Yellow Jackets once again hoping to respond after a loss

Like a broken record, Georgia Tech has begun another week looking to avoid a losing streak.

Coach Brent Key’s team suffered its fourth setback of the season Saturday in a 38-23 defeat to Boston College at Bobby Dodd Stadium. It was a frustrating result for the Yellow Jackets in more ways than one as they gave up a fourth-quarter lead, dropped a fourth consecutive ACC home game and failed to capitalize on what could have been a season-defining victory at Miami on Oct. 7.

Instead, Tech (3-4, 2-2 ACC) will spend another week of practice soured by the taste of loss.

“Come in (Sunday), address the problems, address the issues, correct those things,” Key said Saturday on how he will ask his team to bounce back yet again. “Stay true to what we’re doing, the process of what we’re doing, make adjustments where needed, find answers to things that needed answered, come in and put the work in.”

Tech had a golden opportunity to put itself in position to make some noise in the ACC standings had it handled Boston College. A win would have put the Jackets in a tie for second place ahead of Saturday’s showdown with No. 17 North Carolina at 8 p.m. at Boddy Dodd Stadium (ACC Network) and inched them closer to being eligible for a bowl game.

Now, after giving up 21 points in the final quarter and allowing the Eagles to rush for more than 300 yards, Key’s team has to win at least three of their final five games to reach the postseason, a tall task given that stretch starts with the Tar Heels (6-1, 3-1 ACC) on Saturday and finishes with No. 1 Georgia at the end of November.

“Honestly, we can’t be pointing fingers at each other,” Tech running back Jamal Haynes said about how the Jackets respond. “That would be very detrimental to our team. We got to come in (Sunday), reset, focus, just go get back to work, hit the drawing boards.”

North Carolina will be coming to Atlanta in a bit of a sour mood as well. Ranked No. 10 in the nation last week, the Heels laid an egg at Virginia – a team that had started the year 0-5 before beating William and Mary on Oct. 7.

Coach Mack Brown’s squad was starting to make a case for itself as a shoo-in to make the ACC championship game or even to be considered as a College Football Playoff participant. And while both those goals remain possible for the Heels, their respective odds took a major blow with the loss at Virginia.

Carolina will likely also be reminded ad nauseum this week about its loss to Tech on Nov. 20. It was on a six-game winning streak and ranked 13th then before the Jackets pitched a second half shutout in a 21-17, comeback win in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Key will be searching this week for the same sort of magic that helped lead to that result while staying steadfast to his principle that no one game is bigger than the other.

“They’re looking at what I say, how I react, how I do. That’s the job of the head football coach, that’s the job to lead others and we got to find the guys that want to lead along with it,” he said. “We’ve got a few of those guys, but a team can be eroded very quickly from a few as opposed to a lot.