Georgia Tech starts its bye week with a mixture of optimism and concern.
The good feeling is the product of Saturday’s 35-24 win over Georgia Southern, which broke a three-game losing streak and sent the Yellow Jackets into their open date at 4-3. Tech’s offense has shown life in recent weeks and Saturday dropped four plays of 40 yards or more on the Eagles.
The defense held Georgia Southern to 4.0 yards per play – a season low for the Eagles – and helped secure the game with nine tackles for loss. That was the highest single-game total for Tech since 2013, defensive coordinator Ted Roof’s first season.
“This is just a huge team win for us moving forward,” wide receiver Brad Stewart said.
On the other hand, the defensive play gave coach Paul Johnson pause. The Jackets allowed Georgia Southern, which had been scoring 2.1 points per possession, to click at a highly efficient 3.0 points per drive (not counting its two-play series to end the first half). The Eagles were 13-for-20 on third down, the third highest single-game rate (65 percent) in Roof’s tenure. Tech is now 125th out of 128 FBS teams in defensive third-down conversion rate (49.5 percent).
“We’ve got to play better than that defensively in our league or we’ll get killed,” Johnson said.
After seven games, the Tech offense appears like it is getting in gear. The Jackets averaged 6.8 yards per play against Pitt and 8.0 against Georgia Southern and has not turned the ball over since the end of the Miami game. Tech had not had back-to-back games without turnovers since the 2009 season.
Also going back to the fourth quarter of the Miami game, the Jackets have fumbled once in the past 126 offensive snaps, an almost mind-bending number for a team that averaged one fumble per 22 snaps in 2015 and averaged more than two fumbles per game in seven of Johnson’s first eight seasons.
Tech’s offense isn’t flawless, but can hit big plays and has an experienced and capable pilot in quarterback Justin Thomas. If it can keep from beating itself, too, perhaps Johnson’s assessment that the offense can match the play of the record-breaking 2014 unit isn’t far-fetched.
Defensively, perhaps the one thing that the Jackets defense has done consistently well is avoid big plays. Tech is tied for first nationally having allowed only six plays of 30 yards or more.
The resistance to big plays was enough to help beat Georgia Southern. With no short fields – every possession started at the Eagles 25-yard line or behind it – Georgia Southern wasn’t efficient enough to get into the end zone more than three times. As Johnson noted, that likely won’t be the case against the remaining ACC schedule.
Tech was successful by involving safeties A.J. Gray and Corey Griffin more into its blitz package; the two combined for 17 tackles and six tackles for loss. It remains to be seen if involving the safeties in that way can continue to work. Regardless, similar to how the 2014 defense went on a takeaway binge, the Jackets need to find a way to create more disruption, whether it’s tackles for loss or turnovers. Tech has not forced a fumble on defense since the season opener against Boston College.
Tech’s open date comes at an opportune time. Injuries to offensive linemen Trey Klock and Andrew Marshall, linebacker P.J. Davis and cornerback Step Durham have additional time to heal, and coaches have a week to re-tool for the final five games of the regular season.
“I think our record doesn’t show how good we are, to be honest with you,” Thomas said. “I think we’re a lot better than what we’re showing record-wise. But I think as long as we keep playing, stay close together, then it should all work itself out in the second half of the season.”
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