*sigh*
Welcome to the 2026 season I guess.
Game Recap in Three Sentences
Down by just one point, Birr’s FG attempt as time expired was blocked.
The run game was a massive disparity: the Buffs rushed for 181 yards compared to Tech’s paltry 51.
The field position battle was a losing one all evening with Colorado’s first TD coming on a short field and Tech’s punting leaving a lot to be desired.
Above The Line of the Week
- Bert Mendoza. Looking solid in his first college start, he made a few really nice plays and (more importantly) very few mistakes. I was impressed with his pocket awareness and scrambling, and only one throw made me nervous (though it was a sick completion). Now if only we could get him an offensive line.
- FaceTime. As a new first-time homeowner, being able to get my dad’s remote eyeballs on something is an indispensable power.
- Rahkeem Smith. Wanna see me run to that endzone and back? Wanna see me do it again?
Broken Record of the Week
I didn’t expect to have to bring this back up so early in the season but for the 10th time in the last few years: we should pay a semi-competent
and aware student $1k per season to stand next to Key and tell him how clocks and timeouts work. Clock Kid. Timekeeper Supreme. Clock Executive Officer. Mr Ticks. Senior Clock Solutions Architect. Watch Warden. Timeout Enforcement and Clock Helper. Johnny on the Clock. Let them pick their own title as long as they can count backwards from three and understand the linear nature of time.
5 Star (7 Star, 5 Star) Developmental Program Haiku of the Week
The clock, it tick-tocks
Enemy of life and Key
Prime nights wasted, gone
Inches
Seven of our last 14 games have been decided by one score. Two more games last year were one-score late in the fourth quarter. Two more were one-score at some point in the third quarter. Take out Gardner-Webb and Temple and that leaves us with a whopping one comfortable game against a P4 opponent (Syracuse) in over a year. Oh yeah, and our last four games of 2024 were also one-scores so now that’s five in a row. Granted, you’d also have to go back to 2024 VT to find the last time we lost a not-really close P4 game so that’s the flip side of the blood pressure coin. One of my friends has told me his mom always used to say “you only have to tune into the last four minutes of a basketball game” and I’m finding that increasingly true about Georgia Tech football.
Would I trade this for more one-sided games but the same overall record? I’m not really sure. On the one hand it would certainly be an easier existence as a fan; it would also make my side-side-gig of sideline photography easier if I wasn’t constantly riding an emotional roller coaster – sometimes it’d be nice to just zone out and take pictures. On the other hand though I’d probably feel worse about the overall direction of the program if we lost multiple 20 point games in a season, even if it meant a few more 20 point wins. I think I might just have to make peace with how we do things because it doesn’t look like it’s gonna change anytime soon. Right now I’m sort of still deluding myself into thinking that being this close in so many games means we’re just inches away from taking the next step to more wins, but I’m second-guessing that way of thinking more and more. It’s not time to panic quite yet, though I feel a heightened sense of urgency around seeing something improve soon.
The biggest question right now is probably: how much of Thursday night can be blamed on it being the first game of the season? Are the OL issues explained by last minute changes and communication issues, in which case we can expect relatively quick improvement? Are we still fleshing out our offensive identity, in which case we can expect adjustments and tweaks before Tennessee? The first game is always gonna have jitters, process gaps, and stuff you just don’t find out until real in-game snaps; can we work through those problems quickly? Can we clean up the small things like penalties, clock management, and missed assignments and turn a tossup game of inches into at least a 70/30 game with wiggle room?
Look Ahead
Up next is Tennessee (9/12, 7:00pm). I feel extremely bad about this one. They’re gonna be a lot better than Colorado, especially on the lines. It’s gonna take a hell of an effort to pull this one off unless a completely different Tech team shows up. Certainly we need the offensive line to transform themselves this week to have any chance.
Stay tuned for 35mm pics from the sidelines coming later today or tomorrow!
