In Georgia Tech head coach Geoff Collins’ eyes, his team’s 23-13 loss at NC State on Saturday evening proved that the Yellow Jackets are trending in the right direction.

“That’s a good team,” Collins said of NC State. “We went toe-to-toe with them the entire game.”

Ultimately, the Jackets were done by a few issues, including the Wolfpack’s receiving corps led by senior Emeka Emezie. Emezie caught six passes for 91 yards and also drew three defensive pass interference flags on Georgia Tech’s secondary.

Emezie was not alone however. Redshirt sophomore Devin Carter, fifth-year senior C.J. Riley, freshman Porter Rooks and redshirt junior Thayer Thomas all made receptions of at least 20 yards.

Overall, the Wolfpack finished Saturday with 309 passing yards.

“I even talked about it on Tuesday, that is one of the better 50/50 ball receiving corps that we’ve seen all year,” Collins noted. “They’re big in stature. They’re physical, [and] they’ve got tremendous ball skills.

“We knew it was going to be a challenge, and they made a bunch of really nice plays today, so hats off to them. But what we do around here is we are aggressive. We put corners on islands, and we’re going to continue to do that.”

Another issue that contributed to NC State’s win was Georgia Tech’s inability to get touchdowns in the red zone.

Twice the Yellow Jackets settled for short field goals inside the 10-yard line in goal-to-go situations, and two more times GT went for it on fourth down deep in Wolfpack territory, including once in the red zone, due to the lack of a reliable field goal kicker and failed to convert.

Collins noted, “Those are the things that cannot happen when you’re in this kind of a game against a really good football team.”

“I think when we go back and look at the season, and the times that we could have and should have finished in the red zone, that will be a story of a lot of the things that we will continue to work on and improve on throughout the offseason and getting ready for next year, too,” Collins added. “… We have to get better.”

Georgia Tech was missing at least three expected starters on defense and also was without its leading rusher and receiver in freshman running back Jahmyr Gibbs, but Collins noted, “We didn’t miss the guys that couldn’t go tonight.”

“It’s just next man up and guys are going to step up,” Collins added. “We’re going to support them.”

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