Georgia Tech’s rushing yardage of 188 yards was its lowest this season and its lowest against Georgia in coach Paul Johnson’s tenure.
The Yellow Jackets gained 65 of them on their lone touchdown drive, in the second quarter. Tech worked the perimeter often, as the A-backs had 16 carries and quarterback TaQuon Marshall tried runs to the sideline.
Nothing worked consistently.
“They’re good on defense – news flash,” Johnson said. “We kind of all knew that going in. Inside, they’ve got three big guys, and we had it schemed up to try to get the ball pitched. There was a lot of times, we didn’t pitch the ball that we should have on some of the counter stuff, but, we didn’t have a whole lot in there.”
B-back KirVonte Benson’s 12 carries were his third-lowest total of the season and well below his season average of 19.2. He gained 44 yards, also his third-lowest total.
On runs to the perimeter, Tech had trouble blocking defensive backs to clear alleys.
“We were able to get it around them a few times,” said A-back Nathan Cottrell, who had the longest run of the day, a 33-yarder. “They’re a good defense. It’s hard to get around the perimeter when they’re flying just everywhere.”
The Jackets also had difficulty getting a body on linebacker Roquan Smith, who ran down plays from the middle. Smith led the Bulldogs with nine tackles, three for loss.
“Every time they were in the ‘robber’ look, it seemed like he was on the pitch every single time,” Marshall said of Smith, a friend of Marshall’s. “He was flying around.”
Marshall led withh 72 rushing yards. In the process, he set the Tech school record for the modern era for rushing yards by a quarterback. He finishes the season with 1,146 rushing yards, breaking the record of 1,086 set by Justin Thomas in 2014.
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