Yellow Jackets have final tune-up before spring game

Georgia Tech scrimmaged for the second time this spring Saturday, the team’s final tune-up before its annual spring game next Saturday.

Second-year coach Brent Key said the Yellow Jackets ran 120 plays in a myriad of different settings Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium.

“I was pleased with it, I was. I was pleased with some of the improvements we made over the course of a week,” Key said. “That’s really what we’re looking at right now. We’re not looking at over the course of the whole spring, we’re not looking at where we’re gonna be in the fall. We’re looking at are we improving each day and every week? As we sit down and assess every Monday morning where we were the past week, did we improve individually, did we improve collectively? We’ll watch the tape and assess everything.”

Here are some other notes, per Key, from Saturday’s closed practice:

• Saturday’s scrimmage started with a traditional two quarters of football. Key said out of 13 possessions, seven resulted in a punt, three ended with a field goal, two ended with a touchdown and another ended with an interception.
• Penalties were an issue Saturday, said Key, and many of those penalties extended drives. “We had two defensive holding penalties. When you’re in spring practice and guys are playing the right way and they’re guarding guys and you got good receivers on the other side of the football, those are gonna show up,” he said. “It usually happens when guys are playing harder and they’re playing with a little bit more confidence in what they’re doing, so now we can clean those things up.”
• Saturday’s first half ended with a two-minute drill which saw the Tech defense stand tall and force a field goal attempt.
• The Jackets also practiced situational series, including six series in the red zone that ended with three touchdowns, two field goals and an interception.
• Key highlighted senior defensive lineman Josh Robinson, running backs Anthony Carrie (a freshman) and Trey Cooley (whom Key said underwent dental surgery last week), senior tight end Jackson Hawes (a transfer from Yale), cornerbacks Omar Daniels, D.J. Moore and Ahmari Harvey, linebacker Tah’j Butler and Jacob Cruz, who recently moved from linebacker to defensive end, as those who stood out Saturday.
• The Jackets also practiced at times with crowd noise through the stadium’s public address system to work on communication.
• Key confirmed tight end Jackson Long, a sophomore, has a torn ACL and will miss the rest of the spring and, most likely, the 2024 season. Long transferred from South Florida in 2023 and did not appear in a game for Tech last year.

Tech is scheduled to begin completing its final week of spring practice Tuesday and Wednesday before the White and Gold Game at 1 p.m. Saturday.