When Georgia Tech looks back at the 37-35 loss in the 2014 ACC Championship game, the what-ifs will start in the secondary. It wasn’t simply that Tech didn’t play well in pass coverage, it’s that the Yellow Jackets weren’t in the same area code as receivers in some critical moments.
The Jackets lost track of Florida State receivers on a pair of long Jameis Winston touchdown passes that made things a lot easier for the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, who’s pretty good on his own.
Winston passed for 309 yards and three touchdowns to extend FSU’s winning streak to 29 games, including 26 with Winston at the helm. He and the Seminoles are all but assured a spot in the first College Football Playoff, and Tech is left to wonder about what might have been.
Two of those Winston touchdowns, passes of 46 and 44 yards, were gifts from Tech.
“It was the kind of game where you couldn’t make a mistake,” Tech coach Paul Johnson said. “You had to play really clean, and to their credit, they did that.”
One of the blown plays appeared to be a mental mistake, the other just dumb luck.
Winston hit tight end Nick O’Leary in stride — and running open down the left sideline for a 46-yard touchdown to tie the score 7-7 in the first quarter. Cornerback D.J. White was geared up to cover the “wheel” — O’Leary’s initial cut toward the sideline — but got beat after O’Leary cut straight up.
“I have to watch the film, but I think he may have cut it up when he saw Jameis running out, scrambling out and buying more time,” White said. “Either way it goes, that’s something I’ve got to lock on. I’ve got to see that the whole way and play the whole down because a guy like that, he’s good at buying time.”
Then with Tech up 21-14 in the second quarter, Winston again found too easy a target in Rashad Greene, who had broken free over the middle after defensive back Demond Smith got tripped up trying to cover him at the Tech 32. “I think they hit heels,” Johnson said.
Safety Isaiah Johnson started to come over but never had a chance, and FSU tied the score 21-21 on their way to taking a 28-21 halftime lead.
With those crisp passes, Winston was just getting warmed up. He completed 21 of 30 passes without an interception. The closest Tech came was after linebacker Quayshawn Nealy deflected a ball and Tech nearly intercepted it in the end zone.
The Seminoles might have had another long reception for a touchdown in the second half, had Johnson not caught Greene by the ankle on a 19-yard reception. The was Greene’s last catch and gave him 123 yards for the game as well as the ACC’s career receiving record. He came in needing 101 yards to eclipse Conner Vernon’s record of 3,749. Now he has 3,771.
The Jackets didn’t mount much of a pass rush to help matters either. They didn’t put Winston on the ground until the fourth quarter, and that was on a sack by Nealy and P.J. Davis with 13:15 to go in the game. But a defensive holding against Smith nullified the sack.
“A play like that is a big difference in the game,” said White of his early miscue. “That’s six points and we lost by two, but things like that happen throughout the course of games, you’ve just got to keep fighting. Even the games you win things like that happen. I felt like our team did a good job just bouncing back and fighting, it just didn’t come out the way we wanted it to.”
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