What to Watch For: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Louisville Needs To Capitalize On Turnovers

Paul Johnson’s option attack can be a gift or a curse. It creates a lot of big plays and can also eat up clock. However, it is highly susceptible to fumbles. A lot of fumbles. The pitch on the option has to be on the money or it’s a backwards lateral bouncing around on the ground. You also have runners who are catching a ball at full speed with defenders right on top of them. It leads to guys getting hit before or right as they’re getting the ball. Plus you have your normal bad handoffs.

Louisville will need to make plays when these opportunities present themselves. I’ve talked about this a lot this season and this game is the perfect opportunity to make a few big plays on the defensive side of the ball.

Can Louisville’s Offense Build On The FSU performance?

The Louisville offense looked the best it has looked all season against Florida State. They were able to move the ball with their short passing game. They hit some big throws and had open receivers all day long down the field. The running game found success in the second half and had a few chunk runs early. They had plenty to be happy about when it came to the offense and it looks like they will have some things settled out from a personnel standpoint.

Georgia Tech isn’t very good at stopping anything right now so Louisville should be able to attack with more balance this week. The only question will be how the offensive line plays. They looked good early on against the Noles but they were terrible when they looked to confuse them with exotic blitzes. GT can bring some similar pressures so it would be nice to see some improvements there.

Does Brian VanGorder’s Experience Against The Option Help This Week?

Georgia hired Brian VanGorder in 2016 just to come in and be a consultant for their game against Georgia Tech. BVG had coached against Paul Johnson’s triple option attack at Notre Dame and his defense played them about as well as anyone did that year. It was Johnson’s best offense since taking the job and VanGorder had a good plan to stop it.

The concern that I have is that his defense also played Navy twice during his time at ND and Navy ran all over them both times. There are differences in the schemes, but both teams are running a triple option base with a wing formation. Navy doesn’t throw the ball unless they absolutely have to and they are much more crisp in their execution. If Paul Johnson’s guys can execute at a high level, I don’t know if VanGorder’s plan works as well.

Georgia Tech’s Passing Game

Yes, you read that right. I think that Tech will look to throw the ball down the field against Louisville. They did so last week against Bowling Green and they had a lot of success. TaQuon Marshall went 5-6 and averaged 26.7 yards per attempt. Paul Johnson doesn’t have an issue with relying more on his passing game if the game calls for it so I could even see him look to open things up more and look to take advantage of a secondary that has struggled to stop anyone.

Look for Clinton Lynch and Jalen Camp to be the main targets in the passing game. Qua Searcy could be used as a de facto slot receiver that can get up the seam and either catch a pass or hold the safety to open things up for an outside receiver.