Pressure? No. 13 Georgia Tech has better things to worry about

It may happen eventually. On a coming Saturday, Georgia Tech could well stumble. The Yellow Jackets might even lose Saturday at Duke and tarnish their unblemished record.

But it didn’t happen on this glorious Saturday afternoon, when the Jackets emerged from their open date and knocked around Virginia Tech at Bobby Dodd Stadium in what probably was their best game to date.

Soak it in, Georgia Tech fans. These days do not visit North Avenue often, as you likely know. Your No. 13 team is now 6-0, something that before Saturday had been accomplished once since the gilded coaching era of Bobby Dodd.

“Like I say every week, enjoy the win,” coach Brent Key said. “They’re hard to come by.”

Tech fans know that better than most. But they can take hope for the remainder of the journey from quarterback and campus hero Haynes King, who merely finished Saturday’s 35-20 win with the second-highest completion rate in a game in school history (83.3% on 20-for-24 passing) for a quarterback with at least 20 pass attempts.

To paraphrase, King said that Tech is in the business of chasing, not defending.

It was in response to a question posed to him postgame about a comment that Key made during the week, that he wants his team to be excited but also to understand that it has to “protect what we’ve already done.” It would suggest a recognition that the ranking, the undefeated record and the chance at a most historic season can be lost. As such, he was asked, was there a sense of relief after each win?

No, the young Texan drawled, there was not.

“We don’t necessarily feel relief, because, I feel like, relief, you’re feeling the pressure, you’re feeling the outside noise,” King said. “We’re really not doing that. We’re out there having fun.”

And if that’s how the Jackets truly are experiencing this season, it bodes well. They may well lose, but it won’t be because they dwell more on what can be lost than what can be achieved and tighten up.

Rather than relieved, King described the team as proud, though not satisfied.

“Because satisfied means, you feel like you’ve arrived,” he said. “We haven’t even arrived yet.”

The challenge of keeping that focus will only increase. Tech could move into the top 10 on Sunday. The hubbub around the Jackets will only grow, the target on their backs will enlarge and the reality that there actually is something to protect may become more difficult to ignore.

After the game, Key said he brought up the matter to players Friday. He is smart enough to know that it’s naive to tell them to just ignore the swelling noise.

“They’re going to hear things, but it’s what’s internal that they need to put their full attention to,” Key said.

“I mean, I might have saw it,” King said, to laughs.

A particularly useful point that King tries to hammer home is to play each game without regard for the scoreboard or clock and to think of opponents as nameless and faceless. What matters is simply executing the next play as well as possible.

One way Key tries to reinforce this approach is by inserting “sudden change” periods into practice to prep players for moments in games when there is an unexpected change of possession.

“Which means, you could be stretching on the side,” running back Malachi Hosley said. “We hear the sirens go, ones on ones (offensive and defensive starters practicing against other), we’re going at it.”

It paid off Saturday. The defense had a sudden-change moment in the third quarter, when Aidan Birr’s field-goal try was blocked.

Rather than the break in action that would follow a field goal, the Jackets defense found itself immediately back on the field. With momentum on their side, the Hokies took possession of the ball at their 34-yard line with the chance to cut into a 28-14 deficit.

That’s as far as it got, though.

After a false start, Virginia Tech was stuffed on a run play on first-and-15, held to an 8-yard gain on second-and-15, and then quarterback Kyron Drones threw incomplete from a crowded pocket on third-and-7.

After the Hokies punted, King led an 83-yard touchdown drive (overcoming their own penalty-induced first-and-15 along the way) to extend the lead to 35-14 and put the game out of reach.

“We have way bigger goals (than being 6-0),” defensive end A.J. Hoffler said. “So we’ve got to take care of each game. That’s how it is. So, just doing that and being the mature team that we know we are.”

It doesn’t mean the season is going to get any easier for the Jackets, although the remainder of the ACC schedule is favorable. Part of the reason why the unbeatens are falling all around the Jackets is because of the parity created by the transfer portal and name, image and likeness money.