Georgia Tech can win the ACC Coastal
1. Georgia Tech can win the ACC Coastal: As our Mark Bradley wrote on Sunday, there were a lot of things, tangible and intangible, that went into the Yellow Jackets’ 19-16 win at Boston College. But more than anything, the victory was a testament to the ability of Paul Johnson and the Georgia Tech coaching staff to get their guys in a mindset to keep playing and keep pushing for the entire 60 minutes of the game. People forget how long a college football game really is and a lot of times the biggest challenge is to forget mistakes and just keep playing hard and believing that good things are going to eventually happen. Georgia Tech did that and did what well-coached teams do: They made their own breaks when the game was on the line.
So let’s look at the landscape of the ACC Coastal: Virginia Tech struggled for the second consecutive week before finally putting away Furman 24-7. Miami is better on defense but does not have many playmakers on offense. North Carolina struggled with McNeese State. Virginia got its doors blown off by Southern Cal and led Division I-AA Richmond by only 3-0 midway through the fourth quarter before winning 16-0. Duke is going to be better but still doesn’t have the athletes it needs to win more than just a few games.
If Tech can win at Virginia Tech this week, the Jackets will be 2-0 in the ACC with both wins coming on the road. Put another way, Tech will have four of its final six conference games at home. That’s huge.
ajc.com
9/8/08
Magnolia Tribune
