There was no need for a fourth-quarter comeback Saturday night. Only a kneel-down and the full-throated cheers of Bobby Dodd Stadium ringing out into Midtown.
Georgia Tech banished the frustration of five consecutive losses to Miami by leaving no doubt, delighting the near-sellout crowd with a 28-17 win over the Hurricanes. Tech, which had struggled to deliver a full four-quarter effort in its first four games, played its best game of the season. The Jackets limited the Hurricanes to a field goal after halftime while pounding the Miami defense with 318 rushing yards and holding the ball for a staggering 40:45.
“It definitely was a huge win,” linebacker Quayshawn Nealy said. “They’ve had our number for a long time.”
Prior to Saturday, Tech had won its previous two games, against Georgia Southern and Virginia Tech, with fourth-quarter comebacks. Saturday, after scoring the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter for a 21-14 lead, the Jackets used the final period to merely secure the critical ACC Coastal Division decision. The knockout blow was A-back Deon Hill’s eight-yard touchdown run on a fourth-and-2 play with 11:31 to play on a triple-option play that provided Hill perhaps the easiest eight yards of his career.
“The way the game was going, I thought we were moving the ball pretty well, and that’s what we do,” coach Paul Johnson said. “I told our team we’re going to run the triple and it’s what we do. We do it every day.”
It completed a 13-play, 75-yard drive that consumed 6:54 and was infused with B-back Zach Laskey’s tough interior running and extended by a pickup of a third-and-16 with quarterback Justin Thomas’ 30-yard completion to A-back Tony Zenon.
Defensively, the game followed a pattern set in previous games, as the Jackets defense stood up in the second half. After allowing 14 points and 9.2 yards per play to Miami in the first half, the Jackets clamped down on the Hurricanes after halftime, holding them to a field goal and a more acceptable 6.9 yards per play.
“We just had to play better,” safety Jamal Golden said. “We did the same stuff we did in the first half, we just executed a little better.”
Golden and Isaiah Johnson, of whom defensive coordinator Ted Roof said he couldn’t explain how critical it was that they improve their play from their first four games, provided two of the biggest plays of the night. Johnson made a standout individual play to intercept Miami quarterback Brad Kaaya in the second quarter at the Tech 10-yard line, reaching to tip the ball in the air and tracking it for the interception, to deny the Hurricanes a chance at a go-ahead score.
Golden closed down the night with an interception of Kaaya in the end zone with 1:11 to play and the Hurricanes trying to rally.
“We’re getting better every week,” Johnson said.
Laskey was a rugged, bruising force for Tech, carrying the ball a career-high 29 times for 133 yards to tie his career best. He was happily caught up in a swell of students rushing the north end zone after the game.
“It was awesome,” Laskey said. “You get to go out and sing the fight song to all the students who came out. It really makes you feel like you’re playing for the whole community and it’s just a great feeling.”
With the win, Tech (5-0 overall, 2-0 ACC) has beaten ACC Coastal Division rivals Virginia Tech and Miami in the same season for the first time since 2006, the first year that the conference was divided into two divisions, and in back-to-back games, no less. The Hokies and Hurricanes have been nettlesome opponents for coach Paul Johnson. Before this season, Tech had last beaten Miami in 2008 and Virginia Tech in 2009. Critics have often held Johnson’s record against those two schools and Clemson and Georgia – 7-18 before this year, with four of the wins against Clemson.
The win also gives the Jackets a considerable boost in their pursuit of the Coastal title. In addition to just its third 5-0 start since coach Bobby Dodd’s retirement after the 1966 season, Tech is 2-0 in the conference and holds tiebreakers over Virginia Tech and Miami, who were picked to finish first and third, respectively, in the ACC preseason media poll. Tech controls its destiny to reach the ACC championship game in Charlotte, N.C., and can take another big step up I-85 with a win next Saturday at home against Duke, the defending Coastal champion but a team that Tech has beaten the past 10 years and 18 of the past 19.
Given the dim expectations that attended the Jackets before the season, when they were picked fifth in the division and didn’t receive a vote in either major poll, Tech finds itself in a position few would have thought possible after five games.
“We got beat in all three phases tonight by Georgia Tech,” Miami coach Al Golden said. “I thought they played a (heck) of a ballgame.”
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