ATLANTA (AP) -The true measure of Georgia Tech’s spread option offense can be found in more than the team’s average yards and points per game.
Check out the Yellow Jackets’ punting statistics.
Georgia Tech ranks last in the Atlantic Coast Conference with only 17 punts in six games. The closest team in fewest punts is Miami, with 19 in five games. Six teams have 30 or more punts.
Georgia Tech’s Chandler Anderson had no punts in the Yellow Jackets’ 49-44 win at Florida State last week. It was the first time Georgia Tech did not punt in a game since Nov. 9, 2000 against Virginia.
It was a bonus bye week for Anderson.
“He’s fine, well-rested,” said coach Paul Johnson with a smile when asked about his punter on Tuesday.
Florida State had only one punt in the shootout as the teams combined for 1,071 yards.
Johnson insists it’s not so unusual to make it through a game without a punt. The coach, in his second season at Georgia Tech after six years at Navy, said he’s seen it before.
e went three games without a punt one time. My last year there I think we punted 16 times in a season.”
Navy actually had 24 punts in 2007, its low total in Johnson’s six seasons.
Georgia Tech is on pace to finish well below its 47 punts in 13 games last season.
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HAPPY ANNIVERSARY DABO: Tuesday was just another day for Clemson coach Dabo Swinney until his wife reminded him it was Oct. 13, one year to the day he became the Tigers interim head coach.
“Wow,” Swinney said a few hours later. “I took a moment to kind of ponder that this morning, to think about that and what a crazy day and year it has been.”
Swinney’s first full season has been tough. Clemson is just 2-3 and has had to defend his relationship with his assistants and denies that he frequently overrules plays called by offensive coordinator Billy Napier.
But Swinney said even on his darkest days he loves his job and the school that took a chance on him.
“It frustrates me, because I am not a very patient guy. I want to win right now, I want to be 5-0, dadgum, that’s just my mentality,” Swinney said. “But I also look at it and I say, you know what, we’re going to accomplish a lot of things and we’re doing it right.”
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SURGING SIMPSON: After a slow start for Virginia’s running game, Mikell Simpson is leading a resurgence and turning into the kind of tailback coach Al Groh loves to utilize.
Simpson ran for 100 yards two weeks ago in a victory against North Carolina and had 83 yards and four touchdowns last week as Virginia manhandled Indiana, 47-7. He left the game on a stretcher after a hard hit, but was released from the hospital later that evening.
His status is uncertain for Saturday at Maryland, but no one knows better than the Terrapins what a dynamic back Simpson can be. He splashed onto the scene there two years ago, totaling 271 yards (119 rushing, 152 on 13 receptions) and winning the game at the end.
Groh said he’s seeing signs that the 6-foot-1, 200-pound senior is returning to his old form.
“When he makes good, quick decisions, that’s when he runs in the fashion in which he has been running,” Groh said this week. “I’m not sure he really has an answer to it, either, but he got away from that type of definitive cutting last year.”
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FIELD DAY: North Carolina State has plenty of things to blame for its lopsided loss to Duke. The new grass at Carter-Finley Stadium isn’t one of them.
The freshly sodded surface held up well in rainy conditions despite being in place for less than a week. As planned, the field was replaced after a U2 concert was held there on Oct. 3.
“That thing was in there tight, which they said it was,” coach Tom O’Brien said. “I was really scared – I think we all were – because a perfect storm was coming. We got a ton of rain. I don’t know if because it was packed so hard that it would have drained or it would have come loose. But we escaped and it’ll certainly be ready” for the rest of the season.
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DAILY DOUBLE: Virginia Tech left guard Sergio Render day last Saturday got even better after he left Lane Stadium following the Hokies’ 48-14 win against Boston College.
The avid hunter and fisherman from Newnan, Ga., headed for Ellett Valley, a Blacksburg, Va., suburb, with a crossbow – and venison on his mind.
“I got in the woods around 5:10 (p.m.) and shot my first deer at like 5:45,” said the 6-foot-3, 313-pound senior. “It was a great day to beat Boston College and kill my first deer (of the season) the same day.”
Render took the deer to get processed and looks forward to feasting on his kill.
“I should be having some steaks and some burgers and some roasts here soon,” he said.
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Associated Press Writer Jeffrey Collins in Clemson, S.C., and AP Sports Writers Hank Kurz Jr. in Charlottesville, Va., and Blacksburg, Va., and Joedy McCreary in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.
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