If ever there was a date for a week off, this is it.
Georgia Tech will finally have some down time as it looks to reset its season before it enters the next harrowing stretch of games in October. A season that started with such great promise has turned iffy after back-to-back ACC losses has the Yellow Jackets at 3-2 overall and 1-2 in league play.
Thus, taking some extra time to reassess what has gone wrong through five games and what the Jackets can do to build on what has gone right is more than necessary.
“Oh yeah, really good,” Tech quarterback Haynes King said of the timing of the bye week. “With what we’ve been through, that little gauntlet from the beginning — get some people back healthy, feeling right, bodies resting up, that’s gonna be a big win. With all the details that we’ve been going through as well, it’s gonna be big this week.”
Tech, arguably, is a few plays away from being undefeated through five games. It’s also a few plays away from being 2-3. The Jackets’ inability to be consistent from game to game continues to be a struggle. Their inconsistency from series to series and play to play cost them Saturday in a 31-19 loss at Louisville.
Offensively in that game the Jackets looked good at times, piling up 410 yards and putting together two touchdown drives, one of which covered 75 yards in just 1:52. At other times, Tech didn’t look so sharp, going 4 of 15 on third down, missing two fourth down tries and losing a fumble that resulted in a Cardinals’ touchdown.
Tech’s defense held Louisville to 17 points, but gave up 269 yards through the air, allowed a 57-yard touchdown pass and let the Cardinals gain 7.1 yards per play.
Even special teams weren’t immune. Tech blocked a field goal in the first quarter, but kicker Aida Birr missed a 46-yard field goal in the second quarter and had another blocked and returned for a touchdown in the fourth quarter — the game’s defining play.
“It was a huge play for us,” Louisville coach Jeff Brohm said. “Georgia Tech had the momentum at that point, and that play put a dagger in the momentum they had.”
Now 14-12 and 10-8 in ACC games under coach Brent Key, Tech’s next stretch of games is shorter, but no less easy.
The Jackets return to Bobby Dodd Stadium on Oct. 5 to face Duke, a team off to a 4-0 start under first-year coach Manny Diaz. After that a trip to North Carolina (3-1) awaits. Tech ends the month by facing No. 16 Notre Dame (3-1) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Oct. 19 and then traveling to Blacksburg, Virginia, to go up against Virginia Tech (2-2).
That quartet of games precedes Tech’s second bye week the first weekend of November. Tech can ill afford to lose any of the three ACC matchups within that stretch if it wants to play for a league title in December.
“We just gotta go out and win,” Tech wide receiver Malik Rutherford said. “We gotta go on to the ACC championship so we just gotta win out every ACC game. We know it’s gonna be hard, but we train hard.”
With just seven games remaining, and still three wins away from making a bowl game for the second straight season (something Tech hasn’t done since the 2013-14 seasons), the Jackets have to figure out a way to fix its pass efficiency defense (ranked 115th nationally), record more sacks (the Jackets have just five so far), force more takeaways (Tech’s defense has just two) and reshape its ground game (the team’s 169 rushing yards per game ranks 69th nationally and 10th in the ACC).
A lot to ask, but questions that need definite answers if Tech is to conquer the next month of ball.
“At the end of the day it’s a game of inches,” King said. “Winning those inches, finding those inches in the game and that’s what we’re gonna do this week. We’re gonna hone in on details finding those inches, whatever it is, we’re gonna find a way. I can assure you that. Coach Key’s gonna do a really good job with preaching that from the top down, preaching it to the coaches and coaches preaching it to us. We just got to, at the end of the day, find a way.”
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