Ball security the focus for Georgia Tech after three turnovers vs. Colorado
It’s difficult to win a football game when a team commits three turnovers. Harder still when a team has a minus-3 turnover margin. Even harder when those things happen on the road.
“Look, I’m happy we won the football game, but you’re looking at something that’s a 2-3% chance of happening when you have that string of events. That was not a good start by any means to us,” Georgia Tech coach Brent Key said Tuesday. “You’re happy they overcame the adversity in the game on the road. Shows character of a football team. That shows you have a good team. If you wanna have any opportunity or chance of having a great team, you cannot do those things. So we got a lot of work to do.”
Tech is 1-0 after a 27-20 win at Colorado on Friday, but the underbelly of the positive vibes from that victory was the offense’s start to the season, a start that couldn’t have gone much worse.
Quarterback Haynes King, on Tech’s second offensive play from scrimmage, dropped a handoff exchange with running back Jamal Haynes. On Tech’s sixth play of the night, center Harrison Moore’s errant snap ricocheted back toward the line of scrimmage and was recovered by the Buffaloes.
On the team’s 12th offensive snap, King’s pass down the field, intended for Bailey Stockton (who may have been held a bit over the course of his route), went into the arms of Colorado’s DJ McKinney.
Three possessions, three turnovers nearly spelled disaster for Key’s team.
“It doesn’t matter what week it is, what practice it is. We practice ball security every single play of every day. I don’t know if you can work more of it than we do,” Key said. “If you look at (King) and (Haynes), how many times have they done that (completed a handoff) over the course of the last three seasons? Thousands and thousands and thousands of times. And even watching the film and talking to those guys, it’s one of those things; it was a little bit of an angle here, a little bit there. You get into a first game, things are obviously sped up a little bit.
“If you’d ask me to write down 100 things that I thought of issues that can happen and you’re trying to think before a first game that could come up, that wouldn’t have been in my top 500. It really wouldn’t.”
Tech had not won a game in which it turned the ball over three times since Nov. 28, 2020, when it had five giveaways in a 56-33 win over Duke. The last time it won with a turnover margin of minus-3 was Sept. 23, 2017, against Pittsburgh.
The Yellow Jackets had lost their past six games in which they finished with a turnover margin of minus-3 or worse. Tech’s defense forcing two three-and-outs after the offense’s second and third turnovers played a big part in breaking that streak.
“It’s something you’re not gonna wanna make a habit of by any means,” Key said. “The percentages of winning are as low as they possibly go when that takes place. We were very fortunate that our team kept the right frame of mind.”
In 2024, Tech turned the ball over only 10 times in 13 games (only 10 teams had fewer) and didn’t commit its third turnover of the season until Game 8 on Oct. 19.
About the Author
