Article GT vs UCF Postgame Thread

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Shorthanded Jackets Fall Short In Home Opener

Jahmyr Gibbs (21) runs for a touchdown (Hyosub Shin / ajc.com)

Atlanta, GA – Down six starters and depth at key positions, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (1-1, 1-0) faded late Saturday night in their first home tilt of the 2020 season.  The Central Florida Knights (1-0, 0-0), a respected top 25 program over the last few years, emerged victorious by a final score of 49-21.

The Jackets entered the game with gaps and question marks across its Above The Line (ATL) depth chart when compared to preseason expectations.  Absent from the offense today were starters RB Jordan Mason and TE Dylan Deveney.  Another TE, Dylan Leonard, was a scratch.

The damage done to the defense made matters worse.  Tech’s defensive line was missing starters DE Antonneous Clayton, DT TK Chimedza and DL Antwan Owens along with key rotational player DE Curtis Ryans, a key cog in the Jackets’ week 1 win against Florida State.  Tech’s top CB Tre Swilling also missed his second consecutive game.

“We had to get creative in practice this week… minimal 12 personnel on offense and three down linemen on defense,” said Head Coach Geoff Collins in his postgame interview with radioman Wiley Ballard.

Let’s be clear.  Neither Collins nor the players claimed moral victories.  Save those for today’s victor who is wont for fabricated titles and hardware.

For Tech the mantra is next man up.  The team fought valiantly, showing signs of life into the 4th quarter against an opponent that most outside of the Georgia Tech program expected to roll easily today.  A 33-yard touchdown run by true freshman RB Jahmyr Gibbs narrowed the Knights’ lead to 28-21 with 13:12 remaining in the game.  The home crowd was energized as was the home team.

But football games are won on the line of scrimmage, and Tech began with one hand tied behind its back on the defensive front.  Evidence of wear and tear to that unit showed itself late as the Knights’ vaunted offense reasserted itself in the 4th quarter, scoring three consecutive touchdowns immediately after Gibbs’ jaunt without much resistance.  Tech’s offense sputtered in response, and the final chapter of the story was written.

Despite the absence of key players, the Jackets had plenty of opportunities within their control to affect the outcome of the game.  Turnovers and special teams often determine college football games and today was no different.

Following an impressive first game despite a few mistakes, QB Jeff Sims led a Tech offense today that coughed up the ball five times.  Of the Jackets five turnovers, two came thru the air and three came via the ground game.

Special teams was a mixed bag.  Rarely is “mixed bag” a positive, however after the debacle in Tallahassee that descriptor is an improvement.  The Jackets must resolve its field goal issues to become a threat in the ACC this year and in the future.  See 2014.  Otherwise, “mixed bag” will lead to a new definition for “scoring range”.

There were certainly signs of light.  Jahmyr Gibbs lived up to his billing, ripping off a 75 yard kickoff return on his first collegiate touch.  Gibbs finished with 219 all purpose yards and two touchdowns. 

Tech’s offense has now shown a pattern of improvement as compared to last year.  Sims led the offense to 471 yards of total offense.  Nine different receivers caught balls for 244 yards thru the air, demonstrating a balance and proficiency without needing to rely on one or two playmakers.  To that end, noticeably absent despite the team success were WR Ahmarean Brown and WR Jalen Camp, each of which tallied a single reception for 11 yards.

The Jackets managed 12 chunk plays, defined as passing plays of 15+ yards and running plays of 10+ yards.  The distribution was an even 6 and 6, respectively.  Overall the offense produced 5.8 yards per play and converted 7 of 15 third downs.

Last but certainly not least, punter Pressley Harvin remained an “absolute unit”, averaging 51.2 yards per punt.  Of his four punts, three ended up inside the 20, with one boom ball traveling 70 yards.

Ultimately it was feast or famine on offense.  Combined with a shorthanded defense forced to play 92 plays, the flood gates opened late for Tech’s foe.  Next week brings Tech back into ACC play with a road trip to Syracuse and an opportunity to go 2-0 in ACC play.

 
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g0lftime

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1/4 mistakes. 1/4 UCF is a very good team. 1/4 Refs. 1/4 poor defensive coaching schemes.

In a super up tempo game, you can’t play several beefy strong but slow trench guys. Curry is included in that. He’s slow, so a gassed Curry is terrible. It leaves everything open. Would have been better to play 3 DL and then 4 hybrid DB/LB. those guys are faster and have better endurance.
They ran several options where curry blitzed and they ran off the center to the opposite side for big yards. Too many mistakes to beat a good team. Armed tackled in the 4th quarter from being tired.
 

SOWEGA Jacket

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We can whine about refs but it doesn’t matter. No team will win with 6 turnovers.

We fought hard when it was clear that UCF is a better team so I’m not upset. We were clearly a better team than FSU and UCF is clearly better than us. That QB was money.

Collins is assembling the pieces but we still are lacking in the personnel piece. Our DB’s got torched. Holding or no holding, we couldn’t cover and we couldn’t tackle other than Charlie Thomas.

This was the butt kicking we needed for every member of the organization. The spike play has to be the dumbest play I’ve ever seen GT make so the coaches have no where to look than the mirror. I want to by Choice dinner for getting Gibbs.
 

g0lftime

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I think this was a little bit of a knock back to reality for people after how happy we were after the week 1 win. Objectively, UCF is probably the 3rd best, or at worst 4th best, team on our schedule this year. They're a team that has put up solid results for several years in a row and has put a large number of points up on most teams they've played. The scoreline looks worse than the game was. It just got out of hand at the end with us chasing. However, I did not expect this to be a win from us from the start. I am never happy with a loss, but this was a more positive experience than most of our games in the last year.

5 turnovers, 2 turnovers on downs, 1 blocked field goal. That's 8 drives where we made serious mistakes. You're not beating many teams with stats like those. I think I am at least willing to chalk up a lot of those mistakes to being to this team being young and inexperienced. I think they are showing a lot of promise and will be a team to really look forward to watching in a year or two.

I thought our defense struggled a lot with the HUNH. could be with the number of guys we were missing but we were not prepared for them on the uptempo drives. Luckily we won't see a lot of that for the rest of the year.

Overall, I think we'll still compete relatively well with a majority of the ACC teams on our schedule. I don't think people should discount how good UCF is. FSU is probably pretty bad. Remember we're not even supposed to be competitive this year. A lot of our playmakers have 2+ years of eligibility left. We have something to look forward to and will take some wins off teams that aren't expecting it this season. Just need to get things cleaned up
Can we hire their OC?
 

GTBandit22

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we were one possession out of it in the 4th. Score made it look worse and the D was beyond gassed at the end.
- Sims looked like a true fresh today. Multiple outlet passes the he passed up for throws in the middle. He will learn.
- Gibbs is every bit as good as advertised. This kid will be a weapon for us.
-defense got us two stops early in the 3rd backed up and the offense gave it back. Tough to win like that.
- refs were dog crap, and I’m not surprised to learn they were AAC. We probably still don’t win, but it at least goes down to the wire.
- their QB is probably the second best we face. I tip my cap to him. He’s a player for sure
gotta brush it off and get ready for Cuse. Probably same level defense with nowhere near the offense. Can’t let them beat us twice.
 

85Escape

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Yep, I agree stech81. This wasn't an expected win. It was just extremely frustrating to see our guys fighting hard and having to deal with the poor officiating. Unfortunately they would have had a tough time with a well-called game. They had almost no hope with all the help the AAC gave UCF.
 

wrmathis

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what, how can you say the refs are bad? I dont see any holding here. everything looks good to me
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also, me
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85Escape

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We can whine about refs but it doesn’t matter. No team will win with 6 turnovers.

We fought hard when it was clear that UCF is a better team so I’m not upset. We were clearly a better team than FSU and UCF is clearly better than us. That QB was money.

Collins is assembling the pieces but we still are lacking in the personnel piece. Our DB’s got torched. Holding or no holding, we couldn’t cover and we couldn’t tackle other than Charlie Thomas.

This was the butt kicking we needed for every member of the organization. The spike play has to be the dumbest play I’ve ever seen GT make so the coaches have no where to look than the mirror. I want to by Choice dinner for getting Gibbs.
While I agree that you can't win with 6 turnovers, those are not independent variables in this experiment. If we had a better called game, the need to do some of the stuff that led to turnovers wouldn't have been there. It's a momentum game, and the no-calls, horrific spots and help with ball placement certainly affected that. I get that we have to play through it. I'm just saying it sucks that it was required. I think the ACC should review the game and refuse to play with AAC refs again. They won't since our name doesn't start with UNC, but here's wishing.
 

SteamWhistle

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A deserving *** kicking with how we hurt ourself. Just gotta keep Sims development moving in the right direction. UCF sat in a Cover 2 and pretty much dared us to test the middle, we couldn’t protect/ couldn’t make the reads to get it done.
 

JacketOff

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Everybody knew this was not going to be an easy win. If they didn’t, then they should have. UCF is a good team, and they would give most other teams in the country a run for their money at the very least. The biggest positive is that, even with all of the mistakes Tech made throughout the game, it was still a 1 score game in the 4th quarter. The future for this Tech team is very bright, and it will begin to show as the year goes on and some of our better players get back into the game, and when our younger players get game experience. It will start to show more next year, and by 2022 Georgia Tech will look like a completely different team than what they looked like in 2019.

There’s a long way to go, and it’s gonna take a long time to get there. But there will be bright spots along the way. Last weeks game was one of them. Somewhere between 3-5 more wins are still in play. Limiting mistakes, getting guys healthy, and getting game experience will help make the most of them. Still a good chance to get to 2-1 overall and 2-0 in the ACC for the first time since 2017 at Syracuse next week.
 

Spalding Jacket

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The players sitting out not only hurt us talent and depth wise, but also schematically. We were so thin on Dline we had to switch from 4-2-5 to 3-3-5 on defense and without TEs we had to run more four wide and 2 back sets to compensate. It’s hard to judge many aspects of the game when we are playing schemes that are not what we practiced a majority of the time due to players being out.

I will say I was disappointed with the DBs in coverage even with the poor pass rush. They are our strength and I don’t feel they played up to their potential.
 
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