Monday was not unlike Georgia Tech’s other five losses this season.
In the aftermath, there was lament over what might have been. The Yellow Jackets had chances and didn’t take advantage of enough of them.
“We were playing in spurts and we really couldn’t finish,” quarterback Vad Lee said. “That’s been the theme the whole year, because I feel like we were moving the ball, we were doing some good things, but we just couldn’t finish, though.”
On the Rebels’ second and third possessions, Ole Miss began inside its 5-yard line, once due to a botched kickoff return and then after Sean Poole’s punt was downed at the Ole Miss 3. Tech got the ball back the first time on its 42 but had to punt after Lee tried to complete a forward pass beyond the line of scrimmage, nullifying a completion. On the second possession, Tech had to start on its 3 when Tyler Campbell crushed a 68-yard punt.
“We had a chance to pin them down several times,” coach Paul Johnson said. “To their credit, they flipped the field.”
On the opening drive of the third quarter, Lee’s third-down deep ball to A-back Robert Godhigh just missed, falling incomplete. Godhigh had gained separation and was at about the Ole Miss 45, 32 yards downfield.
“That would have been huge,” Lee said. “He probably would have scored on that, just like Darren Waller’s touchdown. It would have been a momentum swing.”
Tech forced three fumbles, two by cornerback D.J. White, but didn’t recover any.
The Jackets wanted to keep Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace bottled up early, knowing that he could get hot if he started well. Tech forced Ole Miss into four third downs on the Rebels’ first possession, and Wallace converted the first two with pass completions. He threw incomplete to running back Jaylen Walton on the third, but then he returned to Walton on 4th-and-5 for a drive-extending completion. On 3rd-and-5 from the Tech 17, the Jackets’ blitz left a wide gap in the pocket for Wallace to run through. He scrambled 17 yards for a touchdown.
“I feel like I get in a rhythm when we have a good offensive job like that (on the first possession), and you know hopefully I just try to sustain that throughout the rest of them,” Wallace said.
He completed a critical pass near the end of the game, on a 3rd-and-13 from the Mississippi 42-yard line with 2:29 to go and Tech trailing 25-17. A stop could have given the ball back with more than two minutes to go. But blitz pressure was slow arriving and Wallace was able to find wide receiver Laquon Treadwell beating linebacker Quayshawn Nealy downfield for a 27-yard gain. Tech instead got the ball back with 37 seconds remaining, at which point Lee threw an interception.
It was the pattern of the season. Tech had nine penalties in the loss to Virginia Tech. The Jackets gave away a 17-7 lead to Miami thanks in part to three turnovers. Tech led Georgia 20-0 but lost, failing to take advantage of chances to protect or build the lead.
“I think we can play better than that,” Johnson said. “Clearly, we didn’t.”
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