Notes: Washington looking like starter for Tech

1. Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson still wasn’t saying Tuesday who the Yellow Jackets’ starting quarterback will be Saturday against Duke.

But it wasn’t difficult to at least figure out which way he was leaning.

“The way we’re doing it has been working pretty well,” Johnson said Tuesday, speaking of the rotation with starter Tevin Washington and backup Vad Lee. “Unless something crazy happens in practice, that’s probably the way we’ll do it. We’ll see.”

The past two weeks, Washington started the first two series and then Lee played the next two. Against Maryland Nov. 3, they continued to rotate in that pattern. Against North Carolina this past Saturday, Lee played the rest of the way after leading the offense to touchdowns in his first two possessions. Tech set a school record for points in an ACC game in its 68-50 defeat of the Tar Heels.

“Vad’s got a long time to play football here, and if he plays as well as he played on Saturday and that kind of thing, then he’s going to play the majority of the snaps,” Johnson said.

Johnson noted, though, that Washington actually graded 20 points higher than Lee in the North Carolina game. Besides fighting fatigue, Lee made mistakes in reads and pre-snap checks, but either he or his teammates often managed to overcome them.

Lee “made a lot of mistakes he can learn from, but the bottom line is he found a way to get the ball in the end zone,” quarterbacks and B-backs coach Brian Bohannon said.

For his part, Lee professed to not care about starting.

“Tevin is our starter,” Lee said. “That’s how it’s been all year. That’s my mindset going into the game.”

2. The ACC indicated Sunday that, in the event of a three-way tie between Miami, North Carolina and Tech, that Tech could win a tiebreaker and play in the ACC championship game if Virginia were to finish fourth in the Coastal Division. That remains true, but there is no way for Virginia to finish fourth in the division in that scenario, the ACC confirmed Tuesday.

In either of two possible situations in which the Hurricanes, Tar Heels and Jackets finish tied at 5-3, the fourth-place team would be Duke. In that case, by the league’s tiebreaker rules, Miami would be the Coastal representative. Tech’s only on-field course to reach the ACC championship game is for the Jackets to beat Duke and Duke to beat Miami Nov. 24. There is still the possibility that Miami will self-impose a postseason ban in response to its NCAA investigation and eliminate itself from contention, in which case Tech would win simply by beating Duke.

3. A week after blocking 80 defenders to the ground against Maryland in 60 offensive plays, the Jackets stacked up 100 against North Carolina on 79 plays. Johnson said they were the highest totals since he came to Tech before the 2008 season.

Against the Tar Heels, the offensive line had 69. A-back Robbie Godhigh, who scored touchdowns on three consecutive touches in the third quarter, had 13.

Said offensive line coach Mike Sewak of the linemen, “They’re just playing like they should play.”

4. B-back Marcus Allen, who is redshirting, could switch to linebacker, Johnson said. He said a decision would be made either after the season or going into spring practice. He is one of 14 13 true freshmen out of the 17-member signing class who is redshirting. At his Tuesday news conference, Johnson praised several, including defensive lineman Patrick Gamble, linebackers Beau Hankins and Tyler Stargel and wide receiver Micheal Summers, among others.

Said Johnson, “There’s a pretty good nucleus of guys that we’re redshirting that we feel good about.”

5. Offensive tackle Will Jackson is likely to be doubtful for Saturday’s game, Johnson said. Players are also dealing with a flu bug.

“Hopefully it’s early enough in the week that we’ll get em back,” Johnson said. “You hope that you don’t lose anybody else. When that stuff starts, you never know.”

Thanks for reading. I’ll have more up Wednesday morning.

In case you missed it…

No chance, after all, for Tech in three-way Coastal tie

Notes: Johnson to again wait on naming starting QB

Bradley: Tech as Coastal champion? Yep, it could happen

Tech season takes another turn

Tech-Georgia gets noon kickoff

Golden, Nealy ACC players of the week

Ken Sugiura, Georgia Tech blog