Georgia Tech will try to bounce back

ATLANTA — Georgia Tech’s football team needs to have a short memory. Again.

The Yellow Jackets (3-2, 2-1) are coming off another heartbreaking defeat, becoming the first Atlantic Coast Conference team since 2006 to lose a pair of one-point games in a season. Most recently, they suffered a 25-24 setback at No. 8 Miami, which rallied from an 11-point deficit in the second half to kick the winning field goal with four seconds remaining.

The Jackets know they can’t afford to still be agonizing over that when they host Wake Forest (4-2, 1-2) today.

“You sit on it for a day, then you’ve got to flush it like any other win and any other loss,” Jackets defensive tackle Desmond Branch said. “You can’t let the last week’s opponent be the next week’s opponent. We’re not going to let Miami beat us twice.”

The Jackets already went through this once before. In the season opener, they thoroughly dominated Tennessee and had a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter. The Volunteers rallied to tie the game, blocked a field goal on the last play of regulation and won 42-41 in double overtime.

Tech bounced back to win its next three games by a combined score of 105-34. Jackets coach Paul Johnson has stressed to his players that they can still reach all their goals, though they’ll need a little help after losing to the Hurricanes, a Coastal Division foe.

“You hope that it hurts, but you’ve got to learn to put it behind you and move on,” Johnson said. “You can’t go back and change it. You’ve just got to talk about why it happened and why you were in that position and all the opportunities you had that we shouldn’t have been in that position.”

Jackets B-back KirVonte Benson is expected to play after leaving the Miami game with a lower-body injury. The sophomore has rushed for more than 100 yards in three games and had 40 yards on seven carries against the Hurricanes before he was hurt.

If Benson can’t go, the Jackets will turn to sophomore Quaide Weimerskirch or freshman Jerry Howard.