Kicked in the gut three consecutive weeks, Georgia Tech has stumbled to .500 from its 3-0 start and had to relinquish its hopes for a dream season. A Yellow Jackets team that aspired for an ACC title now has to pull itself out of its spiral, lest more goals get tossed out the window.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that we don’t go out this way,” offensive lineman Will Jackson said.
Syracuse stands in Tech’s way Saturday afternoon at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Unbridled optimism has been replaced by determination to put an end to self-inflicted wounds and inconsistent play. Giving four quarters of effort, avoiding penalties and executing assignments are high on the Jackets’ priority list against the Orange.
It would seem Tech’s losses to Virginia Tech, Miami and BYU would have put coach Paul Johnson in a snarly mood. Rather, when he held his weekly news conference Tuesday, Johnson struck an optimistic tone. A sampling:
“The positive thing is we’ve been in all three games. We’ve had a chance to win ’em all without playing our best game.”
“The season isn’t over. We could get on a run and win the next six games.”
“I think what happens in today’s world, you’re 3-3 and the sky’s falling. Well, you’re halfway through the season. There’s a lot of teams that are 3-3.”
Saturday’s game offers the Jackets a chance to further define their season. Are they a team that is unable to meet the moment, torching its own opportunities with inexplicable false starts, turnovers and mental errors? Or have the 2013 Jackets simply had the misfortune of playing three of their toughest games in consecutive weeks and compounded it by not playing their best in those games, but in the process prepared themselves for a breathtaking run through the second half of the schedule?
“In your world, everything’s either you win or you lose, and if you lose, nothing’s improved,” Johnson said, referring to the perspective of media. “In our world, when you look at it, there’s things that improve sometimes even if you don’t win.”
Syracuse, playing its first game at Bobby Dodd Stadium, is a seven-point underdog. The Sagarin ratings rank Tech No. 40, 19 spots ahead of Syracuse. However, the Orange have elements that could give the Jackets trouble. Defensive tackle Jay Bromley, an active anchor point of the Orange defense, is the sort of player who could potentially throw the Tech offense out of whack by gumming up the interior running game.
“He’s a big guy; he’s got some quicks. He’s an experienced guy; he’s got good pad level,” Johnson said. “You can see he’s got good football IQ.”
The Syracuse running game has stacked up 685 yards in the past two games (against Clemson and N.C. State) and could well beat the Jackets at their own game. The Orange can bludgeon with 226-pound running back Jerome Smith (265 yards in the past two games) and also has an effective threat in quarterback Terrel Hunt.
Further, injuries have depleted Tech’s offensive line, which was thought to be the team’s strength at the start of the season. Offensive tackles Ray Beno and Morgan Bailey will not play, taking a fifth-year senior in his third season as a starter (Beno) and a projected starter (Bailey) out of the equation. And this, to begin with, is a unit that wasn’t playing to its potential when Beno was in the lineup. (Bailey, battling injuries, has yet to start this season.)
“Not taking anything away from Virginia Tech or Miami or BYU, but you can go back and watch the tape on those three games, we’re beating ourselves,” Jackson said. “It’s nothing that coach Johnson could have done. It’s the 11 guys that are on the field just making mistakes and not executing.”
Attention again will be on quarterback Vad Lee, who has made incremental progress in his first season as a starter, but has made costly turnovers and is trying to learn the difficult lesson of when to use his athletic ability to try to create a play and when to surrender and play for the next down.
“The guys you can get away from in high school, you can’t get away from (in college),” Johnson said. “You can’t reverse out and outrun everybody, and you’ve got to trust your teammates.”
Starting Saturday, can things turn around?
Said Jackson, “It’s my last six games at Georgia Tech, so they’d better.”
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