The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tech drops the ball (again and again)
Mistakes, penalties and eight fumbles give defending ACC champs easy win.
For a fourth consecutive season, No. 3 Clemson made clear its superiority to Georgia Tech, and again did so with the Yellow Jackets’ assistance.
The Tigers beat blocks on the line of scrimmage, threw pinpoint passes and chased down Tech ballcarriers. The Jackets hung in for a quarter, but lost control of the game with fumbles, penal- ties and an inability to hit big plays on offense and to slow the Tigers’ offense. The final score was an unsurpris- ing 49-21 verdict in favor of the three-time defending ACC champions.
Tech (1-3, 0-2 ACC), debuting alternate navy-blue jer- seys in honor of the 1990 national championship team, did not pay much honor to those hallowed Jackets with their play. The Jackets fumbled four times in their first 14 plays from scrimmage, finish- ing the game with eight, one shy of Tech’s school record in the modern era. After inducing punts on Clemson’s first two offensive possessions, Tech’s defense gave up touch- down drives of 74, 55 and 64 yards in the next four, help- ing send the Jackets into half- time down 28-7.
As was the case in Tech’s losses to South Florida and Pittsburgh in the previous two games, the Jackets thwarted their own objectives with mistakes. In the first half, they were twice inside of Clemson’s 30-yard line and came away without points. Fumbles, poor pass protection and a false start knocked Tech out of field-goal range on one drive, and a miss by kicker Brenton King from 43 yards ended the other.
Tech’s second possession of the game ended with another fumble — a toss to A-back Qua Searcy that he was unable to secure — that was advanced into the end zone for a Clemson touch- down and a 7-0 lead at the 3:42 mark of the first quarter.
Tech needed a big play out of the passing game to pick up some easy yards, but quar- terback TaQuon Marshall and the offense were not able to comply. Marshall was 1 for 6 for 29 yards and again threw an interception after he and the receiver — in this case Malachi Carter — misread each other, his fifth of the season in 56 pass attempts. He was replaced in the second half by Tobias Oliver.
On defense, Tech fell subject to the quarterbacking of Trevor Lawrence. The freshman from Cartersville came into the game on Clemson’s third possession of the game with a 7-0 lead and then led back-to-back touchdown drives, adding another just before the end of the half.
The Jackets recorded only one tackle for loss. Clemson ran 66 plays and reached third down just nine times.
It was reminiscent of mistakes that doomed Tech in the past three losses to Clemson (4-0, 1-0), when turnovers on opening drives and big plays surrendered by the defense enabled the Tigers to score big early and put pressure on Tech.
Clemson was able to exploit Tech’s defensive mistakes and shortcomings for big plays — such as a 53-yard touchdown pass from Law- rence to wide receiver Justyn Ross — while Tech could not. Until late in the fourth quarter, when Oliver popped a 39-yard run, Tech’s longest run of the game was 24 yards.
Adding to the dismal after- noon for Tech supporters was the heavy turnout by Clemson fans. Of the announced attendance of 50,595, perhaps a third were decked out in Tigers orange and purple.