Technical Tidbits 10/14: Lynch, Simmons emerge as play-makers for Jackets

The emergence of A-Back Clinton Lynch officially began last season, but the redshirt sophomore has garnered nothing but praise as he continues his excellent college football career out of Tech’s backfield in 2016. Lynch is a bigger player physically than was living legend Robbie Godhigh a few seasons ago, but he is currently filling a very similar role to the one Godhigh performed so well in; he’s is contributing in both the pass and run games, averaging just over 15 yards per touch. That was Godhigh’s reputation prior to his graduation at the conclusion of the 2013 season, and it’s very nice to see someone filling that role once again. Perhaps Lynch will be able to run wild on Georgia Southern this weekend as he did in 2014 when he scored the go-ahead touchdown late in the game.

Of course, the offense is not the only part of the team with a bigtime play-maker having emerged this season: Ted Roof’s defense has much-improved defensive end Antonio Simmons. Despite being away from the team and with his college football future up in the air this offseason, Simmons has come back stronger and better than ever in what has been his best collegiate campaign so far at Tech. The team as a whole struggled to stop Pittsburgh’s use of the jet sweep last weekend, but it was Antonio Simmons who finally laid out a Panther in the backfield late in the game to put an end to that particular playcall. Beyond that, his general contributions to Tech’s struggling defensive line have been both welcome and a long time coming for the talented Simmons. Hopefully he can continue his momentum against Georgia Southern.

Bowl projections are never kind to teams that are on three-game losing streaks, a fact that was tested and proven correct this week when Tech dropped down yet another tier of bowls all the way down to the St. Petersburg Bowl. Tech playing in that game against South Florida would be absolute karma for the way I wrote about the field conditions at the Trop during the offseason, which are currently and will always be historically bad. I pray that Tech will finish the season with at least 7 to 8 wins, enough to get us into the Quick Lane Bowl (vs. B1G) or Independence Bowl (vs. SEC) simply because a game versus any AAC team not named Houston or potentially ECU would be so off-putting.

Have a great weekend!