Questionable doesn’t quite do justice to describe the injury status for Georgia Tech offensive tackle Ray Beno and his foot.
On his radio show Monday evening, coach Paul Johnson said that Beno is a week-to-week case “until we know for sure. He could play this week, he could not play again. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
A season-ending injury would be a big loss for the Yellow Jackets, as Beno is in his third season as a starter and has been a dependable cog in the line. He injured his foot in practice leading up to the Miami game. He tried to play against the Hurricanes but came out of the game and did not make the trip for the BYU game. It was the first game he had missed since his freshman season and broke a 22-game start streak.
Offensive tackle Morgan Bailey, who was a projected starter but missed preseason practice recovering from sports hernia surgery, is also injured again and missed the BYU game. Johnson did not know when he might be able to return. Center Jay Finch and right guard Shaquille Mason are also fighting through nicks.
“We’ve got a lot of injuries, but we’ll piece together a group to play,” Johnson said.
The possibility of removing the redshirt from freshman Shamire Devine continues to be a possibility, though offensive line coach Mike Sewak said that his improvement will dictate that decision more than injuries.
B-back report: B-back David Sims will try to rally from one of his poorest games in his career. He ran six times for 28 yards but dropped two catchable passes, had trouble in pass blocking and lost the ball on a fumble.
“He’s very disturbed by how he played and he’s going to work his tail off to get better,” quarterbacks and B-backs coach Bryan Cook said.
Backup B-back Matt Connors, a former walk-on who was put on scholarship before the season, may have earned more playing time with a strong performance that included a 55-yard run, the team’s longest run of the season.
“He’s doing some things that force you to notice,” Cook said. “He’s definitely a reliable guy.”
Standout: A-back Robert Godhigh earned praise from Johnson for his play against BYU. Godhigh had four rushes for 37 yards, three receptions for 52 yards and, as is normally the case, had a number of cut blocks.
“Robbie’s probably played as consistent as anybody on offense,” Johnson said. “He’s done a good job for the most part.”
Johnson said he could get Godhigh the ball more frequently, “but it’s not so much about getting him the ball. It’s just doing his thing. Robbie’s a good blocker, too.”
Sort of guilty: Offensive lineman Will Jackson, who started at left tackle in Beno's place, took slight exception to the false-start penalty that he was assessed in the BYU game. Tech was called for five false starts.
“You’ve got to freeze it down and go millisecond by millisecond to see it, but it’s still a false start,” he said. “But it’s one of those things where I’ve probably done that 50 times in my career and never gotten called, and the same thing for (Mason). I think it was kind of accentuated this game, whether they were looking for it, whether they were being more sensitive to it, but for whatever reason, I think a few of those got called out.”
On TV: The kickoff time for Tech's Oct. 26 game at Virginia will be 12:30 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the ACC Network. The network is carried in the Atlanta market on WUPA (CW 69). Saturday's game vs. Syracuse will have the same time and network.
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