Technical Tidbits 9/17: Week 3 - Managing expectations

With week three comes the first big challenge of many this season for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team. As if playing the 6th ranked Clemson Tigers wouldn’t be challenging enough, having to play them at Memorial Stadium in Death Valley, where the Tigers haven’t lost a game since November 12, 2016, won’t make it any easier. By the way, that loss was a 43-42 game against Pitt. But you’ve got to imagine, wouldn’t it be that much more special if the Yellow Jackets can get their first real upset of the Collins era in such fashion?

This is a really good article that focuses on the Georgia Tech football team’s upcoming game against the 6th ranked Clemson Tigers. The article writes about the expectations for the Yellow Jackets going into this game. The “Lose Big, Lose Small, Win Small, Win Big” adage is a perfect example of how Tech fans should manage their expectations going into this game (and honestly this season — “Year 2” of the Collins era).

Taking over an triple-option based offense, Tech head coach Geoff Collins had an unique challenge in refitting the team to the more pro-style offense of offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude. So, the “Year 0” idea is one that I as well believe in. And if that makes it “Year 2” regardless of this being Collins’ third season, the expectations too should be adjusted. So for the Yellow Jackets, losing small to the Tigers would be a sign of significant improvement. We all know the team got its “Lose Big” game in last year’s game against Clemson — I’m not even going to mention the score. Hopefully, after the weekend is over, the final score of tomorrow’s Tech-Clemson game won’t weigh as heavily over Tech fans as did the previous season’s result. Death Valley is a difficult environment to play in for any college football team; hopefully after tomorrow, Tech fans can lay to rest any notion that the Yellow Jackets can’t hang with the big boys.

This article feature a pretty interesting development regarding Tech head coach Geoff Collins’ decisions to use the same four players as captains for the Clemson game that served as captains for the Kennesaw State game last week. Those players being Djimon Brooks, Malachi Carter, Devin Cochran and Tre Swilling.

Tech has traditionally rotated captains. In the article, Collins cites the players’ leadership and focus as reasons for being chosen again for this week’s game. Facing the Tigers on their home field will certainly require focus and leadership if the Yellow Jackets are going to have a better showing than they did last season. Whatever it takes.