14 - 13 There was a quiet fear that many Georgia Tech fans didn’t want to talk about. Lose to Colorado, and with Tennessee looming, Georgia Tech could be losers of 6 of their last 7 games. That’s a 1 – 6 record. 1 – 6 records put coaches on the hot seat. Now Georgia Tech has yet to play Tennessee, but 1 – 5 is still the record of the last 6 games, and that’s dreadful. Brent Key is not on the hot seat. I’m not saying that; he’s earned a mulligan season. He might be coaching one, but the momentum of the post-Collins era is gone.
Every bit of momentum Brent Key had has evaporated. Make no mistake, Georgia Tech is in rebuild mode. Thursday night, the George Godsey OC experiment looked like a failure. The offensive line played their worst game of the Key era. Colorado looked more physical, tougher, and better. Godsey’s play calling was tentative and uncreative. I don’t have a problem with kicking a FG up 3 late in the game, but when you play call to setup for a FG as the intent, you will lose. That was frankly a gutless sequence by Key and Godsey. The problem wasn’t at QB either, as Alberto Mendoza looked pretty good, but the wide receivers appeared limited at best overall.
When Georgia Tech was 8 – 0, last year they looked like a team on the rise. Since then, the reality is Georgia Tech has again become a bottom-tier ACC team. Lose at NC State, barely beat a wretched Boston College, blown out at home by Pittsburgh, lose to your rival again in Georgia, lose the bowl, now lose to a Colorado team many think will struggle to make a bowl. That undefeated start seems like a million years ago.
Could this be an overreaction? Maybe there’s an upset of the Vols. It’s only 1 game after all, but it’s not just 1 game. It’s the equivalent of half a season of what’s becoming increasingly bad football in Atlanta.
Sure, you never know until the games are played, but Thursday night’s version of Georgia Tech looked light-years away from being even a bowl-caliber team.
