His name is Aaron Philo.
Georgia Tech’s freshman quarterback became a hero in this, the infancy of his Tech career, with a game-winning, 18-yard touchdown run to beat North Carolina State 30-29 at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Thursday.
A 6-foot-2, 215-pound graduate of Prince Avenue Christian School in Bogart, Philo led a legendary drive to send the Yellow Jackets to a seventh win and their first undefeated season at home since 1999. And the player who set all sorts of Georgia high school passing records did it with his legs.
“It kind of takes me back to childhood when you got the basketball goal and you practice making the game-winning shot,” Philo said. “It’s the moment you dream of. ... It’s a moment I’ve dreamt of, and to finally be in that moment, couldn’t ask for anything more.”
After Tech (6-4, 5-3 ACC) watched the Wolfpack go on a 22-7 run to take a 29-23 lead with 90 seconds left, Philo trotted onto the field to start the memorable series from his own 25. He threw a pair of completions totaling eight yards then ran for six more to gain a first down.
A 17-yard completion to running back Jamal Haynes got Tech into State territory, and an 8-yarder to Haynes put the ball at the 38. Philo then scrambled to the 18 on the next play to set up his winner.
“Let’s go play,” Tech coach Brent Key said about what he thought Philo may have been thinking before the start of the winning drive. “That’s the thing about him. He’s a very focused young man, but when it’s time to go, it’s just, ‘All right guys, let’s go. Let’s go have some fun. Let’s go play.’”
State did have a chance at stealing the victory, but Kannoah Vinesett’s 58-yard prayer of a field-goal attempt failed.
Philo finished with 265 yards on 19-of-33 passing to go with 57 yards rushing. Eric Singleton Jr. had five catches for 106 yards.
The Jackets next travel to No. 10 Georgia (8-2) on Nov. 29.
Tech began the fourth quarter Thursday up 16-7, but on the period’s first play, N.C. State quarterback CJ Bailey took off on a scramble and ran in a 28-yard touchdown to get the Wolfpack within two.
The Jackets looked like they might recover and even increase that lead midway through the fourth quarter. But on a second-down play at the N.C. State 9, Philo rolled right and let rip a fastball that found its way to safety Bishop Fitzgerald in the end zone.
Tech defensive lineman Romello Height, however, helped the Jackets make another defensive stand. On third down at the NCSU 21, Height spied Bailey at the line of scrimmage, and when Bailey let loose a pass, Height leapt and snagged it at the 19.
The junior returned it to the 3, and on the next offensive play, Haynes King kept an option read around right end to make the score 23-14 with 6:40 to play.
State refused to go away and, when it got the ball back after the ensuing kickoff, put together a 75-yard drive in just six plays. Bailey’s 1-yard touchdown dive made the score 23-21 only 2-1/2 minutes after King’s score and left 4:07 on the clock.
The Wolfpack then got the ball back after a Tech punt and had 2:30 to work with as the ball rested on its own 28. They needed less than a minute before Smothers’ heroics that would become a footnote.
Bailey finished with 147 yards passing and 83 on the ground as the Wolfpack dropped to 5-6 and 2-5 in the ACC.
“Look, you sit here and look at the stats, at the end of the day, what matters is we came out with the win,” Key said. “Knew it would come down to a score in the fourth. Didn’t know exactly how that would be.”
In a bit of a slog of a beginning for both teams, N.C. State blinked first midway through the opening period.
On first down from its own 27, State lined up in a swinging-door type formation and ran receiver KC Concepcion in motion from left to right. Bailey, in the shotgun, pushed forward a pass to Concepcion who took his eye off the ball which went off his hands, flew back toward Bailey who reached for the ball with his left hand and punched it into the air for a blitzing E.J. Lightsey.
The Tech linebacker caught the ball in stride at the 21, broke a tackle and raced into the end zone to give Tech the early lead.
The Wolfpack responded immediately with a nine-play drive that covered 75 yards and ate up almost five minutes of clock. It was a series aided by a pass-interference call on LaMiles Brooks and capped by Bailey’s 16-yard scramble into the end zone.
Aidan Birr gave Tech the lead back with a 44-yard field goal early in the second quarter. Birr booted a 41-yarder seven minutes later making it a 13-7 score.
That’s where the score would sit going into the halftime break. Tech’s offense was held out of the end zone and averaged only 3.6 yards per game over the first two quarters while N.C. State threw two interceptions, punted twice and turned the ball over on downs once.
Birr nailed a 45-yarder with 3:55 to go in the third giving the Jackets a 16-7 lead. Tech hung dearly to that lead ahead of the final 15 minutes with N.C. State driving deep into enemy territory. That quarter turned into some of the more memorable 15 minutes in quite some time on The Flats.
“Football’s a game,” Philo said. “It’s something I love doing. It’s something I have fun doing every single day. It’s moments like those, you go out there, play the game of football and have fun and it worked out.”
NOTES
- Tech right tackle Jordan Williams made his 51st career start Thursday, one shy of the program record of 52 held by Roddy Jones.
- Tech receiver Malik Rutherford has now caught a pass in 27 consecutive games.
- Lightsey’s pick-6 was Tech’s first since LaMiles Brooks’ 37-yarder against Virginia on Oct. 20, 2022.
- King is now tied with Mike Kelley (371) with the fifth most completions in a Tech career.
- Haynes moved to 23rd on Tech’s all-time rushing list with 1,776 career rushing yards.
- Birr is now tied with Johnny Smith and Thomas Palmer with 28 career field goals, the eighth most in program history.
- Birr’s 158 career points kicking is tied with Brad Chambers for the eighth most in program history.
- The Jackets improved to 12-3 when winning the turnover margin and 5-0 this season.
- Tech is now 3-12 under Key when rushing for less than 180 yards.
- Key is now 18-14 overall as Tech’s coach and 13-9 in ACC games.
- Key is now 5-11 at Tech after a win.
- Tech is now 21-11 all-time against N.C. State and 12-4 against the Wolfpack in Atlanta.
- Attendance on Thursday was announced as 34,591 giving Tech an average of 38,215 after five home games this season, the fourth straight season Tech averaged fewer than 40,000 fans.
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