Some trends for Georgia Tech going into their game against Notre Dame.
We’re officially over the halfway point for the 2024 CFB season and Notre Dame’s sixth opponent is Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are having a pretty solid go of things this year. They’re 5-2 overall and 3-2 against ACC opponents.
One of the cool things about this stage of the season is that there’s enough data to actually chart trends and see interesting things.
Let’s see how things have been going for Georgia Tech.
Season Summary
Hopes were pretty high coming off of that win over Florida State (bless their hearts) to start things off. But along the way they’ve dropped a close game to Syracuse had a much more size-able loss to Louisville. Georgia Tech is averaging a +12 point differential per game and all but two of its game have been decided by differentials of 10 or less. The Georgia State (+23) and VMI (+52) games are the big outliers.
Offensive Summary
Statistically, their worst offensive outing was in game 1 against Florida State when they had 336 yards of total offense. Their passing yards per game distribution is pretty close to a neat Bell Curve. But Tech was doing slightly better in the early part. They had 146 passing yards against Florida State and hit a peak of 382 yards against VMI. Last week, Georgia Tech only had 134 yards through the air against North Carolina. The accuracy has definitely been there but they hit a season floor 52% completion rate in their last game.
Things have been a little sporadic with Georgia Tech’s rushing production. Things were strong in the first two games but then hit a three game slouch. Make what you want of the 190 yard game against VMI. But against ACC opponents’ Duke and North Carolina they’ve been crushing. They had 245 rushing yards against Duke and that number jumped up to 371 against North Carolina. Average yards per carry have followed the same general path.
Rushing Details
The Yellow Jackets rushing group is led by running back Jamal Haynes. He’s got 536 rushing yards so far, with a 5.6 yard per carry average and seven touchdowns on the ground. Transfer quarterback Haynes King is the #2 for rushing production. He comes from Texas A&M and this season he’s got 62 carries for 353 yards. He’s averaging 5.7 yards per carry and has six rushing touchdowns. It’ll be a day for rushing quarterbacks. At this stage Riley Leonard has 65 attempts for 405 yards with eight rushing touchdowns.
Sophomore running back Chad Alexanders has recorded 36 carries for 202 yards and 5.6 yards per carry.
Receiving Details
Senior Malik Rutherford and sophomore Eric Singleton Jr. are the Yellow Jackets #1 and #2 receivers. Rutherford has 40 receptions for 509 yards and Singleton Jr. has pulled in 30 catches for 399 yards. Senior tight end Avery Boyd is the main tight end and has 14 receptions for 180 yards. Georgia Tech pulled in another Texas A&M transfer, Chase Lane back in 2023. This season Lane has 13 catches for 159 yards.
Defensive Summary
Georgia Tech is allowing an average of 224 passing yards through Week 7. Syracuse hit them for 381 passing yards and they held VMI to 92 passing yards. They started off giving up a lot of rushing yards. But they got pretty stingy against VMI, Louisville and Duke before letting North Carolina rush for 201 yards last week.
Final Thoughts
This season is overachieving in the chaos category and I honestly can’t keep up. Down is up and up is down. It’s hard to not root for this Notre Dame team and the sport’s disarray keeps creating opportunities for ND. But there’s been a long string of unfortunate events that make it hard to set high expectations for rest of the season.
The Yellow Jacket offense puts up points and their rushing game is picking up steam. Fortunately, the Irish’s veteran defensive linemen are showing more results. I’ll always hype up this defense but the secondary has really been through the ringer and a pass-lite game from Tech is welcomed. I really hope Benjamin Morrison heals up and shows out in the NFL
And I’m going to go out on a limb and say I’ve got confidence in Notre Dame’s offense. They’re getting it done and Georgia Tech’s defense gave up 417 yards of total offense against North Carolina. And 201 of those were rushing yards so the points should be there.
Just very peeved that we’ve gone through all of this just for there to now be valid concerns on the defensive side of things. Fortunately, watching the SEC go up in flames and conference newcomers Texas and Oregon wrecking their new homes is taking away some of the sting.
Cheers and Go Irish!!