Recap and Thoughts: Georgia Tech Holds On 27-21 to Hand Miami Their Fourth Straight Loss

It didn’t look promising early, and it got tight late, but Tech pulled it out on a chilly Saturday night.

Miami went 75 yards and converted four 3rd downs en route to a touchdown on their opening drive, but the Jacket offense immediately put together it’s own long touchdown drive with TaQuon Marshall at the helm to make it 7-7. After that, all hell broke loose. DeeJay Dallas fumbled on the ensuing kickoff, leading to a short-field touchdown for the Jackets. Holding a 17-7 lead after a Wesley Wells field goal, Tech looked poised to go on a clock draining drive at the end of the half but Miami’s rugby punt hit Nathan Cottrell with his back turned and the Cane’s recovered. After a whiffed almost-sack, Cam’Ron Davis broke off a 22 yard touchdown run to make it 17-14 Tech at the half.

Shortly into the second half Jeff Thomas let a punt go straight through his hands, allowing Juanyeh Thomas to recover the ball on the Miami 10 yard line. That would lead to another Wesley Wells field goal a few plays later. After more Miami penalties stunted yet another one of their drives (a theme to the night), TaQuon Marshall hit Brad Stewart for a HUGE touchdown to make it 27-14. Miami would score at the end of a long drive late to make it an interesting 27-21 game but Tech hunkered down and ran out the clock on an awesome 12 play 6:43 drive.

Overall, this was kind of a weird game. At points it felt like we were completely dominating, but we only outgained Miami by five yards and they were actually slightly better at converting third downs. It really was just two special teams plays that gave us the win. Whatever superstitious rituals y’all did tonight - keep doin ‘em. And oh yeah, WE GOIN BOWLIN.

Post-game quote from CPJ: “I learned a long time ago that 27 is more than 21”. God bless this man.

My Rapid Reactions

• The defense is still pretty hit or miss. At times they looked amazing - stuffing the run game and defending passes. But they still struggle with running QBs, screens, and third downs. While there was some good pressure throughout the game, there were four or five instances of the blitzer just not wrapping up on a would-be sack. Things like that kept Miami in the game all night and aren’t gonna fly against better teams like Virginia (lol what) and uga.
• We...have special teams? Tariq Carpenter forced a fumble on a kickoff return, Juanyeh Thomas recovered a muffed punt, Wesley Wells has turned into a lovely gem, and Pressley Harvin III continues to do nothing but ball out. Hopefully the ST units can build off of this heading into our final two games.
• TaQuon is back. I didn’t like the decision at first because of how well Tobias has been playing lately, but Quon put together a really nice game. His running was sharp and his decision-making was much improved from the beginning of the season. He also made the three big throws that he needed to in the passing game. I was particularly impressed with his control of the offense on the final clock-eating drive.
• Fire Mark Richt? Our sunburnt brethren from palm tree land have been rather upset with their leader in the past few weeks, and I can’t imagine this game is gonna make it any better. The Canes looked disorganized on offense, committed silly penalties, and gave up very untimely turnovers. Their defense (and ours) kept them in the game late, but it felt like they were completely out of it after their first drive. Fun stat, this is their third straight season with a three-game losing streak.

Goodnight, drive safe home, and see y’all at the bowl game.