I’m not sure what to think right now. I cannot think of a more snakebit team since I’ve covered Georgia Tech other than the 2015 squad that was coming off one of the greatest seasons in Yellow Jacket history and had major injuries that year. This team just can’t put it together. If Adonicas Sanders catch at the end of the game is not reversed because Sims had his knee down, I actually think GT wins the game. It was the right call clearly, but that is how narrow the margin is right now for them between a win and loss.
I have zero interest in ever hearing again about Geoff Collins did a Temple or him using that as if he was even the AAC coach of the year or something there as a prop. Win and improve the team, I don’t need to hear and neither do GT fans and that is enraging people and having the opposite effect of what he is hoping it does. I sure as hell hope he has confidence in himself, if he doesn’t, he needs to resign and walk away. That is the bare minimum of being a coach on this level. Don’t tell me how great you are going to be, it is year three, show progress. Neither Ken or myself or anyone else is the boogeyman trying to get Collins and we keep trying to tee him up in some ways and he just fouls off the BP fastballs and then hits an infield popup. The sales phase is over, I get he thinks he is selling to recruits in the presser, but they don’t watch them nor do they care about that.
The sad part is I think they are making progress, but not explaining their issues is making it worse for Collins with the fanbase and those people ultimately will be the great referendum on him. Chan Gailey got fired for apathy in the fan base despite being a winning coach. Many were tired of Paul Johnson despite him being a winning coach and I even remember Tech fans growing tired of O’Leary. Progress can be measured in many ways, Collins needs to explain that better instead of asking us why we didn’t talk about the two 4th down stops as if he deserves a cookie for that. This is big-time college football, not the trophy society.
Unless something dramatic changes I think tweaking the staff is a likely outcome in the offseason as this version is under-producing with multiple clunkers against the Citadel, NIU, Syracuse and not enough UNC-type games. If he sticks with the status quo they expectations will be very large for next year with the people that matter.
The margin is getting better, they’ve had just one blowout loss to a pretty feisty Pitt team, but the wins aren’t there yet and that is troubling especially when your team motto was WIN21. Collins has pivoted to What’s Next now instead of the WIN21 I guess saying everything that needs to be said on that front.
Looking back at Saturday’s game in the Hard Rock/LandShark/YouNameIt Stadium, it was just a failure to make plays in key situations in the second half that did the Jackets in.
The offense has provided just 17 and 21 points of offense the last two weeks. That is not enough. Offensive line injuries are an issue, but you have a Calvin Johnson-level talent having touchdowns called back week after week and he is not even getting the touches he probably needs. In the age of the Transfer Portal, everyone will be trying to shake Jahmyr Gibbs loose for themselves and that is why Collins needed the offense to be better than it has been. The truth is starting with the UNC game Tech played the worst defenses in the league other than Wake Forest every week until the VT game, now the offense is back to reality and struggling to sustain drives. They had six three and outs on Saturday. Most of them in the second half after the touchdown on Tech’s first drive of the second half. That is not good enough. The offense was flat-out, not good, they had three big plays and that was about it. Another couple of good plays were wiped out by penalties and then Sims really struggled to get the ball out and on target. His passes were very low much of the game not giving his receivers much of a chance. He was running for his life at times as well. Poor Weston Franklin, he got abused in his first real action, if they had Nick Pendley I think Key would’ve moved Lay to center and they’d had more of a chance. Mikey Minihan’s injury also coincided with the offense tanking out too.
Kicking is solid from 40 in, but Cimaglia and the one Gavin Stewart kick has the Jackets 0-4 from 40+ (0-2 40-49 and 0-2 50+). That isn’t good enough. Props to David Shanahan who made a great play on a bad snap by the backup snapper in the game with Cade Long out this week. Bruce Jordan-Swilling had another crushing penalty in a key moment in the game as well on kick returns. Gibbs has probably had 200 yards of kick returns wiped out this season by dumb penalties on kickoff.
Defensively it was a little bit better, yes they had issues with Charleston Rambo and that goes back to coaching and player development IMO because guys are still biting on the wrong things and have their eyes in the wrong place. One of the biggest passes to Rambo should’ve been a pick by the safety #1 had he not bit on a fake and got too shallow on the ball. #3 actually turned around to try to make a play on a ball so that is better.
Credit where credit is due Tariq Carpenter probably had his best game this season, he looked a lot more like that guy I expect him to be. Juanyeh had a decent game other than that one error on the deep ball and obviously had a huge play on the pick-2 and Wesley Walker played well. Tre Swilling played one of his better games in recent memory as well, the LBs and the other corners had a ROUGH day. I felt bad for Keion White as you could see the lack of explosiveness being back in his legs right now as well, but he did a few nice things in his limited work.
Let’s see what they do at BC, support the kids, support the program but it is okay to be upset and underwhelmed.
