, the things that they did last year — Jared Southers, Brad and Scott Morgan — to lay this foundation is why tonight happened. Because of their efforts and what they did.”
On the final defensive play of the game:
“That last stop, the last (defensive) play of the game, the last defense that Andrew Thacker called, we have yet to call in a game in two years. We’ve installed it, we’ve practiced the heck out of it. But just all of these things that we’ve done over the OTA’s, and the walkthroughs, and the practices and just repping it over and over and over, game on the line, Andrew Thacker is able to call that defense that we have not called in two years and execute it and we win the game. And that speaks volumes to the experience, how we apply our culture, how we apply our process, to get them to this point, and just hats off to those guys.”
On blocked kicks:
“I wish I could go back to our (point-after try)/field-goal periods. In the past, before a global pandemic – you guys have been out there (at practice) – we would do eight reps live twice a week. Well, that’s one of the periods that we saw, as we did our self-scout of our protocols, that was the period that we had 11 guys within six feet of each other for too long. So we decided during a global pandemic, not to do that period in any elongated times like we have always done. And that’s on me, that’s a coaching error. We will get that fixed. But a lot of that was on A) a really good defensive line; B) my fault in being uber-sensitive to the protocols and things during that period. And then I think maybe one or two, it was a low kick.”
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