Georgia Tech nickel back Lawrence Austin was in no mood for praise Wednesday. Asked about his performance against Tennessee – seven tackles, two of which stopped the Volunteers on third-down plays, and a jarring pass breakup – Austin deflected.
“The game wasn’t good enough,” Austin said. “Nobody played good enough to win. So we didn’t get the turnovers on defense. I don’t think anybody was pleased with the performance we had.”
Playing five days after a second-half collapse against Tennessee in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game, the Tech defense wants to set things right against Jacksonville State on Saturday afternoon at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Many of the flaws that have sabotaged Tech in recent years derailed the Yellow Jackets against the Volunteers in the 42-41 double-overtime defeat – ineffective pass rush and blitzes, poor tackling and failure to create turnovers. The Volunteers ran 59 plays and kept the ball on each. Tennessee didn’t fumble.
It was the 15th game in Roof’s tenure (begun in 2013) that Tech could not secure a takeaway, tied with Pittsburgh and Wake Forest for most in the ACC in that stretch, according to sports-reference.com. Not counting Louisville, which joined the ACC in 2014, the other teams have had between seven and 13 takeaway-free games.
Tech’s defensive surge in the final four games of 2016 was aided by an increase in takeaways. The Jackets procured 10 turnovers in those four games after recording nine in the first eight games.
Tech has a tough time winning without its defense (or special teams) stealing possessions. In coach Paul Johnson’s nine-plus seasons, Tech is 7-19 when its opponent doesn’t turn the ball over. By comparison, rival Virginia Tech is 9-9.
Under Johnson, the Jackets are 16-15 with one takeaway, 20-10 with two and 28-5 with three or more.
“We’ve got to get the ball back to the offense,” Austin said, “and that’s one thing we didn’t do on Monday. That’s what we plan to do on Saturday.”
The drop in Tech’s play after halftime against the Volunteers was noticeable. The Jackets gave up an average of 3.3 yards per play through Tennessee’s first possession of the third quarter and 9.5 yards per play for the remainder of the game.
The pass rush diminished during that time. In the first half, pressure from defensive tackle Desmond Branch, defensive end Antonio Simmons and safety A.J. Gray helped force incompletions. In the second half, Tech rarely challenged quarterback Quinten Dormady, often because he threw quick hitters or from a moving pocket.
“Second half, we couldn’t find a way to get off the field when we needed to get off the field or get a turnover,” Austin said.
Linebacker Terrell Lewis cited familiar explanations for Monday’s shortcoming – mental errors, poor eye discipline and technical mistakes in stepping in the wrong direction.
“Eyes and feet kind of go together,” he said. “So if you see something, you move to the right when you should be going to the left. It’s always that missed step that can get a guard or a center up on you that much quicker.”
They are mistakes understandable in a season opener, but perhaps less so for a defense that fielded eight returning starters.
Jacksonville State is not a pushover FCS opponent. Running back Roc Thomas averaged 6.2 yards per carry last season with seven touchdowns. Coming out of high school, he was ranked the No. 4 running back in the country by 247Sports and played two seasons at Auburn before transferring to Jacksonville State. The Gamecocks were No. 7 in FCS in rushing offense last season, at 250.6 yards per game.
Tennessee dinged the Jackets for 6.7 yards per carry, more even than Tech averaged against the Volunteers defense (6.2).
“Roc Thomas is a really good running back – good vision, fast, strong, breaks a lot of tackles,” Lewis said. “So we have to be sound in our front, we have to be sound in our tackling because that was something else that hurt us a lot (against Tennessee).”
A stronger performance by the Tech defense won’t prove everything. But it would be a start.
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