Georgia Tech uses 14 fourth-quarter points to hand Duke its first loss

The Blue Devils came down to Georgia. They left with a loss, their first of the season.

Georgia Tech scored 14 points in the fourth quarter to defeat previously unbeaten Duke 24-14 at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday night. The Yellow Jackets had let a 10-point lead slip away, but stormed back to avoid their first losing streak of the season.

Tech (4-2, 2-2 ACC) got 128 yards rushing on 19 carries from Jamal Haynes, on his birthday, in what was by far his best game of the season. The junior also caught a touchdown pass. Quarterback Haynes King threw for 167 yards on 23 completions and connected on a pair of touchdown throws.

“Honestly it feels great, but huge shoutout to my O-line. They got it going today,” Jamal Haynes said. “They were on it. It all starts in the trenches, it all starts up front and I feel like they did a great job. They were focused tonight and played hard.”

More impressive, and perhaps more important, Tech’s defense held the Blue Devils (5-1, 1-1 ACC) to 279 yards of offense and only 74 yards on the ground. Duke was just 3-of-11 on third downs.

The Jackets next head to play at North Carolina (3-3, 0-2 ACC) at noon Saturday.

Going into the fourth quarter with the ball, down 14-10 against Duke, Tech completed a masterful drive with a peach of a play to take the lead. King found a wide-open Haynes in the right flat on third down from the Duke 4 for an easy touchdown that gave the Jackets a 17-14 edge. The play capped an 85-yard drive that chewed up 7:06 of clock.

Tech got the ball right back after a three-and-out and scored on the seventh play of a 70-yard drive (kept alive by a roughing-the-passer call) and scored when King connected with Eric Singleton Jr. on a 9-yard touchdown pass. That put the Jackets up 24-14 with 6-1/2 minutes to play.

Duke didn’t have a comeback left in its bag. Cornerback Ahmari Harvey’s interception with 11 seconds left sealed the victory for good.

“(Tech) coach (Brent) Key talking to us, telling us, they’re a second-half team, fourth-quarter team,” King said. “They played really good second half and we knew that we were gonna have to step up and play even harder than what we’ve been doing and lock in and just find a way.”

Tech took the opening kickoff and put together a crisp drive of 12 plays over 60 yards. Backup quarterback Zach Pyron pushed in a 2-yard touchdown, his fourth rushing touchdown of the season, to make the score 7-0 at the 8:36 mark of the first quarter.

Aidan Birr kicked a 23-yard field goal to up the lead to 10-0 five minutes into the second quarter.

Tech looked like it might enjoy that 10-0 lead, and maybe more, at halftime — but things turned quickly.

On fourth-and-8 at the Tech 48, the Jackets were called for a rare defensive delay-of-game penalty. Duke then went for it on fourth down and completed a 4-yard pass to running back Star Thomas for a first down.

Two plays later, quarterback Maalik Murphy aired it out down the right sidelines and had his pass picked off by Tech defensive back Syeed Gibbs. But Gibbs was flagged for pass interference. On the next play, from the 20, Murphy hit Eli Pancol on a long crossing route to get the Blue Devils on the board and make it a 10-7 score.

“I know Duke had taken a lot of pride in taking teams in the fourth quarter and winning games in the fourth quarter, but that’s what we have to (do),” Key said. “Regardless of the outcome of a couple games this year, I think our guys have continued to play throughout. And that’s what they did, they kept playing. I do think at the line of scrimmage, I thought we started to wear ‘em down a little bit.”

Duke had only 75 yards of offense in the first half, 30 of which came on the scoring drive before the half.

The Blue Devils finally began to find their offensive rhythm late in the third quarter when a drive of 11 plays brought them to the 9. On fourth down and needing a yard, Duke electing to go for it and Thomas tripped taking the handoff, landing two yards short of the marker.

Tech’s defense wasn’t so fortunate on the following series.

Murphy, recognizing a middle blitz from linebacker Kyle Efford and defensive back Taye Seymore, dumped an easy pass over the middle to a streaking Sahmir Hagans for a 65-yard touchdown pass. That gave Duke a 14-10 lead and deflated all the energy out of Bobby Dodd Stadium.

That would be how the scoreboard would read going into the final 15 minutes.