Sometimes you do a complete 180 with your coaching hire and it pays off, and then sometimes you get Geoff Collins. These things happen. After more than a decade of Paul Johnson’s triple option, Georgia Tech opted to get back to a more, uh, modern approach, and it was a disaster.
The silver lining for the Jackets is that without Collins, they might not have Brent Key, who joined Collins in Atlanta in 2019, took over as interim head coach in 2022, and is now in his second full season doing good reclamation work. Collins was 0-4 in his efforts to get Tech to a bowl game, and Key now is 2-2.
It helps to start a proper reboot with a good quarterback, and there Key was fortunate where his predecessor was not, as Haynes King quickly proved he was better than he showed at Texas A&M and has been the main driver behind Tech’s offensive improvement in 2024.
(Via.)
King’s dual threat abilities have been important, and he’s gotten better as a passer, cutting out the mistakes that plagued him in 2023. He’s completing 72% of his passes, and has thrown just one interception after tossing 16 last fall. He’s been limited by injury over the last month, missing two games in which Tech scored a total of 19 points, but returned to help hand Miami its first loss of the season on Nov. 9.
King is the team’s second-leading rusher with 544 yards and has seven rushing scores. The Jackets are averaging 5.0 yards per carry, and their rushing attack has ground several opponents into dust this season. Not coincidentally, that rushing attack struggled in all four of the team’s losses, going for no more than 112 yards in any of them. (King missed two of those games.)
Georgia Tech’s defense also has made strides this season, particularly in stifling the ground game. Opponents averaged 5.4 yards per carry against this unit in 2023, but they’re averaging just 3.6 this season. Six times the Jackets have limited opponents to under 100 yards on the ground, after doing that zero times in 2023. They stuff a lot of runs, and have been excellent at limiting explosive plays.
The passing defense not so much, and there probably NC State is going to have to take advantage a few times to pull off the upset. I don’t know if State can find enough positive plays passing to win this game without anything on the ground, but it might have to. Not that this would be anything new.
The matchup of ground games looks pretty lopsided in Tech’s favor, while State has a modest edge in passing, probably. We’ll have to hope that State’s defensive front is capable of stepping up tomorrow night.