Georgia Tech football is back on the road this weekend for its second ranked conference opponent of the season.
The Yellow Jackets play their fifth game and make their third road trip when the team heads to No. 19 Louisville. By the time Brent Key’s team checks into its team hotel Friday it will have already traveled more than 10,000 miles in less than a month.
Tech (3-1, 1-1 ACC) opened the season in Dublin, Ireland with a 24-21 victory over Florida State, ranked No. 10 at the time but is now 0-3. Two weeks ago, Tech was handed its only loss at Syracuse.
What should help the wear and tear on the Jackets is the 59-7 victory over Virginia Military Institute. Tech played nearly 70 players in that contest, including four quarterbacks and five backup offensive linemen. Tech starters got some valuable rest in the second half of the rout at Bobby Dodd Stadium, although Key would never label it as such.
“We don’t look at is resting. We don’t go into any football game planning to play somebody for a half or a quarter. That’s just not the way you plan games at all,” he said. “As soon as you plan something that way you got a dogfight with five minutes to go into the game. That’s not how we go about it. We meet on Friday night and we green light, red light guys that have the ability to play. Then it becomes, really, does the game dictate those guys being able to go?
“To me it’s not as much getting the guys rest. A game is actually less load on their body than a Tuesday, Wednesday practice. It’s getting other guys experience to be able to add to the depth and have experienced depth, that was important I thought.”
Tech’s triumph made the Jackets 3-1 for the first time since 2017. But, perhaps more importantly, Key’s team (as 42-point favorites) took care of business better than some Tech teams in recent memory who may have not dominated an FCS opponent as expected (see: 2022 Western Carolina or 2019 The Citadel).
Other than Tech’s opening drive, a 3-and-out that lost five yards, the Tech offense would go on to score on nine of the next 12 possessions in the game (the last series ending with the clock running out). The Jackets gained 575 yards, totaled 30 first downs, averaged 8.7 yards per play, went 6 of 6 in the red zone and ran for nearly six yards per carry.
There was no taking the foot off the gas pedal at any point.
“Every game we consider it’s a faceless opponent no matter who we’re playing,” Tech backup quarterback Zach Pyron said. “We treat everybody the same. Going into this game we prepared the same way we always do, and coach Key was big. And (assistant) coach (Buster) Faulkner at halftime was basically saying we got a whole ‘nother half to play against another team. We’re gonna show respect to ‘em and we’re not gonna take it as nothing. So we continue to play as hard against a faceless opponent every single play, every snap.”
Defensively, Tech held VMI to 104 yards. The Keydets (0-3), scoreless until the fourth quarter, were sacked three times and tackled for a loss 10 times.
As good as all those numbers were on both sides of the ball for Tech, the Louisville game will be a much different story.
The Cardinals, who made the ACC title game a year ago, were off this past week and have only played two games so far this season, beating Jacksonville State 49-14 on Sept. 7 and Austin Peay 62-0 on Aug. 31.
Louisville is averaging 590 yards of offense per game and has had 12 players account for at least one touchdown.
The matchup will be a rematch of 2023′s season opener at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a game in which Tech scored 28 points in the second quarter to be up 28-13 at half only to allow 26 points over the final two quarters and lose 39-34.
The Tech-Louisville game is scheduled for kickoff at 3:30 p.m. Saturday and will be televised by ESPN2. After the trip to Louisville, Tech will be off until hosting Duke (3-0) on Oct. 5.
