It wasn’t the ending Georgia Tech wanted, but here we take a step back to the beginning, to the ACC preseason poll that slotted the Yellow Jackets fifth in the seven-team Coastal Division and light years behind Florida State in the galaxy of college football. Back then, who would have dreamed that Tech, coming off a nondescript 7-6 season, would win its way to the ACC Championship game and stand toe-to-toe with the reigning national champ before succumbing?
The stealth Jackets, who weren’t included in the first College Football Playoff rankings released Oct. 28, clambered to No. 11 this week and entered the final weekend of the pre-bowl season with an outside chance at cracking the final four. That vanished early Saturday night, what with No. 5 Ohio State overwhelming Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game, but Tech still had a chance to become the champion of the conference that produced the 2013 BCS winner.
The Jackets led by a touchdown three times in a blurry first half, and they forged a tie with their first drive of the third quarter. They saw Famous Jameis Winston, the 2013 Heisman winner, have his best game of the season, and still they wouldn’t go away. Their defense even held the Seminoles, who scored touchdowns on four consecutive first-half possessions, to three second-half field goals.
The difference was that Tech itself stopped scoring touchdowns, and when Dalvin Cook ran for a first down after an unavailing Tech onside kick, the game was finally gone. FSU had won 37-35, surely ensuring a playoff berth. But what a game.
“It was the kind of game where you couldn’t make a mistake,” Tech coach Paul Johnson said, and his team made the only turnover. “You have to play really clean. To their credit, they did. We missed a couple turns and couldn’t make it up.”
Back to that first half: Tech’s decision to defer its option to the second half and its subsequent halting of Florida State, always a slow starter, on the first series was a Key Moment. The next six possessions yielded touchdowns, giving this the look of the famous first half these two staged in Tallahassee on Oct. 10, 2009. That ended with FSU leading 35-28. (Tech would win 49-44.)
On this night, Tech drove 71 yards, then 75, then 75 again to take leads of 7-0, 14-7 and 21-14. Only 27 of those 221 yards came via the forward pass. The Jackets’ first 27 plays were runs. Tech moved so powerfully that the Seminoles scarcely had the hope of getting off the field. Those three extended drives contained three third downs, all converted.
Trouble was, Florida State turned unstoppable. A blown coverage allowed Winston to find Nick O’Leary running free for a 46-yard touchdown. Then Cook, starting in place of the concussed Karlos Williams, ran six times and caught a swing pass in a seven-play scoring drive. Then Winston found Rashad Greene, uncovered because Demond Smith slipped, for a 44-yard touchdown.
Tied at 21, 5:40 left in the half. Tech could have taken its time and driven to another touchdown and done the same at the start of the second half to make the score 35-21. But Florida State managed its first stop of the night, and a strange call — a B-back dive on third-and-15 — spawned the Jackets’ first punt and gave FSU the ball with the chance to take its first lead.
Sure enough, Winston hit Greene to make the score 28-21 with 30 seconds left in the half. The Winston who had thrown 13 first-half interceptions this season wasn’t on display in this first half: He completed 12 of 17 passes for 222 yards and three touchdowns. As good as Tech had been (at least on offense) over 30 minutes, it was outgained 321 yards to 253 by the reigning national champ.
In the end, Tech’s bright start wasn’t enough to fend off Florida State, but say this for the Jackets: Even in defeat, the team ranked fifth in the Coastal made a opponent unbeaten for two calendar years play its sharpest game of the season. On a chilly December night, Tech gave mighty FSU a mighty run, and in the swelter of a Southern summer, who among us saw that coming?
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