Georgia Tech is off to its best start in a decade. It now has a chance to pull off one of its best wins off this decade.
The Yellow Jackets (5-2) face No. 12 Notre Dame at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It’s a matchup of two teams playing solid football, one looking to keep hopes alive of playing in the College Football Playoff and one looking to build off two straight conference wins with an upset on one of the nation’s blueblood programs.
Tech has won two in a row this month, beating Duke 24-14 to start October and then topping North Carolina 41-34 on Saturday in Chapel Hill. The latter victory came after the Jackets blew a 34-24 lead in the fourth quarter only to see running back Jamal Haynes break a 68-yard touchdown run that stole the victory with 16 seconds left.
The result gave Tech back-to-back wins for the second time this season and for just the third time under coach Brent Key. Tech has not won three games in a row since 2018 when it had a four-game win streak.
“I’m glad we won it, I’m glad we showed the resiliency,” Key said Saturday after beating UNC for a fourth straight time. “We talked about before the game that the biggest challenge was ourselves – playing on the road, being consistent in what we do, taking those close games and winning close games. We tried our best to fight ourselves today. Took some good punches at ourself. But the better half of us ended up winning at the end.”
Tech had fallen to 3-2 after a 31-19 loss at Louisville on Sept. 21. But Key’s team took the bye week in between that and the Duke win to rest, recover and reassess how to get back to its winning ways.
The team’s ground game has been a partial key to that success. The Jackets have rushed for 616 yards the past two outings while gaining 6.4 yards per run. Haynes his self has 368 yards on 38 carries (7.8 per run).
“We definitely take pride as an O-line being able to run the ball when we want to,” Tech center Weston Franklin said. “We definitely worked at it and looked on it (during the bye week), we made some minor adjustments here and there that would help us as a group. Made those changes and just trusting the plan and trusting what the play caller’s calling. And just trusting us in being able to do it.”
Tech’s defense faltered at times Saturday against UNC but made some pivotal plays as well. It registered two takeaways (a season high), recorded six quarterback hurries (also a season high) and held UNC running back Omarion Hampton, widely regarded as one of the best backs in the ACC, to 137 yards rushing – 71 of which came on a single carry.
The most important series for the Tech defense came at the very end of its visit to Kenan Stadium. North Carolina had regained possession down 34-31 and drove to the Tech 1. But the Jackets stood tall and got three straight stops on running plays to keep the Tar Heels out of the end zone and force a game-tying field goal.
Haynes, 28 seconds later, scored the game-winner.
“We had come off that timeout, we kind of brought it in, like a huddle, we said, ‘We just gotta bow up. ‘This game is on us right now. We gotta get a big stop,’ " Tech linebacker Kyle Efford said about the goal line stand.
Notre Dame comes to Atlanta after beating Stanford 49-14 in South Bend, Indiana. The Irish, too, have rediscovered their groove after an inexplicable, 16-14 loss at home to Northern Illinois on Sept. 7.
Coach Marcus Freeman’s squad is on a four-game winning streak since the loss to NIU and is outscoring opponents 174-41 over that span. Led by former Duke quarterback Riley Leonard, who lost at Georgia Tech on Oct. 8, 2022, the Irish have one of the nation’s top pass defenses and rushing offenses.
Tech and Notre Dame have met 37 times since 1922 and the Jackets have only won six of those meetings – in 1928, 1942, 1959, 1976, 1999 and 2007. In 2001, in South Bend, Notre Dame beat Tech 55-0.
A Tech victory Saturday would make the Jackets bowl eligible for the second straight season, something which hasn’t happened since 2013-14.
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