Technical Tidbits 10/6: Which Yellow Jackets team will we see in week 6?

Does the Georgia Tech football team believe that it’s good or bad? It seems the team keeps waffling when that question comes up on Saturdays. In week 5 the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team lost badly to the Pittsburgh Panthers. This came after a week 4 upset victory over a previously ranked North Carolina Tar Heels team. In my comments in the previous Tidbits, I mentioned that Tech would need to win consistently before, as a team, it could more firmly believe in itself. The Pitt game was an opportunity for the Yellow Jackets to build on that consistency. Instead, they chose to reinforce their bad habits, the kind that ends up costing them games.

It doesn’t help to linger too long on wins or losses, but even when looking ahead and preparing the team will have to invest some time into understanding its mistakes and learning from them. Hopefully, once that happens, the consistency will come with it. This first article of today’s Tidbits focuses on some of the problems displayed in the previous game.

It’s probably fair to say that the defense played a more vital role in the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets surprise upset of the North Carolina Tar Heels a couple weeks ago. That’s not to take away from the offense that performed in commendable fashion in that game. However, in last week’s loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers, both units played awfully. This article focuses primarily on the defense and some of its costly mistakes in that game.

Tech defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker acknowledges the defensive unit’s suboptimal play. The article mentions the Tech defense’s inability to stop Pitt on key plays/drives. Pitt was 2 of 2 on 4th down conversions and 6 of 13 on 3rd down conversions. Overall, the Yellow Jackets’ failure to stop the Panthers allowed them to continue building their momentum and lead. Thacker mentions the team’s need to learn from its mistakes. Hopefully, the team will be able to learn from last week’s game and perform better at key moments.

The Yellow Jackets football team will be on the road this week to take on the Duke Blue Devils. The article makes some interesting points, among them the relevance of Tech making it to .500 going into its bye week. It would be a big boost for the team going into the bye week and the final games of the season.

Their week 6 matchup against Duke won’t be an easy task as the Yellow Jackets haven’t won on the road against the Blue Devils since the 2013 season. Ideally, this is a game the Yellow Jackets should win, but it really depends on which team shows up. The one we saw two weeks ago that easily handled UNC or the one that we saw lose handily to Pitt last week.