Georgia Tech Football: Things I Think I Know - Bowling Green

Georgia Tech has a chance to finish the month above .500 for the first time in too long

So I was just scrolling on Twitter earlier this week, minding my own business when BAM. I am hit with this tweet from David Hale.

In 2017, Georgia Tech opened the season 3-1 with the lone loss being to Tennessee in the Chick-fil-A Kick-Off game. Man, that was such a simpler time. The 2018 season saw Tech finish 2-3. 2019, 1-3 with some of the most infamous losses in recent Georgia Tech history. In 2020, 1-2 with Jeff Sims’ first win over Florida State. In 2021, Tech probably came its closest to finishing above .500. They finished 2-2 with a 22-21 loss to Northern Illinois. And finally, last season, Georgia Tech finished September at 1-3 with its sole win being over Western Carolina. To say that it’s been too long since Tech finished the month of September with a winning record would be an absolute understatement. It has been seven long years with some absolutely mind-bogglingly frustrating losses. And now, Brent Key has a chance to make things right.

The stats don’t like Bowling Green

Bowling Green has some decent stats on defense. They have held opposing teams to -0.08 EPA/rush, and that’s pretty good. That’s currently in the top half of college football. However, they have one of the most atrocious offenses in college football.

Data courtesy of GameOnPaper.com

That’s a whole lot of purple and rankings in the 100s. As a whole, the offense has been bad in every way imaginable. Now yes, as someone pointed out in the mailbag, they have played some tougher teams, but they have performed very badly against those tougher teams.

Injured players can use this weekend to recover

Brent Key announced this week that Jordan Williams and Chase Lane would be missing this week’s game, and although I was initially upset about this (because Tech’s offensive line is significantly worse without Williams), I think this is probably the best week to have to recover. I don’t believe that Bowling Green presents enough of a threat to Georgia Tech to warrant playing guys who are injured.

The defense has a prime opportunity to prove last week wasn’t a fluke

Last week, Georgia Tech’s defense caused a lot of havoc, but there needs to be a middleground because they were still allowing a lot of yards, and if not for the turnovers, the result may have been different. This week, the defense has an opportunity to follow up on that performance by tightening things up. If the defense can contain Bowling Green, I’ll feel a little less worried about the rest of the season.