Behind Enemy Lines: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

First-year head coach Geoff Collins is about to get a rude welcome to the world of football in the Power 5 (ACC, BIG 10, BIG XII, PAC 12 and SEC), as the Yellow Jackets open up with the defending national champion and No. 1 ranked Clemson Tigers.

First-year head coach Geoff Collins is about to get a rude welcome to the world of football in the Power 5 (ACC, BIG 10, BIG XII, PAC 12 and SEC), as the Yellow Jackets open up with the defending national champion and No. 1 ranked Clemson Tigers.

But the former Temple head coach is not wasting any time griping about the hand the ACC dealt him, instead he is embracing the opportunity that lies in front of his team.

"We’ve gone up to the Westin (hotel in Atlanta), so we practiced what we do in the hotel the night before the games," Collins said. "We practice how we wake up in the morning and do our kinesthetic awareness. Our special team walk-throughs, our O and D walk-throughs. We’ve practiced our pregame meal, our chair drill. There’s a lot of things a lot of times you can just take for granted when you’re coming into a new situation with new processes, we wanted to make sure we spend an inordinate amount of time going through our rituals and going through our routines so that when we get to Clemson on Thursday night.

"The environment is going to be great, College Gameday is going to be there, and obviously it is a special environment against a great team, great players, great coaches and a great fan base, but we want to make sure that we’ve already done all of those things so that regardless of what environment we step into, we have a process and we have a way to do things."

Yellow Jackets on Offense: 

The task for Collins and offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Dave Patenaude is to bring the Yellow Jackets into the world of modern college football, as they embrace the spread offense.

After 11 years under triple-option guru Paul Johnson, Collins and Patenaude will attempt to recreate the success they experienced at Temple.

Under his direction, Temple put together two of the three highest single-season passing totals in school history (3,273 yards in 2017, 3,297 yards in 2018) and ranked 24th nationally in scoring offense this past season. Individually, TU running back Ryquell Armstrong ranked second in the American Athletic Conference and 14th nationally in rushing (109.8 yards per game) and wide receiver Randle Jones ranked third in the AAC and 13th nationally in yards per reception (19.35 average) this season.

If the Yellow Jackets are going to have success against Clemson defense that is expected to be one of the best in the nation, they will have to focus on one thing — themselves.

“Great deal of respect for Clemson. Great deal of respect for their players and their coaches," Collins said. "But we don’t worry about any of that. All we worry about is us and the people that will come here every single week will get bored of this answer but it’s completely true. I don’t know other than putting up what they do schematically on offense and defense — here’s their blitz patterns, here’s what they do offensively as far as formations and concepts — that’s what we talk about. We don’t really talk about our opponent much. We have a great deal of respect. We understand what a great job they’ve done with players and with coaches and recruiting and all those things, but we have to worry about us."

 Yellow Jackets on Defense:

 Also joining Collins from Temple is defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Andrew Thacker.

Thacker was promoted to Temple’s defensive coordinator in 2018 after joining Collins’ TU staff in 2017 as linebackers coach. With Thacker as coordinator, Temple’s defense scored eight defensive touchdowns (No. 1 nationally), forced 31 turnovers (No. 3 nationally), recovered 13 fumbles (No. 3 nationally) and intercepted 18 passes (No. 4 nationally.

According to Thacker, he is under no illusions as to the challenge of stopping a Tiger offense that features two Heisman trophy candidates, Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne, and a bevy of uber-talented wide receivers.

“I have to mix calls up. I can’t call the game scared … You can’t double-team everybody on every single play, so we’ve got to be us …” Thacker said. “That is our base way of our play. They are elite on the perimeter … we’re not going to be fools about having the opportunity to double.

"“They’re explosive in so many ways ... It is not a game plan where you can just take away one component."