Jackets avenge loss to Irish

The opening weekend of the season gave the Jackets a good opportunity to introduce everyone to the new offensive coordinator John Bond. Tech's new coach added many new facets to the Jackets' offense in compiling 386 total yards on their way to a 33-3 victory over Notre Dame in South Bend, IN.

"We wanted to challenge [Notre Dame] to throw the football. We're going to blitz you, and I don't care who you are. We felt like the challenge was to stop the run game, and force [Notre Dame] to throw the ball well enough to beat us," said Head Coach Chan Gailey.

Senior running back Tashard Choice began his Heisman campaign in a big way on the national stage by running for 196 yards on 26 carries with two touchdowns. Choice was successful running out of the shotgun all game long, including a 22 yard touchdown run at the end of the first half.

"As long as the offensive line and Mike Cox [block], I'll be able to [have a big game] every week. They work their tails off to allow me to do what I do best," Choice said.

Defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta confused all three of Notre Dame's quarterbacks all day long with blitz schemes that kept Tech defenders in the Irish backfield seemingly all day long. The Jackets held Notre Dame to just 122 yards total, and -9 yards rushing. The Jackets also picked up a total of nine sacks, and forced three turnovers, all fumbles coming off of quarterback sacks.

"You never want anybody to run the ball on you. Once we established the line of scrimmage, it opened up our blitz packages and allowed guys to come through and make big plays," Tenuta said.

Early on, the Irish tried to exploit Tech's defense using their speedy quarterback Demetrious Jones with an offensive scheme similar to the one that West Virginia used to gash the Jackets defense for over 442 yards of total offense. While Jones was able to pick up a few yards mostly on sweeps to the left, it was clear that the tandem of Demtrious Jones and Travis Thomas was not comparable to that of West Virginia's Pat White and Steve Slaton.

After replacing Jones with junior Evan Sharpley, Irish head coach Charlie Weis fell back on his more traditional offense that had given him success the past two years and with the Patriots. While Sharpley was more accurate as a passer in completing 10 of 13 passes, the Irish only picked up 92 yards through the air, and Sharpley was sacked seven times by a swarming Tech defense.

The leaders on defense for the Jackets were seniors Jamal Lewis and Daryl Robertson. Lewis had eight tackles total with one forced fumble and one sack. Lewis was seen blitzing from several angles out of the secondary all game long.

Robertson had six tackles, with half of them going for a loss. He also recovered a fumble late in the game, and picked up 1.5 sacks.

On special teams, Jackets' kicker Travis Bell hit four of five field goals. All of them were attempted within 40 yards. Early on, Tech struggled to punch the ball into the end zone which led to four first quarter field goals attempts. Punter Durant Brooks saw limited action in the game, but performed well in averaging 46 yards. Two of his punts were inside of the 20 yard line.

On another note, freshman kickoff specialist Scott Blair was able to help the special teams in a big way. Last season, the Jackets struggled on kickoffs, allowing opponents to get good starting field position often. Against Notre Dame, the Irish never started one drive past the 31 yard line on kicks that he booted deep even with the tee moving back from the 35 to the 30 yard line this season.

Prior to the game, Weis and the team had yet to announce a starter at quarterback. The team had decided to withold the information from the general public until game time. The competition fell to junior Demetrius Jones, sophomore Evan Sharpley and freshman Jimmy Clausen. The game time announcement about the quarterback was to possibly confuse the defense and to give the Notre Dame team some advantage before the game against Tech and its coaches.

"We didn't know who it was going to be. We had practiced for whoever it was going to be," Gailey said.

Weis had to start all three quarterbacks because of an offense that was never able to start anything.

"It was three different plans. The plan we had was the plan with [Demetrius Jones]. ... [Evan Sharpley] was more of our two-minute plan and [he would] throw the ball down the field if we needed to get into that situation. We were hoping not to get into a game where we had to throw it a whole bunch of times," Weis said.

Clausen was eventually brought in at the end of the game, completying four of six passes for 34 yards. He was eventually named the starter for their next game

Tech plays Samford in its home opener tomorrow.