Tech hopes to eliminate early errors

By Doug Roberson

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia Tech got off to strong starts in its first six games, outscoring opponents 124-83 in the first half.

But the No. 11 Yellow Jackets (7-1) have been their own worst enemy recently. While they averaged 20.7 points in the first half of their first six games, they have averaged only 10 in the first half of their past two.

"In the last two games, we've hurt ourselves early on with penalties," Johnson said. "We've kind of inflicted that on ourselves, which is tough to overcome."

Indeed, Tech had three penalties (two false starts and one chop block) in its first two drives of Saturday's win against Virginia, which limited the Jackets to three points. On the third drive they were stopped when Anthony Barnes fumbled the snap on a fake punt and didn't get the first down, and the fourth drive ended with a fumble. Tech eliminated the errors on the next drive and scored a touchdown to take 10-6 lead.

In the win against Virginia Tech the previous Saturday, five penalties (two holding, two false starts, one delay of game) and a sack on the first four drives helped the Hokies shut out the Yellow Jackets for most of the first half. Once Georgia Tech eliminated the errors, it scored a touchdown to take a 7-3 lead at halftime.

Johnson said they have worked on different snap counts this week at practice to try to eliminate the mental mistakes, such as false starts.

"We were really hyped up at the beginning of the game and ready to smash people in the mouth," tackle Austin Barrick said of the games against the Hokies and Cavaliers. "When you have all those nerves, sometimes mistakes happen. In the second half, we come out, we already know what they're doing, we've make our adjustments, and I just think we're more in synch and play a little more calmly."

As a caller to Johnson's call-in show on Wednesday noted, the only game in which Georgia Tech didn't punt is also the only game in which it didn't get called for a penalty on offense.

Now, the Jackets just have to figure out how to put the first half from the first six games together with the second half of the past two, in which it has outscored opponents 42-23 and committed just only penalties on offense.

"You always have to be mentally prepared and focused on the game," Barrick said. "Just focus on our assignments and do we what we know we can. You can't think about making a penalty or else it will definitely happen. Just go and play ball and let everything take care of itself."