Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Preview 2022: Season Prediction, Breakdown, Key Games, Players
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Preview 2022: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Georgia Tech season with what you need to know and keys to the season.
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Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Preview
Head Coach: Geoff Collins, 4th year at Georgia Tech, 9-25
6th year overall, 24-35, 2021 Preview
2021 Record: Overall: 3-9, Conference: 2-6
Keys To The Season | Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Top 10 Players | Georgia Tech Schedule & Analysis
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Preview 2022
Georgia Tech should be a whole lot better than this.
It seems like 50 years ago when the program was hanging around in the ACC Championship – going in 2012 and 2014 – and the idea of simply going bowling feels like it’s 50 miles away after three straight three-win seasons under head coach Geoff Collins.
Even worse than the lack of wins are the lack of competitive performances. Since the last year of the Paul Johnson era in 2018, 22 of the last 29 losses were by double digits.
Closing out last season losing to Notre Dame and Georgia by a combined score of 100-0 didn’t help.
It’s not for the lack of trying. Collins had to change the program around from being designed for the triple-option to a more balanced attack to now more of a pro-style version, but that’s the offense. The defense should’ve been better from the start.
Collins knows how to coach – the guy took Temple to two straight bowl games and 15 wins in two seasons before taking over the Yellow Jacket job – but his team needs to catch a break.
Big changes in the coaching staff are a part of the last gasp push, and several gets from the transfer portal will help, but it’s still a reboot four years in.
Considering all the changes and the nasty schedule, it’s going to take something big for there to be a Year Five.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Preview 2022: Offense
The old option offense might not have always been perfect, but it took control of games and gave defenses something to worry about. The offense over the last three years hasn’t been anything to lose sleep over.
Last year the O was 93rd in the nation, averaged 24 points pr game, and it couldn’t keep the chains moving. But there are positives.
The offense is still full of promising young parts, offensive coordinator Chip Long knows how to get an attack moving, and …
The Yellow Jackets have a gamer at quarterback. Jeff Sims can run, he has two years of experience, and he has shown enough flashes to think he’s ready to break out as an all-around playmaker if he can keep the interceptions down. Akron transfer Zach Gibson should push for the No. 2 job, but this is Sims’ offense.
Leading receiver Malachi Carter is a pro prospect and needs to be used more – he led the team with 37 catches for 489 yards and two scores. Combined with Kalani Norris – a promising deep threat who averaged 17 yards per grab on his eight tackles – there’s speed at receiver.
The offensive front has to replace three starters, but help is on the way for a group that gave up too many plays in the backfield and only pushed for 169 rushing yards per game. Pierce Quick is a possible starting tackle coming in from Alabama, Paul Tchio is a guard option from Clemson, RJ Adams is coming in for the interior from Kentucky, and Corey Robinson is a tackle option from Kansas.
Now they need to block for the promising group of backs.
Leading rusher Jahmyr Gibbs bolted for Alabama. It doesn’t help that second-leading rusher Jordan Mason is off trying to become a San Francisco 49er, but Dontae Smith averaged 5.6 yards per carry and Louisville Transfer Hassan Hall is a going to be a factor. Getting Dylan McDuffie from Buffalo will help.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Preview 2022: Defense
The offense gets all the attention because that’s what’s been the biggest change over the last few years, but the defense was bad and it needs to make huge strides. It was 11th in the ACC, couldn’t hold up against the run, and it was dead last in America in pass efficiency defense.
It doesn’t help to lose top tackler linebacker Quez Jackson and safety Juanyeh Thomas to the NFL and the best ends – Jordan Dominick to Arkansas and Jared Ivey to Ole Miss.
There’s rebuilding to do.
So what do the Yellow Jackets have back that works? 232-pound senior Ayinde Eley is a good tackler in the middle of the linebacking corps, and outside linebacker Charlie Thomas is back after leading the team with ten tackles for loss. They need to be the veteran rock in the 4-2-5 alignment.
There’s size to rotate around on the interior of the line, and the hope is for former Old Dominion star pass rusher Keion White to blow up on one end after suffering an ankle injury last year.
The secondary is getting instant help with corners Eric Reed from Auburn and Kenny Bennett from Maryland. Former Notre Dame safety transfer Derrick Allen and Michigan corner transfer Myles Sims need to rise up for a secondary that generated at grand total of one of the defenses’s three interceptions.
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Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats NEXT
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: Key To The 2022 Offense
Move … the … chains.
It’s basic, but Georgia Tech has to start to take control of games again.
Back when the O was rocking and rolling under Paul Johnson, the option attack managed to own the clock, go on long, deliberate drives by owning third downs, and everything else flowed from there. When the offense struggled on third downs – like in 2015 – it all fell apart in a clunker of a campaign.
Being well above 40% on third down conversions was the norm under Johnson, but Georgia Tech has failed to get there in two of the last three seasons. Under 36% in seven of the last ten games last season, the offense has to stay on the field, and the defense has to …
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: Key To The 2022 Defense
Take … the ball … away.
The offense isn’t going to light it up on a regular basis, but it can and should be functional. The defense has to give that O as many breaks as possible, and it has to create its own positive plays.
Georgia Tech forced multiple turnovers three times last year. It force three takeaways against Kennesaw State, North Carolina, and Miami – two of the three wins on the year – and just four in the other nine games.
The biggest problem was a secondary that generated just one interception – the other two came from LB Charlie Thomas. There were two picks against Kennesaw State, one against Duke, and that was it for the nation’s least efficient pass defense.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: Key Player To The 2022 Season
QB Jeff Sims, Soph.
Name your player on either line who needs to step up and rock, and coming up with a big performer in the secondary would be great. However, the Yellow Jackets need Sims to be a bigger difference-maker … and healthy.
He was strong in the midseason, but he missed most of the first few games and missed the last three. He wasn’t always accurate, and he’s had a problem in his first two years with picks, he’s got the tools and talent to go along with the experience. With so many moving parts – and a new style of attack – it’s up to him to carry the team.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: Key Transfer
RB Hassan Hall, Jr.
Jahmyr Gibbs is projected as a possible first round draft pick in 2023, but the team’s star running back is now doing his thing for Alabama. Dontae Smith is a good veteran back, but the Yellow Jacket offense needs more options and more pop to the ground game without Gibbs.
Buffalo transfer Dylan McDuffie will help – he ran for 1,049 yards and 11 touchdowns last year for the Bulls – and Hall is a reliable four-year veteran who ran for close to 1,300 yards for Louisville. This is his chance to breakout.
Georgia Tech Key Game To The 2022 Season
at UCF, Sept. 24
There are several ACC games that matter, but in terms of building up a better season and push for something decent – like a bowl game – coming up with early wins is a must. With Clemson, Ole Miss, and a trip to Pitt within the first five games, lose to UCF and it will likely be a 1-4 start – with the lone win coming against Western Carolina – without a big upset.
There are winnable dates on the slate, but coming up with four wins in the final seven games might be doable with a few breaks. Winning five of the last seven isn’t with four of the last five games on the road.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: 2021 Fun Stats
– 1st half scoring: Opponents 245 – Georgia Tech 143
– Red Zone TDs: Opponents 31-of-51 (61%) – Georgia Tech 18-of-37 (49%)
– Interceptions: Opponents 10 (returned for 154 yards) – Georgia Tech 3 for six yards
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Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Season Prediction, What Will Happen NEXT
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Season Prediction, What Will Happen
It’s so frustrating.
Head coach Geoff Collins is trying everything to get this thing going in the post-Paul Johnson era, but nothing is working.
The offense has been mediocre, the defense has been struggling, and even though the fight is there the results just haven’t come through over his first three seasons at the helm.
And even after all the effort to build back up, the program is in yet another reboot to try getting it all going.
There’s going to be a good starting 22, and this might just be a sneaky-tough team pulls off something big here and there, but for some bizarre reason the powers-that-be decided not to schedule a slew of winnable games.
Set The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Regular Season Win Total At … 3.5
Western Carolina. That’s it for the easy non-conference schedule.
If you’re, say, Duke, you make sure Temple and North Carolina A&T are on the slate along with manageable Power Five dates against Northwestern and Kansas.
If you’re, say, Boston College, and you have to play Notre Dame because of the ACC ties, then you make sure there’s Maine and UConn to play to go along with a 50/50 challenge against Rutgers.
Georgia Tech? It knows it has that date against Georgia at the end of the year, so it made sure it had a slew of bankable wins scheduled, right?
Ole Miss, at UCF. Those are the other two non-conference games to go along with Western Carolina and Georgia.
If that wasn’t enough of a problem, how’s this for a finishing kick of a final six games?
At Florida State, at Virginia Tech, Miami, at North Carolina, and them comes the trip to Georgia.
Oh yeah, and Georgia Tech gets Clemson from the Atlantic to start the season.
There will be an upset, and winning at home against Virginia and/or Miami is certainly possible, but this promising team that really should be stronger has too high an uphill climb of a schedule to overcome.
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Georgia Tech Top 10 Players | Schedule & Analysis
