Thanks to our new sponsor Inteleca for helping bring back Q's Take my weekly look at things around GT and college sports from my vantage.
Are the Jackets back? No. Not yet anyway, but the win at Wake Forest once again showed that Georgia Tech under Brent Key will be a tough team to play for four quarters, whether they are having a good day (Wake) or a bad one (Ole Miss). The offense other than a third-quarter swoon moved the ball well in damp conditions and Haynes King continues to play very solid football and really some of the best passing quarterback play since George Godsey played over twenty years ago.
Defensively, they got after Wake and the defensive line squeezed that slow mesh and got in the face of Mitch Griffis all day leading to a bunch of miscues and some great opportunities for the Jackets. The secondary played better and made plays late to put the game away. It does look like they are starting to figure out the linebacker rotation a little bit though Tren Tatum still is struggling and they need him to be more productive overall. I thought moving Makius Scott out to play some end was a smart decision as they used his size and playing with three bigger defensive linemen to squeeze Wake's pocket and tighten the run lanes. The Deacs have three talented receivers and that showed, but Tech's defense between sacks, pressures and getting hands-on balls to bat or deflect them worked extremely well.
On the special teams side, David Shanahan punted well coming off his injury at Ole Miss and kicker Aidan Birr looked very comfortable in less-than-ideal situations kicking including hitting the longest field goal in five years from 48 yards out. Christian Leary still makes some questionable decisions on the kickoffs but they can still work on that IMO.
Overall I thought GT was the more talented team and the better team and they won the game and it should've been 38-16 instead of 30-16 had they punched in touchdowns instead of a pair of field goals.
Things shift this week as they play the final buy game on the schedule against Bowling Green who has been held in check the last two weeks to just 13 points total against Michigan and Ohio. Both of those teams are probably favored to win their conferences but this should be the type of game that GT wins comfortably and not a repeat of some of the disasters under GC3 against non-P5 teams.
That would put Tech at 3-2 on the year and primed for a bowl game with some solid play in the final 7 regular season games beginning with the trip to face a ranked Miami team that is off this week.
One unique thing about this run of games is Tech has played in four different venues in the first four games for the first time since 1997.
GT opened at the Benz
Home for SC State
At Ole Miss
At Wake Forest
In 1997, GT opened with this slate
At #11 Notre Dame (lost)
At Wake Forest (won)
Beat #17 Clemson at home
At Boston College (won)
That team went 7-5 and that would be probably my best-case scenario for the Jackets right now as well and would be a great season in year one of the rebuild under Brent Key.
The other thing that stands out to me is Tech made enough mistakes in the Wake Forest game that no one on the team will be able to crow or act like big shots going into the Bowling Green game. They left some major plays on the field on Saturday and the penalties were killers even if some were iffy 50/50 calls or in one or two cases just bad calls.
GT is right where I expected them to be coming out of the first four games of the season and that Wake Forest team while not the one from the last few years, is probably a bowl team and that is a good win for the Jackets on the road.
Hopefully Key and his staff and players can keep the pedal down this week before heading into the full heart of ACC play.
Are the Jackets back? No. Not yet anyway, but the win at Wake Forest once again showed that Georgia Tech under Brent Key will be a tough team to play for four quarters, whether they are having a good day (Wake) or a bad one (Ole Miss). The offense other than a third-quarter swoon moved the ball well in damp conditions and Haynes King continues to play very solid football and really some of the best passing quarterback play since George Godsey played over twenty years ago.
Defensively, they got after Wake and the defensive line squeezed that slow mesh and got in the face of Mitch Griffis all day leading to a bunch of miscues and some great opportunities for the Jackets. The secondary played better and made plays late to put the game away. It does look like they are starting to figure out the linebacker rotation a little bit though Tren Tatum still is struggling and they need him to be more productive overall. I thought moving Makius Scott out to play some end was a smart decision as they used his size and playing with three bigger defensive linemen to squeeze Wake's pocket and tighten the run lanes. The Deacs have three talented receivers and that showed, but Tech's defense between sacks, pressures and getting hands-on balls to bat or deflect them worked extremely well.
On the special teams side, David Shanahan punted well coming off his injury at Ole Miss and kicker Aidan Birr looked very comfortable in less-than-ideal situations kicking including hitting the longest field goal in five years from 48 yards out. Christian Leary still makes some questionable decisions on the kickoffs but they can still work on that IMO.
Overall I thought GT was the more talented team and the better team and they won the game and it should've been 38-16 instead of 30-16 had they punched in touchdowns instead of a pair of field goals.
Things shift this week as they play the final buy game on the schedule against Bowling Green who has been held in check the last two weeks to just 13 points total against Michigan and Ohio. Both of those teams are probably favored to win their conferences but this should be the type of game that GT wins comfortably and not a repeat of some of the disasters under GC3 against non-P5 teams.
That would put Tech at 3-2 on the year and primed for a bowl game with some solid play in the final 7 regular season games beginning with the trip to face a ranked Miami team that is off this week.
One unique thing about this run of games is Tech has played in four different venues in the first four games for the first time since 1997.
GT opened at the Benz
Home for SC State
At Ole Miss
At Wake Forest
In 1997, GT opened with this slate
At #11 Notre Dame (lost)
At Wake Forest (won)
Beat #17 Clemson at home
At Boston College (won)
That team went 7-5 and that would be probably my best-case scenario for the Jackets right now as well and would be a great season in year one of the rebuild under Brent Key.
The other thing that stands out to me is Tech made enough mistakes in the Wake Forest game that no one on the team will be able to crow or act like big shots going into the Bowling Green game. They left some major plays on the field on Saturday and the penalties were killers even if some were iffy 50/50 calls or in one or two cases just bad calls.
GT is right where I expected them to be coming out of the first four games of the season and that Wake Forest team while not the one from the last few years, is probably a bowl team and that is a good win for the Jackets on the road.
Hopefully Key and his staff and players can keep the pedal down this week before heading into the full heart of ACC play.
