DURHAM, N.C. — As linebacker Steven Sylvester left the locker room before kickoff Saturday, team chaplain Derrick Moore handed him a briefcase. Sylvester had no idea what was in it, but didn’t have trouble understanding the symbolism — Georgia Tech was on a business trip.
“The referee asked me what it was about, and when I told him, he said, ‘I like that idea,’” Sylvester said.
Sylvester and his teammates were OK with it, too. Playing an early game in front of a non-arriving crowd against a team they’ve dominated, the Yellow Jackets didn’t rage with pent-up fury, but did take care of matters.
They left Wallace Wade Stadium in Saturday’s fading afternoon light with a 38-31 win over Duke, their eighth in a row over the Blue Devils and 16th in 17 tries. Tech moves on to the annual showdown with Georgia next Saturday.
“We got the result we came here for,” quarterback Tevin Washington said.
A week after dropping out of the ACC title hunt with a loss to Virginia Tech, the Jackets kept intact their new goal of the school’s fourth 10-win season since 1956 by moving to 8-3, a greater win total than just about anybody predicted for them at the beginning of the season.
At 5-3 in the ACC, Tech also earned its third winning league record in coach Paul Johnson’s four years.
The Jackets sent Duke (3-8, 1-6) to their sixth consecutive loss of the season with perhaps the most efficient offensive performance of the second half of the season. Tech scored touchdowns on four consecutive possessions in the first half after starting the game with two three-and-outs. The Jackets interspersed pounding runs with big pass plays by Washington.
Tech added 10 points in the second half. With the score 31-24 midway in Tech’s favor through the fourth quarter, Washington faked a pitch to open up a running lane and chugged 39 yards to the end zone, his 14th rushing touchdown of the season.
“A couple guys wrapped me up, but nobody really took me to the ground, so I kept my feet moving,” Washington said.
Washington had one of his best games of the season, running for 136 yards on 17 carries and completing six of 13 passes for 185 yards. B-backs David Sims and Charles Perkins, the latter playing in place of a banged-up Preston Lyons, contributed 25 rushes for 111 yards and two touchdowns. A-back Embry Peeples, starting in place of the injured Orwin Smith, turned a career-high seven carries into 64 yards. He scored on the final play of the first half, a race to the pylon on fourth-and-goal from the Duke 1-yard line that raised Tech’s lead to 28-14.
Like all of his teammates, Peeples wore a coat and tie on the team plane Friday on orders from Johnson to emphasize the business aspect of the trip.
“I think it was a good idea,” said Peeples, who went with a light blue tie. “I think we should do it next week.”
Not worth repeating would be Tech’s defensive lapses against the Duke passing game. Tech made quarterback Sean Renfree work for his 250 passing yards, giving him only one completion longer than 17 yards and limiting him to a pedestrian 6.0 yards-per-attempt average. However, the Jackets didn’t do much more than that.
Renfree was 26-for-42 with four touchdowns, chipping away at the Jackets with a barrage of quick-hitting completions.
“It was something that I don’t think we were ready for,” Sylvester said. “We didn’t expect them to come with as many crossing routes as they did.”
Renfree drove the Blue Devils for two fourth-quarter touchdowns that both reduced Tech’s advantage to seven points. The Blue Devils, whose season has been replete with close-but-not-quite attempts at upsets, had one final chance to tie the score when they got the ball at their 34-yard line with 3:44 to play. On the fifth play of the possession, defensive back Jemea Thomas ended the drama for the 18,747 sprawled out in Wallace Wade by intercepting Renfree. Tech held the ball for the final 2:20.
After a quick team prayer, Sylvester retrieved the briefcase and returned to the locker room, his team’s objective complete for the eighth time this season.
“That’s more than anybody thought we were going to get, and we’ve got a couple left,” Johnson said.
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