UCF football: 3 takeaways from season-opening win over Georgia Tech
By Riley Platt
2. Georgia Tech’s offense decimated by turnovers
Georgia Tech was on a roll coming their matchup with UCF. Last week, the Yellow Jackets put together a scrappy road win against a favored Florida State team. This also served as freshman quarterback Jeff Sims’ debut, where he made some bad decisions, but came up clutch when it mattered.
Today served as our second look at the Jacksonville native quarterback, and he once again showed potential, but also made mistakes. Sims only completed half of his passes, throwing for a touchdown and two interceptions. He has so much potential, but his decision-making is really holding him back. This is by no means an attack on the guy. He’s a freshman and there are going to be bumps along the way. With some better discipline, Sims could easily soon be one of the best quarterbacks in the ACC.
While two interceptions certainly isn’t what you’re going for, it’s not necessarily a death sentence. It was the timing of these turnovers that truly hurt this team. They would kill the confidence that he had built up through his positive plays, negatively affecting his psyche.
In addition to this, the Yellow Jackets coughed up the ball four times, losing three of those fumbles. It’s hard to win any football game with five turnovers, so this is definitely something you can’t do if you want to take down a talented squad like UCF.
Turnovers would a big aspect in Georgia Tech’s win against Florida State last week. Despite two interceptions by Sims, they were still able to sneak out a win in Tallahassee. However, the Yellow Jackets are going to have to get these turnover numbers down if they want to reach their full potential in 2020.