Everything From Georgia Tech LB EJ Lightsey & QB Haynes King After A 16-9 Loss To Georgia

Georgia Tech fell to the its bitter rival Georgia on Friday afternoon. The stars of the game reacted to the close defeat to Georgia. Here is everything Haynes King and EJ Lightsey had to say.

Haynes King on the changes at halftime….

“Try to spread it out a little bit, you know, uh, doing that, you know, you can replace some of the pressure. We still have to find ways to score touchdowns instead of kicking field goals."

King on how difficult it was to see the defense step up the but the offense not step up…

“It was awesome, man. I mean, the defense, they've worked their tail off the whole season. You know, nobody's ever given up on them or anything like that. You know, we always believed in them. And you know, it just goes to show that when everybody's on the same page and working for the common goal, like what you can do as a team. They did a really good job today. It kept us in a game. Like I said earlier, we've got to find ways to score touchdowns in the red zone, not kick field goals.”

King on coming to grips with the loss…

“The same thing.”

Lightsey on coming to grips with the loss…

“It's devastating. You know, it's one of the games you look forward to winning. Came came up short, and that was it.”

King on the resilience of the team…

“I mean it we've been kind of doing it all season, you know, uh we probably don't need to keep spotting teams, however many possessions and points, but uh you know, it just shows the resilient, the fight, the commitment that that everybody has here, and just the belief that that you know, we we can keep finding ways to come back and be in ball games. And but now, like I said earlier, like we got to find ways to to finish and get over that hump of being in the ball game and to now, you know, winning those things and like I said, just not not spotting teams so much and and being able to start fast.”

Lightsey on what the team needs to do to beat Georgia…

“I mean, with a defense we just got to get better, like a core thing defense thing, techniques and fundamentals, like we're not going into next season just think like oh let's go beat Georgia in every game. You know, I mean, so just getting like better at you know like you see like tonight, like we play our best, you know, we one of the like top defenses in my opinion. So, just continue to work on like techniques, tackling the simple things just being better at those."

King on what went wrong in the run game…

“You've got to convert on third downs to keep the drive going, you know. I don't know how many plays we had. I think we had like 21 in the first quarter. Uh, that's not very good. Unless you're scoring from far out, you know, having pretty explosive plays, but we didn't do that. When you spot people with a couple of possessions, you can't really run it as much either. You've got to go tempo, as I said, spread it out. Um, try to get it going, momentum, uh, whatever it is. You've got to try to find things that work. And, you know, uh, we found ways to move the ball, just couldn't finish in the red zone.”

On the defense playing with more confidence…

“I think like everything was like simpler. Like we wasn't like much thinking and what we did wasn't a lot, you know? So everything was like simpler like everybody just played hard, free and fast, and that's something that you know we've been harping on it all week. Getting that juice back, you know what I mean like getting all that energy and confidence back, and like we did that good things happen.”

King on the message to the fanbase....

“Really just thank you. Thank you for the support. Thank you for believing. The way that we've changed this program for the past three years since I've been here. Uh you know, it's been night and day. And you know, like I said, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for the fan base, but not just the fan base, like just the whole Georgia Tech itself. Uh the people in the building that believed in me and gave me this chance. All I can really say is thank you. I can't thank you enough for giving me this opportunity.”

On if he wishes the defense would have played like this a few weeks ago…

“Of course. It's all I kind of been thinking about like, gave up what, one touchdown. We do that last couple times we played, still, you know, still in it. Still got a ACC championship, and we know like we're going to have. So like I'm kind of just trying to figure out like what went wrong last couple of games, but once we just like reflect on us just hope that we can continue to play like this moving forward.”

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