Georgia Tech coach Brent Key: ‘We’re only at the halfway point’

Tech sits atop the ACC standings and a top-two finish there would earn it a trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, the first weekend of December to play in the ACC championship game. Winning that game would get the Jackets an automatic bid into the 12-team College Football Playoff. Being a participant in that game may be enough to make Tech an at-large selection into the postseason field.

The odds of all that transpiring, however, take a drastic hit if Tech can’t come away from North Carolina State at 7:30 p.m. Saturday with a victory.

“You wanna be in position to play games in November that mean something, challenging games against good competition, and that’s what we have in front of us. We’re very fortunate to be in the position that we’re in right now to play these games,” Key said. “We’re going into an environment up there that’s gonna be an extremely challenging environment versus a challenging team. They hadn’t got the outcome that they’ve wanted the last few weeks, but you turn the tape on and you watch ‘em play and you watch where the games are and you don’t look at the scoreboard, and it’s like I say all the time, you make your judgment based on the team and how they play.”

On the field Saturday, Tech’s defense should be on high alert against an N.C. State attack that has its fair share of legitimate weapons.

Out of the backfield, sophomore Hollywood Smothers is averaging 6.8 yards per carry on 120 attempts, is 175 yards from 1,000 for the season and has scored six touchdowns.

And when the Wolfpack get inside the 20, they’re scoring 92% of the time. Twenty of their 25 trips have resulted in a touchdown.

“(Bailey) is a freak athlete, but not just an athlete. He’s a super, super talented young man at quarterback, and I think everybody remembers last year in the game here how he was able to make plays with his feet, make plays with his arm,” Key said. “They play physical, they play tough, they play for four quarters. (Smothers) is a heckuva running back, he really is. They got good guys on the outside. Tight end is probably one of the most dangerous tight ends in the entire country.

“So when you have a good quarterback, good skill guys and a tough, physical offensive line? I think it’s a pretty good recipe to be a pretty dangerous offense. And they have all those. It’ll be a big challenge for us.”

There won’t be any wholesale changes made moving forward to maintain that unblemished mark.

“We can control how we prepare during the week; we can control how we play on Saturdays. We know we can’t control the outcome,” Key added. “We do things the right way leading up to that, we’ll be pleased with what the outcome ends up being. We don’t look at the scoreboard and say, ‘Hey, we gotta win, we gotta do this, we gotta keep from losing.’ No, it’s how we prepare, how we play, and we gotta continue to do that week in and week out, and whatever happens we’ll live with. That’s the way we take it and go about every single day.”