After Georgia Techās 22-21 loss to Northern Illinois Saturday night at Bobby Dodd Stadium, four Yellow Jackets team members answered questions from media about the game. Comments from quarterback Jordan Yates, wide receiver Malachi Carter, linebacker Ayinde Eley and defensive back Wesley Walker:
Yates on his objective going into the game in place of Jeff Sims:
āJust to be the next man up and always be ready for whenever my time comes and just fill right in and keep running the offense.ā
Carter, on what message team leaders have for younger players:
āHonestly, just, weāve got to forget about it. The worst thing you can do is dwell on a loss like this. Everybody, definitely, we donāt feel the best about this, obviously. We lost to this good team that came in and they played well, but the biggest thing is just looking forward. Weāve got a long season ahead. Weāre planning on playing these 12 games and weāve just got to look forward and prepare for next week, Kennesaw State.
āThe biggest thing I can tell everybody is just keep your head up. Keep each other up. Know that we are a great team and weāve got to believe that going on for the rest of the season. Because dwelling on something like this can easily bring a team down going forward. But thatās the biggest thing, just trust each other, believe in each other and know that weāre going to pick it up next week. Thatās the biggest thing.ā
Yates on if the team still needs to learn to win:
āIād say we definitely have room to improve, for sure. I think we actually have a pretty good amount of experience across the board. Weāre young in some spots, but I know the guys are going to rally. If weāre put in this situation again, weāll come out with the outcome we want to come out with.ā
Eley on Northern Illinoisā downhill run game:
āWe prepared for some of the formations they showed and stuff, but they just came out of camp, too, so they had some new stuff that we hadnāt seen before. So we adjusted to that.ā
Credit: ACC
Eley on Northern Illinoisā game-winning drive:
āThe whole drive, every yard of that, Iām pretty sure Wes feels the same way ā he remembers every yard, every play they called. Itās just something weāve got to go look at the film and weāve got to clean it up. Weāve got 11 more games and this is only one of them, so weāve got to patch up your wounds and keep on moving.ā
Walker on Northern Illinoisā two-point conversion:
āWe were in a call and the wide receiver (Tyrice Richie) just sat it down. He sat it down in a zone where, really, where thatās the most unprotected area in the call. I didnāt know if it was a catch or not. It was kind of unclear if it was a catch or not. They called it a catch, so it was a catch. I didnāt know, so I was really unsure of what it was, so I was just waiting on the call and they said it was a catch. Weāve just got to put that behind us. we canāt dwell on something that we canāt control anymore.ā
Walker on his fourth-quarter forced fumble, which set up Techās go-ahead touchdown:
āThatās probably the biggest thing we practice in practice and emphasize is just ball disruption, attacking the ball. So when I saw one of my teammates holding him up, I just fell back on my training. It was more natural I wasnāt really thinking. Thatās what we do in practice. It just naturally happened.ā
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