A Look Towards the 2022 Season, Previewing the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

The Yellow Jackets will be one of two ACC squads UCF faces at home during the 2022 season.

Jack Edwards | Feb 5, 2022

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UCF will face Georgia Tech at the Bounce House on Sep. 24h, in what will be the fourth game of the season for the Knights. Georgia Tech has been abysmal to say the least under Head Coach Geoff Collins, having won exactly three games in each of his three seasons at the helm, a combined 9-25 during his tenure. These two teams faced off in 2020 in Atlanta with UCF coming out on top 49-21. While this game likely will not add much to UCF’s strength of schedule, it is still a Power Five opponent and cannot be taken lightly.

The Running Game

The staple of Georgia Tech’s offense is the running game, as they ran the ball on 76.9% of their offensive snaps last season. After years of running the triple option under former Head Coach Paul Johnson, the Yellow Jackets are trying to transition to a more traditional offense, and part of that transition requires running the ball—a lot. However, even with how frequently they run the ball, the Yellow Jackets did not crack the top 50 in rushing yards per game last season, checking in at 57th in the country with 168.9 yards per game.

Georgia Tech ran the ball 444 times last year in total, but that is because the offense could not convert on third downs, converting only 35.4% of the time on third down—that it did not become an efficient offense – last year. The Yellow Jackets had five players rush over 60 times last season, two of which were quarterbacks. Their two leading rushers were Jahmyr Gibbs and Jordan Mason, totaling 746 and 439 yards, respectively. Gibbs was Georgia Tech’s biggest weapon, but he transferred to Alabama.

Jeff Sims

UCF has struggled in the recent past to contain dual threat quarterbacks, and Jeff Sims certainly fits that description. He has certainly not lived up to his four-star rating out of high school yet, but he has shown flashes of the tools that got him ranked so highly. His ability to keep plays alive is a nuisance to many teams, and UCF will need to find a way to keep his legs under control. With UCF’s recent transfer portal acquisitions, they will likely have the speed they need to contain him. If the Knights can figure out a way to not let him extend plays, they should have a solid shot at shutting down the Yellow Jacket offense.

His passing stats were not too eye-popping last year even with his ability to evade pass rushers, as he threw for just 1466 yards and 12 touchdowns while throwing seven interceptions. He missed four games last season due to injury. In addition to being able to extend passing plays, Sims also rushed for 372 yards and four touchdowns, averaging 5.3 yards per carry last season.

Defense

Frankly, there are not many positive things to say about Georgia Tech’s defense. It ranked 117th out of 130 FBS teams in total defense, allowing a whopping 455.2 yards per contest, including 6.61 yards per play. It gave up 33.5 points per game, 110th in the FBS. On top of that, this offseason they really did not do much to address the defense. There are a pair of safeties coming in via the transfer portal, as well as a small selection of incoming freshmen for the defensive unit next year for the Yellow Jackets, but it is going to take a lot for them to get their defense where they want it to be.

Final Thoughts

Realistically, UCF should win this game comfortably, especially if they can get the home crowd rocking early. With the new talent UCF Head Football Coach Gus Malzahn has brought in at multiple positions, and a whole lot of experience across the board for the Knights, both the offensive and defensive units should theoretically have a field day against a struggling ACC team. They will need to follow their assignments and not play down to their competition in order to win in the fashion that they would like to.

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