Going into its Saturday night game against North Carolina, Georgia Tech remains what it was prior to its loss to Duke. The Yellow Jackets are a team with the potential to win the ACC Coastal Division and enough shortcomings to slide down the standings.
Saturday’s 31-25 loss to Duke, which was the Jackets’ first of the season after a 5-0 start and dropped them out of both top-25 polls into the “also receiving votes” category, served as humbling evidence of the latter. Tech’s game against the Tar Heels brings the opportunity to play more like a contender.
“Every week is a big game,” linebacker and team captain Quayshawn Nealy said. “My role is just going to be to encourage guys to keep their heads up. We’re still great in the standings and in a good position right now.”
With their first loss in ACC play, Tech does now find itself chasing Duke, which is 5-1 overall and 1-1 in the ACC and holds a tiebreaker over the Jackets by virtue of Saturday’s result. Barring a first-place tie in the Coastal Division between Tech, Duke and at least one more team, the Jackets will need Duke to finish with more conference losses than them in order to win the Coastal.
As a result, conference and division games like this Saturday’s take on even greater significance, with the loss to Duke taking away any cushion that Tech might have enjoyed.
An undefeated home record is a team goal that can no longer be realized, but with division and conference titles still in play, “we’ve just got to continue to come out and play and flush that (Duke) game down the toilet and get ready for next week,” A-back Tony Zenon said.
Against North Carolina, Tech will need to avoid penalties better than it has in the past two games. Against Miami, Tech was flagged seven times for 69 yards, although two of the flags were intentional delay-of-game calls. In the Duke game, the total was eight penalties, also for 69 yards. Tech hadn’t had more than 69 penalty yards in an ACC game since 2010 (79 on eight penalties against Wake Forest). In league games, Tech is 11th in the ACC in penalty yardage (66) at 7.7 flags per game. The average last season was 44.3 yards.
Duke’s two first-half touchdown drives were kept alive with an offsides prior to a Blue Devils punt and a pass interference on an incomplete pass on third-and-8.
The status of quarterback Justin Thomas’ ankle will be of particular interest this week. Coach Paul Johnson said that Thomas turned his ankle in the first half against Duke and played through it in the second half before Johnson pulled him when he saw it was bothering him. Thomas averaged nine yards per carry in the first half, but 6.3 in the second half. He completed four of seven passes for 30 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions in the first half and was 2-for-8 in the second half for 31 yards with two interceptions.
Tech will also need to prepare for North Carolina’s up-tempo pace. In their 50-43 loss to No. 6 Notre Dame on Saturday, the Tar Heels ran 84 plays in 14 possessions. Tech ran 72 plays in 10 possessions against Duke.
The Tar Heels have averaged about one play per 19 seconds of time of possession this season. The Jackets’ season average is one play per 29 seconds of possession time.
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