Let’s step into the Wayback Machine to revisit the waning minutes of September 25th of this year. It’s a short jaunt, no need to pack a lunch… Georgia Tech had just embarrassed then-#21 North Carolina 45-22 in a prime time matchup at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a week after very nearly knocking off then-#6 Clemson. The season-opening one point loss to Northern Illinois seemed an aberration, and in splitting their games against what were expected to be the ACC’s dominant teams this year, a world of possibilities lay in front of the Yellow Jackets. Halcyon days.

Unfortunately for Geoff Collins’s charges, when we return home to the present we can clearly see what has happened since that evening. After the triumphant performance against North Carolina, the Jackets won one of their next six games – and the one win came against 3-7 Duke thanks to a literal last-minute score. They’ve dropped their last four games, all to unranked teams; one of those foes we already know will have a new head coach next year, and one very likely will. Health questions plague starting quarterback Jeff Sims, who was in a walking boot for last week’s loss to Boston College, and their offensive line. Against all that, and already holding seven losses to rule out a bowl appearance, they roll into their final two games against #8 Notre Dame and #1 Georgia. Less than ideal.

Their message boards hold worries such as whether Notre Dame and Georgia will want to chase style points, and conjecture that keeping either game within three scores would be a positive development. There but for the grace of God (and competent coaching) have gone we, so try to trade your chortles for sympathy… The program is not in a good place right now, with Collins staring his third consecutive three-win season square in the face and morale in and outside the locker room decidedly low.

Notre Dame (-17) vs. Georgia Tech

Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, IN
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021
Time: 2:30 PM ET
TV: NBC

As noted above, Georgia Tech opened the season with a 22-21 loss to supposed tomato can Northern Illinois, then beat up actual tomato can Kennesaw State 45-17, then came shockingly close to knocking off Clemson in another thunder-and-lightning/alien game, then manhandled North Carolina. From there they were pounded by Pitt, snuck past Duke, lost essentially three straight one-score games to Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Miami, and got handled by Boston College in our old buddy Phil Jurkovec’s second game back from injury.

They’ve firmly established an offensive identity as a running team; despite the 3-7 record and often playing from behind, their play selection is 56/44 in favor of the run. A dual threat quarterback is a big part of that; Sims is second on the team in rushing despite missing two games, after leading the team in rushing last year. Defensively, Tech primarily is in nickel but will use a 3-3-5 and occasionally a 3-2-6 depending on game context.

Georgia Tech’s Offense

The Tech offense begins and ends with RB Jahmyr Gibbs, who Brian Kelly said should get serious consideration for ACC player of the year. Some of that might be typical pregame puffery, but the point has some merit with Gibbs. The sophomore sits ninth in the ACC in rushing yards but third in yards from scrimmage; in fact he has twice as many receptions and nearly twice as many receiving yards as the next running back, Syracuse’s Sean Tucker, who was just named a semi-finalist for the Doak Walker. He’s also the top back in the conference in yards per play from scrimmage. Junior Jordan Mason has served as an effective change of pace to Gibbs at times with roughly half the workload that Gibbs has.

Sims has provided rushing production almost identical to that of Mason. He isn’t bad as a passer but he’s not exactly good either, with a 61% completion rate and so-so 7.8 yards per attempt on the season. If he can’t go, junior reserve Jordan Yates is essentially a wash as a passer and much less effective as a runner.

Gibbs leads the Jackets in both receptions and receiving yards, both by a hair over senior WR Malachi Carter and fifth-year Kyric McGowan. Junior wideout Adonicas Sanders (does Tech have the best-named WR group in the country?) is slightly behind that group but well ahead of the rest of the roster. Every one of that top four averages between 13.2 and 13.8 yards per reception. Sophomore Kalani Norris is averaging just over 16 yards per catch against FBS competition, but on only 6 catches. There’s no David Bell, no Drake London, no Josh Downs, not even a Dontayvion Wicks in this group.

Oh yes, not offense, but – Gibbs is also Tech’s primary kick returner and had a 98 yard return for a score in the first quarter against Boston College last week. He averages 26 yards per return, good for 16th nationally. (If you’re wondering, Chris Tyree averages 28.0 but doesn’t have enough returns to qualify for the leaders list.) As you might imagine, any successful defensive game plan has to start with bottling up Gibbs first, with a secondary priority of keeping Sims in the pocket. If you can do that, defending Tech becomes fairly straightforward as there just isn’t much else there to make you scared.

Tech has given up 24 sacks and 29 hurries (per cfbstats.com) on the season; those aren’t huge numbers but they’re not good, and it’s mostly because their offensive line has been a MASH unit all year. It’s hard to know exactly who’s in and out because Collins doesn’t discuss injuries (so clever!), but what’s certain is that they again won’t be at full strength. They take care of the ball pretty well, with nine interceptions but only four lost fumbles on the year. Stop Gibbs on early downs, force them to pass from unfavorable down and distances, profit. That’s the plan in a nutshell.

Georgia Tech’s Defense

On the other side of the ball, they don’t generate much pressure on the quarterback at all. Senior linebacker Charlie Thomas leads the team in sacks with 3.0; as a whole the team has just 16 sacks, which ranks 104th nationally, and 16 hurries. If you need a benchmark, Notre Dame has logged 32 sacks and 44 hurries… Their secondary was expected to be a strength this year against the pass but hasn’t been very productive; the unit has produced just one interception, against Duke, and has regularly swum in gasoline and set itself aflame over the last six games. Over that stretch opponents have completed 67% of their passes for a scorching 10.9 yards per attempt, with 17 touchdowns against just the one interception. Turns out facing real offenses is a little harder than facing Kennesaw State and Clemson.

They’ve been less problematic in defending the run, although there’s a similar September/after split for that too. On the season they’ve allowed 4.1 yards per carry, which is below average but not awful. In four September games they allowed 3.4 yards per carry, which for the full season would rank about 20th, while in the six games since they’ve allowed 4.6 per carry, which for the full season would rank about 100th. Moral of the story here is that their defense has been trending in the wrong direction for a month and a half.

Thomas also leads the team in TFL with 10.0 and interceptions with 2. Junior FS Juanyeh Thomas has the team’s only other pick. Junior LBs Quez Jackson and Ayinde Eley are far and away the top tacklers on the team and have combined for 9.5 TFL. Junior rush end/OLB Jordan Domenick has three forced fumbles and had a 70 yard fumble return for a score against Kennesaw State. Senior backup safety Jaylon King had a 40 yard fumble return score against Miami. In fact, one thing Tech does do well is get the ball on the ground, and they’ve been consistently good at it all year. They rank 8th nationally with 13 fumbles forced and have recovered a statistically unlikely 10 of them, which coincidentally also ranks 8th. Ball security will be key, especially for plucky running backs who sometimes get themselves into trouble while fighting for an extra yard or two. If you know anyone like that.

Prediction

The bigger question in this game isn’t whether Notre Dame will win, it’s whether they’ll cover. The Irish just have too many advantages in too many places on both sides of the ball, and if nothing else should be able to slowly but surely drive the last flickering embers of life from its opponent’s eyes over the course of a sunny South Bend afternoon. Whether the game holds any more interest than the last time they did that, which was six days ago, will likely rest on these few questions.

Key questions:

1) Will the defense prevent Jahmyr Gibbs from having a productive day? If Gibbs gets going the game will be more stressful than it needs to be. If he can’t get going Tech might as well advocate for a running clock in the second half.

2) How much run will Tyler Buchner get? In a perfect world, Notre Dame will jump out to an early three-score lead and can open the playbook for Buchner. He’s had significant playing time already this year, of course, but it would still be good to get him as much experience as possible in somewhat normal live-fire situations. A successful day should include a substantial amount of game time with Buchner running the full offense.

3) Will we see some more of the creativity shown against Virginia? ISD had an excellent post yesterday about the first offensive series of the Virginia game (free) and how Tommy Rees set up the Hoos for later. The short version is that Rees called a series that made Virginia sit its safeties back for the rest of the game, which opened up some fun stuff like the reverses to Lorenzo Styles and Braden Lenzy and the beautiful Lenzy touchdown with all kinds of misdirection going on. Our guess is it took Tommy a while to feel confident in what he could count on the guys to pull off, and that we’ll see more fun stuff like that going forward. If it involves more of the young guys, particularly Styles and Logan Diggs, so much the better.

IF Notre Dame protects the ball on offense, it’s hard to see how this Georgia Tech defense can plausibly stop them. IF the Notre Dame defense is disciplined and aggressive, as it has been for the last two games, it’s hard to see how this Georgia Tech offense can consistently move the ball. They’ve shown some ability to put points up, so I’m not sure the defense will log a third consecutive game without allowing a touchdown, but in the end I do see Notre Dame covering in a fairly drama-free day. Bring on the Tree!

Notre Dame 41

Georgia Tech 17