Georgia Tech didn’t bring the same fire and sharpness that it brandished last Saturday against Miami. It proved costly for the No. 22 Yellow Jackets.
Playing their first game as a ranked team since Nov. 2011, the Jackets lost their first game of the season and had their 10-game winning streak against Duke snapped in a 31-25 defeat at Bobby Dodd Stadium Saturday. It was also the Blue Devils’ first win at Bobby Dodd since 1994, a streak of nine games.
A sluggish first half, in which penalties extended both of Duke’s touchdown drives, led to an ineffective second half, in which the Jackets turned the ball over three times and were rarely unable to slow down Duke’s running game.
Behind backup quarterback Tim Byerly, Tech rallied to score two touchdowns in the final 5:04 on drives of 73 and 89 yards, but the comeback attempt died when kicker Harrison Butker’s onside kick attempt was recovered by the Blue Devils with 1:27 to play. With Tech out of timeouts, Duke was able to run out the clock.
The game was suspended about 75 minutes at halftime due to two lightning strikes within the vicinity of the stadium.
Tech’s first loss of the season dropped the Jackets to 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the ACC. While Tech earned tiebreakers over Virginia Tech and Miami in its past two games, the Jackets will likely now need the Blue Devils (5-1, 1-1) to lose one more game than them in ACC play in order to win the Coastal Division and play for the ACC championship.
It was a deflating setback, given both the momentum and excitement that Tech had built up in winning its first five games and also the numerous mistakes that contributed to the loss. On Duke’s two touchdown drives of the first half, penalties kept the Blue Devils’ drive alive, on fourth down on the first and third on the second. On Tech’s second possession of the game, a false start on fourth-and-3 at the Duke 46-yard line prevented the Jackets from going for the first down.
In the second half, Tech gave the ball away three times, on a fumble by B-back Zach Laskey, a third-quarter interception in the red zone by quarterback Justin Thomas and another interception in the fourth. The Blue Devils turned the first into a touchdown for a 21-12 lead. Tech had turned the ball over just once in the previous three games, a considerable factor in winning the games by a total of 18 points.
A handful of calls by officials that appeared could have gone Tech’s way but went instead to Duke only heightened the frustration felt among the 44,281 in attendance.
Tech will try to keep another winning streak alive against another school next Saturday as it will play at North Carolina. The Jackets have won the past five games against the Tar Heels.
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