Hey, Georgia Tech Fans--It Could Be Worse
In The Wake Of Tech's Loss To Notre Dame Comes An Impromptu Chance To Reflect On Where We Were Recently
"Ain't yet where we wanna be, but better off now than we used to be"
Georgia Tech lost to Notre Dame last weekend by a 31-13 count. It was a disappointing day for Tech's program because they looked at the game as one that was winnable, given proper circumstances and proper execution. Tech got neither circumstance (QB and MLB out with injury), nor execution ( turnovers, penalties, rough special teams play). And so they lost.
A loss is a loss and if there's a sports church out there with the bedrock principle of forceful rejection of the transitive property of football superiority, Tech head coach Brent Key would be the rock of that church. Comparing scores and measuring common opponents ain't his thing.
That being said, it is instructive to recall what happened the last time Tech played Notre Dame prior to this past Saturday. That was in 2021, when the Jackets lost to the Irish 55-0 in South Bend under the leadership of Geoff Collins.
Collins often claimed that his teams were making progress– even though he acknowledged that many people might be unable to see the progress. And he insisted that his teams' " margin of error" was getting smaller with time. ( that's a counterintuitive point of pride).
It's peculiar that Brent Key is always aiming for consistency, which wasn't an issue for Collins at Georgia Tech- his teams consistently won three games per year.
The game results under Collins did not show progress , at least not the kind that people can see. But if there was one thing that Tech fans found more frustrating than the many losses, it would be the post-game linguistic pretzel logic that Collins came up with to explain his team's poor play and then to detail his plans to fix the issues at hand.
In case you have forgotten what that used to sound like ( after 74% of games played under Collins --10 wins, 28 losses), here's a fresh sample of Collins- speak, taken from TarHeelILLUSTRATED last week in Chapel Hill as Collins "explained" what had gone wrong with his UNC defense in their sad/ bizarre home loss to Georgia Tech on October 12.
In response to a general question about why UNC's run defense has allowed 918 yards on 163 carries ( 5.6 yards per carry) over their past four games (all losses),
UNC defensive coordinator Geoff Collins said...
"Early in the season and in stretches the defense looks the way its supposed to look. Fitting gaps, playing hard, which they do all the time. But I think at times the journey that we've been on.....is sometimes trying to do too much, hopping in and out of gaps. Saturday it was a lack of communication at times, whether it be a check, or the base call, or whatever the case may be."
Are we clear? No?
Well, here's a bit more.
Asked about what happened on the last minute 68 yard run that gave Tech the winning score--which looked like a complete breakdown of the UNC defense--Collins replied, " That was more of a thing of communication. Just one of the checks that we've been doing the entirety of the second half, didn't get put on and then. And another flaw in the communication happened on the edge of the defense, and when you do that at two critical spots, things like that should never happen , happened."
Ok. Got it now? Does it bring back recent memories of unhappy football moments at Tech during Collins' tenure? With explanations that sound as though they are intended to obscure rather than illuminate the problem? Are you channeling the little Aflac duck on the old commercial who was shaking his head in frustration after talking with Yogi Berra? Join the club.
Granted, none of that rear- view mirror gladness will undo a frustrating loss last week for Georgia Tech. But this little communique from Chapel Hill does serve to remind us that things could be much worse– and have been worse– not so long ago... in the 404.
Patrick Conarro
RamblinSports.com