No. 18 Georgia Tech takes care of Temple, 4-0 for first time since 2014

No. 18 Georgia Tech took a siesta Saturday, but played well enough before and after its little midway lull to down Temple 45-24 on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium, with an announced attendance of 45,123.

Tech (4-0) won as a nationally ranked team since for the first time since 2015 and is 4-0 for the first time since 2014. The Yellow Jackets have won eight consecutive home games for the first time since the end of the 2016 campaign and the start of the 2017 season.

Jamal Haynes rushed for 107 yards on 11 carries for Tech, and quarterback Haynes King threw for 161 and two scores. King also ran for a score, giving him 12 games in his Tech career with at least one rushing touchdown and at least one passing touchdown in the same game, which ties a program record.

The Jackets, who rushed for 307 yards, raced to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter, then allowed the Owls (2-2) to creep within 21-14 early in the third quarter before restoring order and ending the game on a 24-10 run.

“Happy we won for sure, but still, like, we do gotta play better,” King said. “We do gotta keep the standard of who we are and what we’re gonna do offensively. I feel like defense did their job and played a really good game. But offensively, we can’t have a second quarter like we did.”

Tech travels to Wake Forest (2-1) for a game at noon Saturday, when it will try to win a fifth consecutive game for the first time since 2014.

“We’re 1-0 today, but we know we’re gonna get everyone’s best shot because everybody wants to beat an undefeated team, a ranked team,” Tech safety Clayton Powell-Lee said. “Trying to minimize all those mistakes, minimize all the explosives we’ve been giving up just because we know people are gonna use those against us, honestly. Just trying to learn from those mistakes that we’ve been seeing.”

On Saturday, the Jackets had their best start to a game this season by forcing Temple to punt after three plays and then scoring on five plays of their own. The fifth play of Tech’s opening drive was an option keeper by King through the teeth of the Temple defense for a 17-yard touchdown run, making the score 7-0 a little more than three minutes into the game.

Tech scored on its second offensive series, another five-play drive that ended with a 24-yard catch and run by wide receiver Malik Rutherford. King went play-action out of the shotgun and whipped a screen pass to Rutherford on the right side of the field, and the senior receiver did the rest to make the score 14-0 midway through the opening period.

The third possession ended with the same result. This time King connected with Isiah Canion on a 37-yard pass down the right sideline for a 21-0 lead.

Temple finally got on the board early in the second quarter when running back Jay Ducker scored from 2 yards out on a fourth-and-goal call. That got the Owls within 21-7 with 12:29 left in the first half.

Tech’s offense went AWOL in the second quarter, totaling nine yards on nine offensive snaps over three possessions that resulted in three punts. Thus, it had to settle for a 21-7 lead at the break.

“Restart, reset, refocus,” Haynes said of the halftime message in Tech’s locker room. “Just restart our minds, refocus up. Obviously we know the second quarter didn’t go the way we wanted it to, so we have to go back inside, we have to reset our minds and come back out at halftime like the score is 0-0 and essentially start out the (second) half the way we started the game. It worked out for us, and we kept that energy up and coach (Brent) Key made a big point to sustain that energy all throughout the second half, and that’s what we did.”

The Jackets got the ball to start the third quarter but quickly gave it away when King tried to pull the ball out of the belly of Haynes on a handoff exchange resulting in a fumble recovered by Temple linebacker Eric Stuart at the Tech 32.

One play later, Temple quarterback Evan Simon threw a 28-yard strike to receiver JoJo Bermudez, cutting the score to 21-14 at the 13:53 mark of the third.

That series of events maybe woke the Jackets, as they would quickly score on the ensuing possession. Malachi Hosley’s 34-yard scoring run around left end a little more than two minutes later put Tech back up two touchdowns.

“No. 1, you put all the work in to win football games and to enjoy winning a football. We’re not gonna have down faces or whatever any time we win a football game. That was the first thing,” Key said on his message to his squad after the win. “But there’s a reason why everybody feels the way they do right now, because we left a lot on the table. We played a first quarter that showed our capabilities to play as well as we could play and play as well as anybody or with anybody. Second quarter, then you showed the type of play that anybody can play. Anybody can do that. Three straight three-and-outs.

“We can’t have those stall-outs. We can’t have those ebbs and flows in the game. Anybody can see that and know that.”

Tech running back Daylon Gordon padded the stats with a 47-yard rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter after Carl Hardin gave Temple three points with a 41-yard field goal. Temple quarterback Gevani McCoy threw a 4-yard touchdown pass to Xavier Irvin with three seconds left.

Tech averaged 9.8 yards per play and scored on seven of 12 possessions.

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