Georgia Tech didn’t have much chance of scoring enough points to win without Haynes King. With King, the Yellow Jackets earned their biggest victory in 15 years. Miami came to Bobby Dodd Stadium with Heisman Trophy candidate Cam Ward, but on Saturday, the Jackets had the winning quarterback.
Tech stunned No. 4 Miami on The Flats. The Hurricanes, favored by 10 points, lost 28-23. Miami (9-1, 5-1 ACC) might still win the ACC and earn the automatic bid to the College Football Playoff. If the Hurricanes don’t reach that goal, they’ll lament the day when King and Co. proved to be tougher than them.
King had missed two games because of a shoulder injury. Tech coach Brent Key said he wasn’t sure King would play, or how much, until he watched him during pregame warmups. King never passed deep — freshman Aaron Philo handled that task — but King was the hammer for Tech’s brute force running game.
“He went out there and willed himself,” Key said. “Carried the ball 20 times for (93) yards rushing? That’s pretty special, in my book. There was no way he was missing this game, I don’t care what we kept saying.
“We just had to see if he could do it. He said he wasn’t going to (sit out), though. You’ve always got to protect the good ones from themselves.”
King provided the Jackets what they were missing against Notre Dame and Virginia Tech. The Jackets scored a total of 19 points in those while getting little production and too many mistakes from King’s backups. Tech’s offense came alive with King darting, diving and smashing his way to 93 yards rushing on 20 attempts.
“They couldn’t stop him,” Tech wide receiver Eric Singleton Jr. said. “We expect it. It’s what he always does.”
That didn’t change just because King’s shoulder wasn’t well enough for him to play only two weeks ago. King gained first downs on seven of his 20 carries, including a 5-yard score that staked Tech to a 28-16 lead in the fourth quarter. He completed six passes on six attempts. But one of them was a 5-yard touchdown that put Tech ahead for good in the second quarter and another converted a third down to seal the victory.
With that, King kneeled with the ball twice to run out the clock on a victory that qualified Tech (6-4, 4-3 ACC) for a bowl game. Then at least a thousand Tech students rushed the field to celebrate their team’s first victory over a top-five team since 2009 and only the ninth in program history.
That moment likely doesn’t happen if King doesn’t play.
“I was telling (coaches) I was playing,” King said. “I was going to fight through it. No matter what role I was going to play, I waned to play, whether my shoulder was ready or not. Going into the game, I knew a big part of my role was going to be operating the offense and having some run plays.”
The Hurricanes made it hard on King. Tech’s offensive scheme requires him to run up the middle after faking handoffs to running backs. That meant Miami got plenty of chances to deliver big hits on the quarterback. King was shaking his arm on the sideline between series and got up slowly after a few collisions.
But, as usual, King just kept going.
“There was no question on taking a hit,” King said of the shoulder. “I just thank God and my parents, the way they raised me to be tough, mentally tough, and fight through some of that stuff.”
It looked like the game would be a shootout after the Jackets scored a touchdown on their fourth play, and the Hurricanes matched it on their second play. It ended up being a grind. That was an advantage for the Jackets, who like to grind. They finished with 271 yards rushing on 48 attempts.
Said Key: “Good football game if you believe in running the ball, stopping the run, time of possession, those types of things. It still works.”
Tech won at then-No.17 Miami last season on a fluke. Hurricanes fumbled away the victory when coach Mario Cristobal chose to run a play instead of running out the clock. There was nothing lucky about Tech’s victory in the rematch. King made the offense go, and Tech’s defense held the Hurricanes to their lowest point total season by far (they scored 36 against Florida State).
The Jackets limited Ward in the first half by keeping him on the sideline. Tech had the ball for 18:17 and held Miami to 1-for-6 on third and fourth downs. The Hurricanes had a 133-72 scoring advantage after halftime in their first nine games, but the Jackets outscored the ‘Canes 14-13 in the second half.
Ward’s 38-yard touchdown pass to Xavier Restrepo got Miami’s deficit down to five points with 6:07 to play. The Jackets gained one first down before punting the ball back. Tech’s defense finished its best performance of the season with a game-clinching play.
Ward was scrambling and looking to pass when Romello Height knocked the ball out of his hands, and Tech’s Jordan van den Berg jumped on it. King finished off the victory with an 11-yard pass to Singleton, who could have scored but slid to prevent Miami from getting the ball back.
The Jackets won their biggest game in a long time even though King couldn’t really pass the ball. He credited Tech’s offensive linemen for making the plan work.
“I kept looking at each one of them in the eyes, I was like, ‘Let’s find a way,’” King said. “‘No more excuses. We are going to find a way to win this one.’”
The Jackets found a way because their special quarterback played.
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