Georgia Tech trying to break disastrous slide against Power 5 opponents

For Georgia Tech, the focus is no longer solely on its last football game, a 42-0 hammering at home by No. 20 Ole Miss on Saturday, but on what has transpired over the Yellow Jackets’ last four games against Power 5 opponents.

Georgia Tech has been outscored by an almost unfathomable margin of 183-10. The Yellow Jackets ended last season with a 55-0 loss to No. 8 Notre Dame and 45-0 thumping by No. 1 Georgia before opening this season with a 41-10 loss to No. 4 Clemson and its latest debacle against the Rebels.

Georgia Tech (1-2) isn’t winless because it knocked off Western Carolina on Sept. 10. But the Georgia Tech program will never be measured by wins over Football Championship Subdivision teams.

Coach Geoff Collins was hired to build on the success created by Paul Johnson, whose Yellow Jackets finished with a losing record just three times in his 11 seasons before Collins replaced him after the 2018 season.

Since then, Georgia Tech has gone 10-27 overall, including 7-18 in ACC play, under Collins. They didn’t play in a bowl game for the third straight season last year, something that hadn’t happened at Georgia Tech since the early 1990s. Prior to Collins’ arrival, the Yellow Jackets had played in a bowl game in 17 of the previous 19 seasons dating to 1999.

“The progression has not gone as quickly as we wanted it to,” Collins said. “The results have not shown, especially against the last four games against Power 5 competition. But there’s still work to do. These young men that are in this program are amazing. They love this institution. I love this institution. There’s nobody that’s more committed to it than me.”

But Collins also wasn’t hired merely to be committed to the Yellow Jackets. He was brought aboard to transform them into contenders for the Atlantic Coast Conference title — something they won once (2009) and also played for twice (2012, 2014) under Johnson.

If Saturday’s drubbing by Ole Miss (3-0) is any indication, Georgia Tech is closer to posting one of its worst three-season periods than it is to becoming bowl-eligible.

Ole Miss outgained Georgia Tech 547-214, including a 316-53 domination in rushing yards in which the Rebels averaged 5.1 yards every time they handed the ball off.

The Rebels led 7-0 after less than 90 seconds, 14-0 after a little more than five minutes of play and 21-0 at halftime.

“We’ve got to play harder, and we’ve got to come out with more energy,” running back Dontae Smith said.

Zach Evans, Quinshon Judkins and Ulysses Bentley each ran for two scores for the Rebels, who also blocked a punt, already the third time the Yellow Jackets have had one blocked this season.

“That was hard and not up to the standard of Georgia Tech Football, and that completely falls on me as the head football coach,” Collins said. “I thought we were prepared, I thought we had a good game plan, I thought we were ready to handle any adversity that showed. I don’t know that there are any positives to take out of that, offensively, defensively, special teams.”

Ole Miss’ fast pace, which contributed to it running 81 plays compared to Georgia Tech’s 66, was just too much for the Yellow Jackets.

“Going up against a tempo team it taps into your mental [ability],” cornerback Myles Sims said. “To be real, if your mind isn’t there, your body will follow — that comes along with conditioning and being able to have a quick turnover rate. When you’re going up against a tempo team, it’s all about who can gain their wins the fastest. That’s pretty much it.”

Georgia Tech now heads to Orlando for Saturday’s 4 p.m. game against Central Florida, which is a 20-point favorite and coming off a 40-14 win over Florida Atlantic on Saturday.

The Yellow Jackets have nine games left this season to change how they’ll be remembered.

Georgia Tech’s nine combined wins from 2019-2021 are its fewest in a three-year span since going 8-24 from 1980-1982 in Bill Curry’s first three seasons. Georgia Tech won six games from 1979-1981.

Georgia Tech last won fewer than three games in a season in 1994. The Yellow Jackets finished 1-10 in a year in which Bill Lewis resigned after a 1-7 start and then-defensive coordinator George O’Leary finished the season 0-3.

“It is tough to stand up in front of a group of men that you love, that you care about, that you are so deeply invested in, invested so deeply into a place and then to not get the result that you want,” Collins said. “To go up there and be the voice that it all falls on and it all falls on me and I will wear it and I will take it.”