After starting 20 straight games at quarterback for Georgia Tech, the Jackets will have a different starter on Saturday as the team faces #12 Notre Dame in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Starter Haynes King left the Jackets' game against North Carolina with an upper body injury and was replaced by veteran Zach Pyron. Head coach Brent Key will turn to Pyron to handle the quarterback duties against the Irish on Saturday.
Pyron last started during his true freshman season against Miami one of his two career starts where he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in the third quarter of that game. Pyron is 1-1 as the Jackets' starting quarterback in his career and has appeared in every game this season as part of a short yardage package and some mop-up duty in the VMI game and the final three series of the North Carolina game last Saturday after King's injury.
During his freshman season, Pyron passed for 565 yards with a 59.8 competition percentage in roughly two full games of work at Florida State, at Virginia Tech, and at home against Miami before his shoulder injury. He threw three touchdowns and three interceptions though his third interception came after the play he broke his collarbone on against the Hurricanes and he was unaware of the break until he threw the ball that went straight up in the air due to his injury. Pyron has four rushing touchdowns this season and is 5-7 passing for 64 yards with one touchdown and zero interceptions.
He takes over for King who flipped the script on his turnover-prone first season throwing eight touchdowns with one interception while passing for almost 1,600 yards in seven games of work. King is among the leaders in the country in competition percentage at 71.2 percent and his rushing is also a key piece to Tech's offense with 353 yards rushing on 62 carries this season for a 5.7 yards per carry average.
King had started 20 straight games for the Jackets without leaving the game with an injury. That was the longest stretch of any Tech quarterback starting games since Justin Thomas started 35 consecutive games from 2014 until the Virginia Tech game in 2016.
True freshman Aaron Philo should back up Pyron at quarterback against the Irish.
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