Technical Tidbits 9/29: Yellow Jackets upset Tar Heels

It’s Wednesday and we’re in week 5 of the college football season. Honestly, I can spend all day — and certainly all of today’s Tidbits — talking about Georgia Tech’s surprise thumping of North Carolina last week. It was one of the more enjoyable Tech games I can recall watching in recent years. It was certainly the best game of the Geoff Collins’ era with hopefully many more to come. Rather than focusing entirely on last week though, I will mention at least what was my favorite play of the game, and what I call the Mack Brown smackdown.

It came on what I believe was the Tar Heels’ eight drive of the game, early into the second half. By this point, UNC had already converted one fourth down attempt. One thing about Brown that I’ve noticed over the years, he can always find a positive perspective of things, even when his team is down by a lot. So it kind of makes sense that he would go for it on fourth down again, but in this particular case, with his team down 13-7 and facing a 4th-and-1 on their own 41 yard line, it didn’t seem like the right move, and it wasn’t. UNC quarterback Sam Howell ended up running for a loss of two yards. The Yellow Jackets would take over on downs and in a matter of three plays they would double their lead going up 20-7 on a Jeff Sims touchdown and point after.

While this moment certainly showed the prowess of the offense, I think that fourth down stop was a moment where everyone knew something special was happening with the defense. The Yellow Jackets’ strong defensive performance of the first half, including two fumble recoveries, was going to continue and UNC would find themselves in big trouble. While certainly there were several others key plays, for me, that play was the key moment of the game and my favorite play from last week. With that said, let’s (finally) get into today’s Tidbits.

One of the big takeaways from last week was that it appears Jeff Sims is back as QB1 for the Yellow Jackets. He had a terrific performance in that win that has earned him numerous recognitions as the article details.

Aside from Sims’ strong performance, Tech linebacker Charlie Thomas had another outstanding performance as this article mentions. Thomas was rightfully named the ACC Linebacker of the Week after recording 2.5 sacks and 8 tackles, including 4.5 for a loss. Congratulations to both Thomas and Sims on their well deserved recognitions.

There’s been a lot of buzz about the Yellow Jackets football team, but for the sake of variety, I’m including some non-football articles in today’s Tidbits. This article focuses on the 18th ranked Yellow Jackets volleyball team’s defeat of the Virginia Tech Hokies on Sunday. They swept the Hokies (25-17, 25-15, 25-13) and while on the road, no less. What a performance!

In Yellow Jackets golf news, this article mentions their current tie for 5th place in the Windon Memorial Classic. The final round completed yesterday, but as of this writing, there’s no update. Good luck to the golf team who are in Glencoe, Illinois for that tournament.