A better Georgia Tech yields only an emphatic loss

Georgia Tech got the start it wanted and, at least for a little while, ran the option the way Paul Johnson wants it run. The Yellow Jackets led the nation’s No. 14 team 17-7 and were poised to make the score 24-7, whereupon this game went the way of too many Tech games. Talent took over. Tech got beat.

It isn’t often you gain 401 yards and induce four turnovers and lose as badly — the final score was 45-30, the Jackets scoring a consolation touchdown with 10 seconds remaining — as Tech did, but here again we saw what happens when the ACC going gets tough. Miami has beaten the Jackets five years running for the most basic of reasons: Miami has better players.

With Tech having faced four of its six Coastal Division brethren, we have a good idea where the Jackets stand. They’re better than Duke and North Carolina but not as good as Virginia Tech and Miami, and losses to the latter two make another appearance in the ACC title game an off-the-charts improbability. (The Hurricanes aren’t apt to abdicate again.)

Tech again bears the look of a pretty good team, but its past two games tell us that it’s not apt to win an ACC championship again anytime soon. In five-plus seasons, Johnson’s teams are 2-10 against Miami and Virginia Tech. The Jackets haven’t beaten the former since 2008 or the latter since 2009.

Asked if he felt those two programs were simply stronger than Tech’s, linebacker Quayshawn Nealy said: “No, actually I don’t. We started 0-0 in both games. Against Virginia Tech we just didn’t play well; today communication played a big part. They’re a great team, but we’re a great team, too.”

Communication? “In getting lined up as fast as they were going,” Nealy said.

Through four games, Tech’s defense under coordinator Ted Roof showed signs of having, at blessed last, improved. Not here. The Hurricanes gained 551 yards and, even with those four turnovers, scored six touchdowns. They ran for 227 yards and passed for 324.

“Overall it was better,” Johnson said of his team’s performance, and he meant when viewed alongside the wretched performance against Virginia Tech nine days earlier. Maybe that will serve as consolation to the Jackets and their fans, but it shouldn’t. This game-to-game improvement led only to a more emphatic loss. If this is better, how far does Tech have to go to get good again?

Granted, a couple of plays made a difference. (That’s the nature of football — a couple of plays always make a difference.) Tech was driving to take a 24-7 lead in the second quarter when quarterback Vad Lee fumbled. With 10:38 to play, the Jackets thought they had tied the score only to see a bad snap by a backup long snapper yield a missed PAT.

“They hadn’t been behind all year,” Lee said, “so we knew we had to get them early. We just didn’t finish it.”

Johnson: “I tried to tell the guys (after the missed kick), ‘Hey, it’s just a touchdown and a two-point conversion.’ But you fight so hard to get it back, and we’d gotten a break when they dropped the punt … ”

Miami scored three touchdowns and intercepted two passes over the next 9 1/2 minutes. Johnson pulled Lee, who threw the first interception, for Justin Thomas, who threw the second and was knocked out as it was returned for a touchdown. That left Tech’s final drive to Tim Byerly, which stood as a summation of the lost afternoon: Tech gave itself a chance, but wound up losing by so much that a last-minute touchdown by its No. 3 quarterback mattered not at all.