THE FLATS – Aidan Birr’s school-record-tying 55-yard field goal as time expired lifted Georgia Tech to yet another heart-stopping win, a 24-21 triumph over longtime rival and No. 12/11-ranked Clemson on Saturday afternoon at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field.
Birr’s game-winning field goal – the longest by a Yellow Jacket in 39 years – capped a 10-play game-winning drive engineered by quarterback Haynes King. After Clemson tied the game at 21-21 with 3:26 to go in the ball game, King accounted for 36 of the Yellow Jackets’ 38 yards on the ensuing series (18 passing, 18 rushing), moving the Jackets into field goal position with less than 20 seconds remaining.
With no timeouts remaining and the final seconds ticking away, the Jackets’ field goal team took the field with precision, lined up, executed the snap and saw Birr blasted the 55-yarder through the uprights with several yards to spare. For the second time in the last four home games, Tech’s students stormed the field to celebrate a win over a top-12 team, as the Yellow Jackets moved to a hardly fathomable 7-1 against nationally ranked Atlantic Coast Conference opponents in Brent Key’s 37 games as head coach.
Georgia Tech (3-0, 1-0 ACC) jumped out to an early 13-0 lead, thanks to a pair of Birr field goals (40 and 42 yards) and a 5-yard touchdown run by running back Jamal Haynes.
However, Clemson (1-2, 0-1 ACC) rallied to take a 14-13 lead, thanks to touchdown drives on its final possession of the first half and its second series of the season half. A 30-yard gain on third-and-22 sparked the Tigers’ first touchdown drive, while a 73-yard pass from Cade Klubnik to Bryant Wesco Jr. gave them the one-point lead after the break.
Clemson’s lead wouldn’t stand for long, as Georgia Tech regained the advantage with a 13-play, 90-yard drive the culminated with King barreling into the end zone from a yard out to give the Jackets a 19-14 lead. On the ensuing two-point conversion try, Tech executed its version of the “Philly Special,” as wide receiver Malik Rutherford took a pitch from King on a reverse and found a wide-open Dean Patterson in the end zone, extending the Jackets’ lead to 21-14 with 10:02 to go in the ballgame.
Clemson wouldn’t go away, as it ran 6:36 off the clock on a 13-play, 75-yard drive, with Adam Randall’s 2-yard touchdown run knotting the score at 21-21 with 3:26 left on the clock and setting up Georgia Tech’s late-game heroics.
Besides Birr’s right leg, the story of the game was King, who missed last week’s win over Gardner-Webb with a nagging lower body injury, but returned this week to torch Clemson’s vaunted defense for 211 yards on 20-of-28 passing and 103 yards on a career-high 25 carries. King topped 300 yards of total offense for the ninth time in 26 games as a Yellow Jacket.
Defensively, Georgia Tech was led by defensive back Omar Daniels, who forced a fumble and had an interception, the former leading to a Tech field goal and the latter snuffing out a Clemson scoring opportunity in the red zone. Linebacker E.J. Lightsey also had a career day with 10 tackles.
The Yellow Jackets, who will almost assuredly be nationally ranked when next week’s polls come out on Sunday, will return to action next Saturday when they host Temple for a non-conference matchup at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field. Kickoff is set for 4:30 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on The CW.