Tech’s second loss of the year bogged in playcalling questions
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Finishing their fifth game in five weeks, Georgia Tech fell 31-19 to #19 Louisville for Tech’s largest loss of the season, despite outgaining Louisville offensively and Haynes King having one of his best throwing performances of his career (21-32, 312 yards).
Going into this game, if you asked any level headed Tech fan, they’d know we were not supposed to win this game. We had what it took to make it competitive and the tack record from Brent Key (who had never lost a road game against a ranked ACC team), it was just the matter of some luck and execution.
What we got instead was a run game that looked uncreative in playcalling, an offensive line that had a much harder time creating holes for said run game, leading to what looked like an undisciplined football team even though they were moving the ball.
Tech did take an early lead on a 23 yard Haynes King rushing touchdown after blocking a field goal on Louisville’s first drive, our second blocked field goal of the season. With the ball back on their next drive inside their 10 yard line, King had what looked like a scramble run with a potential check down option to his left, and his throw went sideways straight into Louisville’s Quincy Riley for a live fumble that the Cardinals recovered to tie the game.
Tech had a shot to take the lead on their next drive which bled into the beginning of the second quarter, but Aidan Birr couldn’t convert a 46 yard field goal which Louisville converted to their second touchdown drive on wide open Chris Bell drag route to make it 14-7.
Louisville got the ball to the red zone on their next drive, but Tech’s run defense once again came up strong and forced a field goal to make it 17-7.
With a two minute drill ahead, Tech ran their best drive of the whole game, throwing four passes to Eric Singleton Jr. including a 51 yard bomb to get all the way to Louisville’s 3 yard line before Jamal Haynes drove in a touchdown on 4th & goal to make it 17-14 at half.
Despite scoring on our first drive of the second half, a chip shot field goal after Tre Maddox couldn’t get a yard to set up 1st & goal to tie it at 17-17.
From there, it did kind of feel like the wheels were falling off the cart for Tech. Louisville scored in four plays after a 57 yard touchdown catch put them up 24-17, and Tech’s next drive again put them inside the 5 yard line, but failed to convert on 4th & 3.
Tech did force a safety by getting Tyler Slough in the backfield, but at 24-19 it was still a touchdown game with the running game not doing anything of substance between Tre Maddox and Jamal Haynes. Tech’s two first downs came from a Malik Rutherford and Maddox catches, but sputtered on a four yard loss on a King keeper and two incompletions.
With over seven minutes left in the game, a field goal wasn’t optimal but Tech still had time to get the ball back and would only need a field goal on that theoretical second drive if Louisville didn’t score.
Instead, a death blow came. Tayon Holloway blocked Aidan Birr’s 50 yard field goal and returned it untouched for a walk in touchdown, putting Louisville back up two scores 31-19. Tech’s next drive resulted in another failed 4th & short situation, putting away the game for Louisville.
Some thoughts
Let me begin by saying this was a great passing game for Haynes King. We’ve wanted to see him throw downfield, and he did so in a big way getting Rutherford and Singleton involved. Rutherford finished with seven catches for 113 yards and Singleton five catches for 88 yards. Rutherford, Singleton, Avery Boyd, and Jackson Hawes all had catches of 25 yards or more.
But we flip to the run game, and it’s the opposite of what we thought this team would look like. 98 total yards, Haynes King again our leading rusher, this time at 58 yards and a TD. SItuationally, we were a DISASTER on late downs, even with the fourth down touchdown in the first half. On 20 3rd and 4th plays, Tech only seven successful plays that averaged 4.15 yards a play. Our EPA per rush the whole game was -0.38 points/play, which while Louisville’s was worse, is still inexcusable for us.
We legitimately had an avenue to win this game. We had it within one score with the ball in the fourth quarter. With our offense, there are not many teams that are reliably stopping us. In this game, we shot ourselves in the foot and just gave it away. The blocked field goal, the bad decision by King to throw it sideways in the first half, the inability to get a running back running, it was not good enough and the team would be the first ones to tell you that.
A big factor that I think matters and was a topic coming into the game; this was our 5th game in five weeks, this was Louisville’s 3rd and they came off a bye week. Rest advantage in football is no joke with how physically taxing the sport is. Tech has played in two countries and three states over these five games. Yes, this is football, but these are still teenagers in some cases carrying a heavier travel load than some NFL teams do over a five week span. Oh, and they’re also full time students at Georgia Tech. Weird, undisciplined games are going to be a side effect of playing college football under the current conditions the state of the sport puts them in. To go 5-0 in this stretch would’ve required a truly phenomenal team that we don’t quite have yet. But, to still lose by one score to Syracuse and have a drive to potentiall go ahead against Louisville I don’t think should be ignored. We still put ourselves in those situations despite our self-inflicted scheduling.
We get a week off next week, and boy do we need it.