Like a broken record, Georgia Tech has begun another week looking to avoid a losing streak.
Coach Brent Key’s team suffered its fourth setback of the season Saturday in a 38-23 defeat to Boston College at Bobby Dodd Stadium. It was a frustrating result for the Yellow Jackets in more ways than one as they gave up a fourth-quarter lead, dropped a fourth consecutive ACC home game and failed to capitalize on what could have been a season-defining victory at Miami on Oct. 7.
Instead, Tech (3-4, 2-2 ACC) will spend another week of practice soured by the taste of loss.
“Come in (Sunday), address the problems, address the issues, correct those things,” Key said Saturday on how he will ask his team to bounce back yet again. “Stay true to what we’re doing, the process of what we’re doing, make adjustments where needed, find answers to things that needed answered, come in and put the work in.”
Tech had a golden opportunity to put itself in position to make some noise in the ACC standings had it handled Boston College. A win would have put the Jackets in a tie for second place ahead of Saturday’s showdown with No. 17 North Carolina at 8 p.m. at Boddy Dodd Stadium (ACC Network) and inched them closer to being eligible for a bowl game.
Now, after giving up 21 points in the final quarter and allowing the Eagles to rush for more than 300 yards, Key’s team has to win at least three of their final five games to reach the postseason, a tall task given that stretch starts with the Tar Heels (6-1, 3-1 ACC) on Saturday and finishes with No. 1 Georgia at the end of November.
“Honestly, we can’t be pointing fingers at each other,” Tech running back Jamal Haynes said about how the Jackets respond. “That would be very detrimental to our team. We got to come in (Sunday), reset, focus, just go get back to work, hit the drawing boards.”
North Carolina will be coming to Atlanta in a bit of a sour mood as well. Ranked No. 10 in the nation last week, the Heels laid an egg at Virginia – a team that had started the year 0-5 before beating William and Mary on Oct. 7.
Coach Mack Brown’s squad was starting to make a case for itself as a shoo-in to make the ACC championship game or even to be considered as a College Football Playoff participant. And while both those goals remain possible for the Heels, their respective odds took a major blow with the loss at Virginia.
Carolina will likely also be reminded ad nauseum this week about its loss to Tech on Nov. 20. It was on a six-game winning streak and ranked 13th then before the Jackets pitched a second half shutout in a 21-17, comeback win in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Key will be searching this week for the same sort of magic that helped lead to that result while staying steadfast to his principle that no one game is bigger than the other.
“They’re looking at what I say, how I react, how I do. That’s the job of the head football coach, that’s the job to lead others and we got to find the guys that want to lead along with it,” he said. “We’ve got a few of those guys, but a team can be eroded very quickly from a few as opposed to a lot.
“That’s the thing we got to look into and make sure we got a consistent group of guys that are coming to work and all-in for the right reasons and that’s no different than how we go every single week.”
NOTES
- Tech opened as an 11-1/2-point underdog to No. 17 North Carolina.
- Wide receiver Avery Boyd was Tech’s highest graded player on offense, according to Pro Football Focus, in the loss to Boston College while defensive back Ahmari Harvey was the team’s highest graded defensive player.
- The Jackets now rank 95th nationally in red zone offense (78.6%), 102nd in scoring defense (30.3 ppg), 105th in sacks (1.7 per game), 109th in third down defense (44.8%), 111th in tackles for loss (4.6 per game), 114th in time of possession (27:42), 117th with 10 interceptions thrown, 119th in red zone defense (92.9%), 122nd in total defense (452.7 yards per game) and 129th in rushing defense (227.7 yards per game).
- Tech is now 12th nationally in sacks allowed (one per game), 13th in takeaways (14), 24th in passing yards per completion (13.6), 28th with eight interceptions and 37th in total offense (434.1 yards per game).
- Tech quarterback Haynes King is now seventh nationally with 315.3 yards of offense per game, 10th with 17 passing touchdowns and 14th with 120 points responsible for.
- King’s 1,835 passing yards is the 19th-most in a single Tech season. Jim Bob Taylor is 18th with 1,839 in 1982.
- King is tied with Joe Hamilton for the fifth-most passing touchdowns (17) in a single Tech season. George Godsey and Justin Thomas are tied for fourth with 18.
- Tech leads the series with North Carolina 32-22-3 and is 20-9 at home against the Tar Heels. The Jackets have won two straight and four of the last five in a rivalry that dates to 1915.
- The loss to Boston College was Tech’s fourth straight loss at home to an ACC opponent. The Jackets are now 5-12 in their last 17 ACC home games and 9-20 at Bobby Dodd Stadium since the start of the 2019 season.
About the Author
