Invariably insightful, Georgia Tech guard Will Jackson answered a few questions after Sunday night's practice as the Yellow Jackets cleaned up mistakes from the North Carolina game and began preparations for Virginia Tech. The best run blocker in last summer's SunTrust Robinson Humphrey internship class gave his take on Virginia Tech, the difference between the rivalries with Virginia Tech and Georgia and his thoughts on the throwback uniforms.

Q: How different is it from a physical standpoint to have the first practice of the week on Sunday as opposed to Monday?

A: You might get a little more recovery just having Sunday to lay around but honesty once you get up and get moving, you feel fine. We ran a little bit and stretched out, so it really wasn’t that big of a difference.

Q: What were your thoughts about how the line played against North Carolina?

A: I thought we obviously had some success, especially later in the game, especially because I think we held the ball for 20 minutes or something in the second half. And so any time you do that, that’s pretty solid up front. Anytime you’re able to grind out the clock at the end of the game and win it, you’ve got to feel good about that. But there was a lot of, not missed assignments, but some things we need to clean up schematically, fundamentally.

Q: What sorts of things?

A: Just basic execution. There were some, not glaring mistakes, just kind of higher-level stuff. It’s obviously mistakes that, two years ago, these were mistakes that are worth complaining about. Now a lot of guys (on the line) have played a lot of football, it’s not pretty basic, mundane stuff. It’s higher level, more sophisticated mistakes.

Q: Graduate level?

A: These are graduate-level mistakes that we’re making. But it’s never good when you’re making mistakes, but it’s good that we’re identifying them. Guys are getting out there. If we make a mistake, we’ve got a good reason for why we made it. It’s just we thought something would happen (and it didn’t) and then we’re able to get them corrected, which is the most important thing.

Q: Why has Virginia Tech had success keeping you from playing the way you'd want?

A: I think the way they play the option, I think they’ve got a pretty good plan for it. Granted, it shouldn’t stop us from executing, but I think the way that they’re able to kind of influence our tackles and try to prevent people from getting to the linebackers, they’ve got a pretty good plan for defending us, so it causes us to make adjustments and wrinkles in our game plan. So it’s a good challenge, though.

Q: Do they stay pretty much the same year to year?

A: They’ve changed it up pretty steadily, but I think for the most part it’s still the same basic plan the way they’re playing it, because they’ve had some success at least slowing us down, so they haven’t really deviated from that a whole lot. But, like I said, it’s a good challenge to go in and make some wrinkles to the game plan and the way we block things.

Q: How would you describe the rivalry with Virginia Tech?

A: Well, we haven’t beaten them since 2009. I know that every year we’ve had the (ACC) championship game, it’s either been us or them going to the championship (from the Coastal Division). There’s always a lot of implications and I think that I know for me personally, we haven’t beaten them since I was redshirting in 2009 when they were the No. 4 or 5 team coming in here, so I guess if you look at it like that, it’s really not much of a rivalry because we haven’t beaten them recently, but definitely since I haven’t beaten them, it provides a good spark for me and the other seniors.

Q: Does it feel different than the Georgia rivalry?

A: Georgia’s just pure hate. I’m driving and I hate seeing a red car. That’s just hate. It’s just bragging rights. Virginia Tech, it makes more sense for that to be a rivalry because there’s division implications and conference implications, so that’s more the reason for the rivalry there as opposed to Georgia, just hating them.

Q: What do you think of the throwback uniforms?

A: Awesome. I’m keeping mine. I’m not turning that one back in. I’m simple. I love our home jersey this year, but I definiltey like the factthat it’s just clean and very simple.

Busy day ahead, but I plan to have something up around lunchtime.