Members of the Georgia Tech defense cited a lack of focus as the reason for their subpar play in Saturday’s 43-20 loss to Duke. The Yellow Jackets were scored on seven consecutive drives to open the game against a team that had lost six consecutive games and averaged 12.2 points per game.
“We just didn’t show up the best we could,” linebacker Brant Mitchell said. “I think as a whole, we weren’t as focused as we should have been.”
Mitchell said that players were trying to do too much, played outside of the framework of the defense and were not in the gaps they were supposed to be in. It was not the ideal game to play before facing Georgia on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium. The Bulldogs are ranked 10th nationally in rushing yards per game (267.4 yards per game) and ninth in yards per carry (5.8 yards per attempt).
“As a whole, we’ve got to get better and we’ve got to get ready to play our best game Saturday,” Michell said.
Linebacker Victor Alexander said that defensive coordinator Ted Roof told the defense that the week of practice leading up to the Duke game was the best of the year.
“We got out there, things didn’t always go our way,” Alexander said. “We had roller-coaster adventures out there. We went up, we went down. We just had a rough fight.”
Defensive end KeShun Freeman cited a shortage of discpline, saying “Everyone shoud have fit in the right places at the right time.” Missed tackles were rampant, as well. He called Georgia a “discipline game,” meaning that the Jackets will have to exercise it to compete.
“Duke game, we didn’t do that well,” Freeman said. “We know that. We watched the film, cleared it out, moving forward to the Georgia game with so much intensity and so much focus. We know what we want to do as a team.”
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