TAMPA, Fla. — What looked like it might be a disaster through one quarter of play Friday night turned into dominance for Georgia Tech at Raymond James Stadium.
The Yellow Jackets turned a 14-0 hole into a 30-17 win over Central Florida in the Gasparilla Bowl, giving the program its first postseason victory since 2016 and first winning season since 2018.
“I can’t be more proud of these guys, man. I really couldn’t,” said Tech coach Brent Key, who earned a $50,000 bonus for the win, per the terms of his contract. “It’s about them. It’s about the work they’ve put in. If that wasn’t a capsule of our entire season and the way that they’ve just kept fighting and kept fighting.”
Tech (7-6) finished the game by running the ball 23 consecutive offensive plays. Its defense shut out UCF over the final 38:23 of the contest. Perhaps more impressive, it hung tough after going down two touchdowns in the home state of its opponent.
The Jackets racked up 284 rushing yards and averaged 5.4 yards per carry. Jamal Haynes, named the game’s MVP, totaled 128 on the ground, and quarterback Haynes King ran for 89. King didn’t need to use his arm much as he finished with 87 yards through the air (7-of-13 passing), with a touchdown and an interception.
“A big part of that is the guys trusting the plan. A big part of that is coaches making adjustments,” Key said of the overall comeback. “Bowl games are a little bit like the first game of the season. There’s a lot of unknown 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 that have players that are willing to buy in to 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.”
But it took a while for those numbers to begin to snowball.
UCF wasted no time to begin the scoring Friday. After a 47-yard kickoff return set the Knights up at midfield, they needed only five plays to find the paydirt and went up 7-0 on John Rhys Plumlee’s 23-yard pass to Javon Baker in the left corner of the end zone.
Plumlee’s second TD pass of the came from 17 yards out and went to Kobe Hudson on a slant route from right to left. That play capped a 98-yard drive that took 4:41 off the clock.
“We’ve been here before. We’re not gonna press. Stick to the game plan. Trust each other,” King said of being down 14-0 early. “Everything else is gonna take care of itself. Just be in the moment.”
Tech’s defense finally caught a break at the 2:17 mark in the first quarter when UCF running back RJ Harvey fumbled and cornerback Myles Sims recovered in Tech territory. That led to a 36-yard field goal from Aidan Birr with 14:17 remaining in the first half.
“That was a big play for the defense,” Tech linebacker Kyle Efford said. “Football’s a game of momentum, so a play like that is what shifts it. It was huge for us.”
Colton Boomer got those points right back for UCF with his 27-yard field goal five minutes later.
On the ensuing drive, Tech’s offense found its footing. King orchestrated a 74-yard drive, highlighted by a 29-yard catch and run to tight end Dylan Leonard, that King himself finished with a 5-yard touchdown run. That got the Jackets within 17-10.
Tech’s defense got a quick stop, and the Jackets then took over, after a punt, on their own 33. This time, after Tech methodically moved to the UCF 41, King connected on a deep flag route to Malik Rutherford, who caught the ball in stride in the end zone to tie the score at 17-all.
That’s where the score would stand going into break after Boomer missed a 30-yard field-goal attempt in the second quarter’s waning seconds.
“We came together at halftime, and we were just kinda talking about how we’re not playing to our standard that we set,” Efford said. “It was just more of a mental thing. We just had to bring it on in, let everyone know that we gotta go out there and play ball.”
Birr gave Tech its first lead of the day, making a 29-yard field goal to end the Jackets’ opening drive of the third quarter. That would turn out to be the lone score of the period – but the Jackets were driving as the fourth quarter began.
Dontae Smith put a bow on that drive, a 75-yard series that chewed up nearly seven minutes of clock, by bursting into the end zone on a fourth-and-inches call inside the 1. Smith’s touchdown made the score 27-17 with 13:37 to go.
Birr added a 38-yard field goal with 4:52 remaining, and Ahmari Harvey sealed the win for the Jackets with a later interception.
Tech had a seven-minute advantage in time of possession, and of its 33:30 seconds of possession time, 27:16 of that came in the final 45 minutes.
“It was awesome. You win the surest way. And we got to a position where now you start to count possessions. You’re continuing possessions, you’re counting time on the clock, you’re looking at timeouts on both sides. I thought 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.”
Plumlee threw for 198 yards and two touchdowns while Harvey rushed for 120 for UCF (6-7). Baker caught nine passes for 173 yards and a score.
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