5 things learned from Georgia Tech’s Gasparilla Bowl triumph

Tennessee twosome cap Tech win

Dontae Smith and Jaylon King are the only members of the Tech football team who were on the roster the last time Tech made a bowl game. On Friday, both sixth-year seniors made pivotal plays to help the Jackets come out on top.

Smith scored early in the fourth quarter on a fourth-down play from the UCF 1, a score that turned out to be Tech’s final touchdown of the season. King made three tackles, and his pass breakup with 2:44 left on fourth down turned the ball over to Tech’s offense, one of several significant stops by the Tech defense.

“We actually talked about it,” Smith said of he and King making two big plays to end their respective careers. “He said something about my touchdown, and I was like, ‘All right, now you gotta go make a play.’

“Us being from Tennessee, I’ve known him for a long time even before coming to Tech and just seeing how he’s performed this season – he went through a lot throughout his career here. It’s kinda the same thing (for me), so for us to get this bowl game my last season here means a lot.”

Smith and King remained with the program after former Tech coach Paul Johnson retired at the end of the 2018 season. They remained still after former coach Geoff Collins was fired early in the 2022 season. Both endured major injuries during their course of the respective careers as well, but stuck with the same school for the duration of their college lives – a rarity in today’s college football.

Smith finished with 65 carries on 16 carries and leaves Tech among the top-30 rushers in program history. He put Friday’s victory into perspective.

“Everything that I’ve been through, I’m gonna remember also. That made me who I am today,” he said. “You can be upset about what you go through if things are going wrong, but it’s about how you respond. I was able to respond the way that I needed to for me to be successful, for this team to be successful. That all came from the team, the coaches, my family, just all the support and fans.

“But this right here, this moment, winning a bowl game, a game that I played in, this is a moment I’ll never forget.”

A whole new ballgame

Midway through the second quarter Friday, Tech’s defense was struggling. UCF had gained 243 yards and scored 17 points – and the latter total could have been more had the Knights not lost a fumble in Tech territory late in the first quarter.

But after Colton Boomer’s 27-yard field goal gave UCF a 17-3 lead at the 8:23 mark, the Jackets pitched a shutout on defense and scored on three of five offensive possessions in the second half (the final possession ended with the Jackets taking a knee to run the clock out).

“A big part of that is the guys trusting the plan,” Tech coach Brent Key said. “A big part of that is coaches making adjustments. Bowl games are a little bit like the first game of the season. There’s a lot of unknowns in ‘em in – how a team is gonna come out, what they’re gonna change. They’ve had three weeks to prepare for you. You’ve had three weeks to prepare for them.

“Good teams, good coaches, teams that have players that are willing to buy into what they’re told and the adjustments that are being made – and smart enough to go out and do ‘em, smart enough to execute ‘em. That’s a credit to these guys here.”

UCF had seven offensive series after that made field goal in the second quarter. It punted on three of those, turned the ball over on downs twice, missed a field-goal attempt and was intercepted in the waning moments. The Knights managed only 176 yards of offense over that span.

Tech’s offense, meanwhile, put together scoring drives of seven, six, six, 13 and 10 plays, respectively.

Dominant run game

Once again Tech’s ground game proved to be the catalyst for success.

The Jackets gained 284 yards on the ground, averaged 5.4 yards per carry and had three players rush for at least 65 yards. The outing gave Tech seven games this season of at least 200 rushing yards, with six of those coming in the final seven games.

Tech running back Jamal Haynes was named the game’s MVP by totaling 128 yards on 18 carries.

“I honestly owe all the respect to the O-line. I don’t even want the MVP trophy, honestly, I wanna give it to the O-line if I could,” Haynes said, with a laugh. “They come in day-in and day-out and just work their tail off. Just a surreal moment, man, just to see the bond the running backs and the O-line have, but also just the whole entire offense and the whole team, it’s a very surreal moment.”

No stat was more impressive Friday than the Jackets closing the game with 23 consecutive running plays before it took a knee on three consecutive snaps to end the game.

“It was awesome. You win the surest way,” Key said. “And we got to a position where now you start to count possessions. You’re counting possessions, you’re counting time on the clock, you’re looking at timeouts on both sides. I thought (quarterback Haynes King) did a heckuva job now. (The play) was coming in at 18 seconds and he was staring at that (play) clock there and snapping that sucker at one second. That was awesome, man.”

THWG

A true Jacket to his core, Key didn’t miss a chance to remind everyone where his true allegiances lie. In the minutes after Friday’s bowl win, while on the celebratory stage alongside his team, Key was handed a microphone and he told the crowd through the public address system, “Go Jackets – and to hell with Georgia!”

Friday’s win meant a little more to the former Tech offensive lineman who is trying to restore Tech as a formidable force in the ACC. He set a solid foundation in 2023 with a 7-6 record and became the program’s first coach to win a bowl game in his first season since Bill Fulcher, also a former Tech player, won the 1972 Liberty Bowl.

Key, per the terms of his contract, earned a $50,000 bonus for the Jackets’ win over UCF.

Takeaways mean another W

A constant theme for the Jackets in 2023 was the team’s ability to force turnovers and win those games in which they forced those turnovers.

Tech came away with two more takeaways Friday to run its season total to 25. It also finished 6-1 in 2023 in games in which it finished with two or more takeaways.

Without the Jackets’ first takeaway Friday, a fumble caused by defensive lineman Horace Lockett and recovered by linebacker Paul Moala with 2:17 to go in the first quarter and UCF driving, the final outcome could have been a whole lot different.

“That was a big play for the defense,” linebacker Kyle Efford said. “Football’s a game of momentum, so a play like that is what shifts it. It was huge for us.”

1 / 13

Gasparilla Bowl champions: Georgia Tech players hold the trophy after defeating Central Florida 30-17 in the Gasparilla Bowl Friday in Tampa.

NOTES