Can Georgia Tech’s Defense End The Season On A High Note After Struggling The Past Four Games?

Georgia Tech has showed great signs this season on defense, especially early on in key wins over Colorado and Clemson through the first few weeks of the year. The Yellow Jackets were forcing turnovers, getting key stops, and holding opponents to under 25 points. The middle of the season saw still good signs, some big plays being made in the right moments, but giving up a lot of yards. A bend, don’t break approach.

Then the dam broke in the final four games of the season, especially against NC State in Raleigh, North Carolina, when the Yellow Jackets couldn’t get stops and gave up a lot of points. It was a crushing 48-36 defeat to NC State, and it was a spiral for Georgia Tech, which would go on to give up an average of 35 points during that four-game span.

Georgia Tech showed a great indicator in its final game of the regular season, holding a high powered Georgia Bulldogs offense to just 16 points. They held the Bulldogs to 70 net passing yards in Clean Old Fashioned Hate and played one of their best defensive games of the season.

Defensive coordinator Blake Gideon, in his Pop-Tarts Bowl press conference, talked about the change and the defense and how they were able to play at a high level. It started in the second half of the Pittsburgh game.

“We made some changes schematically. Um, probably not as earth-shattering as it may have seemed, but you know, I think our guys just something we had always talked about throughout this whole process was not worrying about the result and just enjoying the process and immersing ourselves in the process and being the best in the world at my job on this play. The last play already happened. We can't really do anything about it, and the next play has enough worries of its own, right? So, let's just own our job in this play. I think everybody just kind of relaxed their shoulders and untucked their shirts a little bit. And, you know, just went and played ball. We like to overcomplicate it a lot as college coaches. We like to get in there and play mad scientist on the chalkboard and draw up all these fun schemes, but at the end of the day, it's getting off blocks and tackling, leveraging the ball, leveraging off routes and coverage,” said Gideon.

“I think it wasn't really, Rodney will tell you, it wasn't anything earthshattering that we did going into the Georgia game. I mean, we've said, "Hey guys, we're going to run these calls, and we're going to get really good at them, and I believe in you guys. Y'all trust in me. So, let's go. Let's go own our role, own our job." You see what we can be as a unit. A starting safety goes down in the Georgia game in the first 10 plays, and a true freshman that's never really played meaningful snaps goes out there and this what I mean, all the things that could have happened happened, and our guys just stopped in my opinion stopped worrying about the result and just played, you know, and I don't care how many points they've already scored, how many first downs they've already made. They just played the next play. And that's the game. That's the measure of a good team, a mature team, especially on defense, is their ability to move forward.”

If the players are bought in and playing at a high level like they did the past one and a half games, they should be in a position to finish strong. Now that is easier said than done, going against a well-balanced unit and an impressive quarterback in Bear Bachmeier. The Cougars will be without their star running back, LJ Martin, who just had shoulder surgery. However, Georgia Tech has struggled with backup running backs this season. The game plan is simple if they want to come out with a win. They have to shore up their run defense, contain the gaps and run lanes for Bachmeier, who is a really good quarterback running the ball, and get pressure to set up third and longs. Bachmeier has shown he is more prone to interceptions when he is battered and bruised and facing those third and longs.

If the Yellow Jackets can limit the big plays down the field and hold BYU to under 125 yards, they should be able to prevail with their offense making plays and scoring touchdowns. The defense will play a key part in Georgia Tech picking up that 10th win of the season.

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