The Yellow Jackets took another loss by final score of 31-13 at home on Saturday to Notre Dame but it wasn’t the same feeling of despair that has come from previous weeks. Here is our three take always from the game.
1. This felt like growth more than pain.
Since week two, it’s seemed like the Jackets have played sloppy on both sides of the ball. Missed assignments by the defense, especially in the secondary, seemed to be the flavor of the week along with a slew of unforced turnovers from the offense. Yesterday though the defense played incredibly well for three and a half quarters I thought against a very talented Irish team that is rightfully ranked in the top five. They showed off the black watch jerseys to honor the 80’s defense and they lived up to their legacy.
2. Offense is Coming Along
The offense looked rough in the first half totaling only 15 total yards on the ground including a -4 yards passing. The negative yardage was mostly trying to get playmakers in space with screens that ND sniffed out. There were a few downfield misses by Sims to wide open receivers but he was overthrowing them. That’s probably explained by his youth than anything else. The backfield talent that GT has can’t possibly be contained forever so we will see how the rest of the year plays out.
3.Special Teams are still a problem.
After watching the field goal attempt yesterday I didn’t think I could possibly leave out that the Jackets are 1-6 on attempted field goals for the year. That just can’t continue at that pace. I don’t have an answer for how to fix it at all but this attempt wasn’t blocked and I’ll just leave it at that.
The best thing to take from Saturday is that this team didn’t quit for the entire game. National ranking aside it genuinely felt like these guys could win this game, and that was even after it got away from them in the second quarter. There is still a very long way to go but this game had signs of improvement and not the normal here we go again feeling of games like Syracuse and Boston College.