Geoff Collins Postgame Quotes: Week 8 vs. Pitt

Following Georgia Tech's 20-10 loss to the Pitt Panthers on Homecoming Weekend, head coach Geoff Collins spoke to the media.

Opening Statement

“Hard-fought football game, our guys fought hard. We’ve talked all week about how the margin of error as we’re building this thing is small. You see that late in the third quarter, the score is 17-10, we get down to the 2-yard-line about to tie the game up going into the fourth quarter, and margin of error being small, we fumble. They recover it, run it back down to our end of the field and get a field goal and the score is 20-10. But proud of the way the guys fought, proud of the way that they played. Give [Pitt] credit, that defense is really good. They’ve got a lot of really good players and they play at a high level. So first of all, I want to give credit to them. All week we knew how good [Maurice Ffrench] was and obviously he showed that tonight. So, we’ve got to give them credit, but as we go through our processes as we’re building this program, we’re trying to work to increase the margin of error through our preparation, through our effort, fundamentals, technique, all of those things, and we’ll continue to do that as we get better.”

On creating turnovers more against Pitt

“We make it a point of emphasis, and we’ve been making it for a while that we need to create turnovers, we need to get the ball, and I thought our guys did that at a high level. It’s the third game in a row that we’ve had a blocked kick, so, obviously proud of our special teams coaches and the way our guys approach special teams since we place such a huge emphasis on how we play that phase of the game. So getting turnovers was a big deal, we did that. Just looking back, we need to capitalize on those turnovers. We got seven points off of those three turnovers, so, obviously we need to get more to increase our margin for error.”

On the decision to change quarterbacks at halftime

“I think it’s safe to say that there were some balls that James [Graham] wishes he could have back. James has played really, really well for us and he’s a competitor. Just in the first half some of the throws just weren’t there, so we brought him in at halftime, talked him through it, he settled down, had a great attitude when we told him that Lucas [Johnson] was going to get the call in the second half. And Lucas did some good things. And one of the things that I’m proud of, is when Lucas was in there – it’s very easy in this world to get negative, it is very easy in this world, when something happens that you might not like, to sit there and pout and be a bad teammate and have a bad attitude and it affects other people. James Graham did not do that. He was the consummate teammate, he was cheering for Lucas, he was excited to see Lucas back out there playing because he hasn’t played in a couple weeks as he’s been getting healthy. I was really proud of how he handled that moment.”

On struggles running the football

“We wanted to establish the run, we had RPOs built off it, and some of them just weren’t connecting. And then they’ve got a really good front four, they’ve got a really good front seven, and trying to get movement on them at times was really good, at other times we didn’t have success. But credit goes to them. Our guys will get better. They have every single week and they’ll continue to do that.”

On Juanyeh Thomas’ performance

“I thought Juanyeh had a really good night. The interception that he made at the beginning of the game, that is textbook what we teach in this program. We close the middle of the field, we get depth to the post, we play the leverage on the slots, we leverage it back to the post safety, and then Juanyeh is a tremendous athlete with tremendous range and was able to read the quarterback, get an early break on the ball, which is what we teach, and made a really nice play. But I thought he was able to stay in the moment for the most part throughout the game. He’s still a young player – he’s only a sophomore – and he’s going to continue to get better with what we do and how we do it, but, really proud of him.”