In what was honestly just a rough game to watch in general for Georgia Tech against Virginia, the Yellow Jackets’ defense stood tall and gave them multiple chances to win which is all you can ask for from that side of the ball.
The Tech offense continued to put their defense in bad spots with field position as well as around seven three-and-outs in a row in the second half Thursday night. Even with that, the defense fought hard and bent without breaking, caused turnovers, and even scored the only touchdown of the night for Tech on a pick-six from LaMiles Brooks.
Ayinde Eley, commonly known as “Ace”, has been a veteran presence in the middle of that unit at linebacker making sure his guys are on the same page. He leads the Jackets in total tackles at 71, which puts him in a tie for 14th in the FBS with that number being good for second in the ACC. The linebackers in general have been all over the field flying around for Tech this season and much of that can be credited to the coaching of Jason Semore as well as improved DL play.
Aside from that, Ace also has an incredibly inspiring story making the fact that he is even playing football astonishing. A sideline reporter talked about it during the Duke game, so if you have not heard that you should definitely go rewatch the game and listen to it.
The talent has always been there for Ace, and the defense being in the right spots more often than last season's alignment wise of course contributes to his increased level of play. Regardless of this one of the biggest improvements this year for him is his vocal leadership as a veteran on the team. Interim HC Brent Key had a lot to say about this highlighting a motivational message Ace gave to the offense trying to help get them going against the Hoos.
“Leadership isn’t about being the nice guy, it isn’t fun. True leaders step up and speak out and voice their opinions. Sometimes they aren’t always right, but they have the confidence in themselves to step up and say those things. I challenged our team that leadership cannot be one sided. It can’t be offense vs defense; practice is one thing when it’s offense vs defense,” Key said about his challenge to the team. “But when you get everyone together, no one should have an issue if Ace walks over to the other sideline and tells an offensive player that he’s not doing things the way we do them here. I’ve been very fortunate to be on some great teams, and there was no separation of leadership. Combined leadership is what made both sides of the football when one side was down and not playing as well, it’s not going and dog cussing them. It’s motivating them to get it right, and that’s what Ace Eley did Thursday night. That’s what Ace did, he came over to the offensive huddle and did that. That’s respect right there.”
Ace himself talked about the collective effort that leadership is and echoed Key’s sentiment in that he would hope the offensive guys would do the same if the defense needed it.
“It’s our team, to me it’s not me going to the offensive side or to the offensive territory. It’s just me talking to my teammates, me trying to spark my teammates and everything. I would hope they would do the same to me or to the defensive side, it’s just a collective effort,” Ace said. “You gotta pick each other up when somebody is out there struggling or having a rough time. It takes everybody to pick somebody up, that’s all it is it’s just a team thing.”
When looking at the reasoning behind the improvement of the defense after the Ole Miss game, tightening up their run fits and improving in that arena has been a huge part of that for the Jackets. Ace credits it to a step up in level of execution with room to grow still.
“I feel like I can just give it to execution. I feel like we took the next step in execution, and there is more that we can be better at and execute, but I feel like after that game we took a jump in execution. It’s just executing more, everybody being in the right spot at the same time. So, I grant that as a key to our success so far.” Ace said on the defense’s improvement.
Even with a good performance defensively despite the loss, there are always things to correct and learn from. Ace mentioned that attention to detail and the little things are what the Jackets are focused on correcting the most.
“Just little stuff, those little plays where [you’re] a couple of steps away, or we missed a play here [and] a play there. Just the little stuff corrections that you see every game, just wanna minimize those plays where you’re one step away or those plays that could’ve went either way just an inch here and there. Just minimizing those 50/50 plays.” Ace said.
Part of being able to correct these things in practice is the way you approach it. Key has the team focused on making practice reps feel like game reps in the sense that all those little things matter every single rep you take regardless of on the practice field or while in a game.
“Just take every rep like it’s a game rep. You try to take every rep like it’s a game rep whether it’s a Tuesday, Wednesday, [you] just try to put yourself in that game-like mentality. You can’t really replicate the stadium and the vibe, but you try to minimize that gap between practice and the game whether that’s speed, processing stuff, or just how you go about your business so you can practice like it’s the game as much as possible.” Ace said on the team’s mentality.
Ace credits his improvement this year to working hard, doing things the right way, and doing whatever it takes to help his team win. He is going to have to put it all on the line as well as the rest of the defense this week facing the challenge of going up against Jordan Travis, Florida State’s talented and versatile QB. FSU loves to run the ball whether it is with their stable of RBs or with Travis, and he has the arm to beat you as well which will make defending them rather difficult.
In addition to FSU’s ability to put up points, Ace and the rest of the defense may have to pick up the slack for their own offense once again this week. Tech’s QB situation is very uncertain and if last week is any sign of how things will go against FSU, it will be a struggle to consistently move the ball downfield. We will see whether that happens again this week, and if the Jackets’ defense can keep them in it while the offense tries to figure it out when they travel to Doak Campbell Stadium to take on the Noles at noon on Saturday.
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