The Georgia Tech football program under Geoff Collins can drive Jacket fans to the point of utter frustration. Is the team progressing? Is Geoff Collins really moving forward in his rebuild? Why does the team make so many mental errors? All are valid questions.
That said most Georgia Tech fans understand the magnitude of the transition and will be satisfied with any sign of progress in year 2.
Saturday night, despite some inexplicable first half mistakes, Georgia Tech ran away and hid from Duke in a 56-33 win over the Duke Blue Devils.
Duke is not a good team. Make no mistake about that, but Georgia Tech had 1 win over the Blue Devils since 2013. Before you can think about competing with the best teams in the ACC, you need to be able to beat your peer teams like Duke. From that perspective Saturday was a significant victory.
What is unmistakable for even the harshest Collins critic is that The Yellow Jackets offense is better than last year, and the team is overall better than the 2019 version.
Saturday Georgia Tech had over 500 yards of offense with a rushing total of 377 yards on the ground that would make Paul Johnson smile. Collins rode a bruising running game and offensive line that physically took over the game in the 4th quarter. Duke has a pretty good defense line that features some NFL talent, and the Jacket OLine did a very nice job.
Georgia Tech has scored more than 40 points twice this season, when they didn’t manage that number once last year. QB Jeff Sims had his most assertive game running the ball, and the defensive line managed to get constant pressure on Duke QB Chase Brice in the 2nd half.
It wasn’t a thing of beauty. The Jackets did muff a punt inside their 10 yard line that Duke recovered for a TD, and caught a kickoff at the 4 yard line. Jeff Sims threw a terrible interception at the end of the 1st half, but did play one of his his cleaner games of the season.
Georgia Tech is far from a finished product. They may not win another game this year, but no matter how the season finishes the Jackets did not take a step backward this year. Not every ACC team out there can say the same.
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