Sims and the Jackets D stun Florida State in Tally

TALLAHASSEE, FL- Everything that could go wrong did in early key moments of Georgia Tech's season opener at Florida State. That changed in the second half. Tech managed to tie the game late and then take the lead in the fourth quarter to beat the Seminoles 16-13 at Doak Campbell Stadium with a true freshman at quarterback and a defense down multiple starters.

Jeff Sims made the start against the school where he was once committed before a coaching change and a change of heart led him to the Flats. In his debut, he showed moments of brilliance with 277 yards passing hitting on 24 of 35 pass attempts and he had 64 yards rushing on 13 attempts. He did throw two interceptions and had a couple of other ill-advised balls he got away with, but overall it was an impressive performance.

"We made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes and we were driving the ball good we just couldn't finish," Sims said. So at halftime, we just locked in, talked about it, and just told ourselves we need to cut out the silly mistakes and just go out there and execute."

For Sims, the game was extra meaningful after his longtime commitment to Florida State ended shortly after Mike Norvell was hired as head coach. Sims decided to go to Georgia Tech instead and as luck would have it, he made his college debut on the field he had thought he was going to play his college career on.

"I was excited. I'm ready to play and get my first career start. I really wanted to win this game and I'm glad we came out on top," Sims demurred.

Offensively a lot of players got involved in the game with three running backs Jordan Mason (73 yards), Jamious Griffin (49 yards) and Dontae Smith (41 yards) coming up big in both the running and passing game. Sims connected with 10 different receivers in the game.

Kicking game woes led to two blocked field goals and a blocked PAT for Tech's true freshman walk-on kicker Jude Kelley. The Jackets sorted out their line woes and Kelley connected on a game-winning 32-yard kick with just nine minutes left in the game.

"So the coaches made the decision about a week ago," Kelley said of when he would know he would be kicking. "They gave us a little bit of time to mentally prepare leading into this week, It has been about seven months since I last played a football game. So it was going back to our old routine, trying to get a feel for things. Obviously, the game didn't start the way that I would want it. Obviously a couple of errors, but I was really proud of the way that the team as well as myself, fought through it and came up with came up big when we needed to. I was hitting the ball really well. I didn't have any concerns about anything with my ability. I haven't got see anything but I mean, obviously, cup cupcakes got blocked. That's probably the biggest mental battle I've had to deal with. Because in that in that period, you're sitting, you're questioning yourself, right? You're like, I just, I just let some people down, let myself down. But what you can do in that situation is stick to your guns and make sure you bounce back when it's needed. And thankfully, it was and I was able to, it would make one."

Collins blamed himself for the special teams' issues with blocking. He said that may have been a side product of being overly protective due to COVID with some live special teams periods leading up to the game.

"I wish I could go back to our PAT/FG periods. In the past, before a global pandemic, we would do eight reps live twice a week. Well, that's one of the periods that we saw as we did our self-scout of our protocols, was the period that we had 11 guys within six feet of each other for too long. So we decided not to do that period like we have always done, and that's on me, that's a coaching error," Collins said. We will get that fixed. Hats off to Jude."

The real story of the game along with the improved offense and clutch field goal was the defense. Tech held Florida State loaded with offensive weapons to 307 yards. James Blackman was 23 for 43 passing for 198 yards or 4.6 yards per pass attempt a woeful number. FSU's running backs had just 52 yards in the game on 19 carries.

"They were fast, they were tempo and it took us a second to get used to it," Collins said of the defense. I thought Andrew Thacker and our defensive staff did a great job with adjustments. They got our defensive players on the side and talked them through the things that they were seeing. Nathan Burton up top (in the coaches' box) was a graduate assistant when I was here with Chan Gailey, and just proud of him how he's matured and developed as a coach. The eyes in the box getting that information to Andrew Thacker, who I think called a heck of a game and the way he motivates our defense and gets them dialed up and ready to play. The work that Marco Coleman and Larry Knight have done to improve our pass rush to improve our ability to build a wall up on the run game set edges. That was the difference in the game, and all 11 playing as a unit."

Tech had three sacks in the game and a ton of quarterback pressures led by Curtis Ryans who had a key strip-sack that led to the game-winning field goal. Ryans was in the rotation but took over the starting role when Antonneous Clayton was sidelined late in the week and Antwan Owens was not ready coming off his injury late last season to suit up.

"It felt like a normal game to me, but we were short a few in the rotation, but we had young guys coming up behind us encouraging us to play hard and fast so I was playing for my boys until them come back," Ryans said. "I miss them."

Chico Bennett coming back from an injury last season had the key pressure on Blackman that forced the final turnover on downs. Tech played over 25 guys on defense on Saturday including several young defensive tackles with Owens who plays both end and tackle out and T.K. Chimedza also out. Akelo Stone a true freshman saw his first action along with D'Quan Douse who redshirted last year and Mike Lockhart who played four games last and had a key defensive stop as well. Other than the linebacker position, the Jackets rolled tons of players throughout the game on defense.

JaQuez Jackson had a key interception to stop a drive and led all defenders with nine tackles while his counterpart David Curry had a key sack to force a punt during the game and six tackles with two tackles for a loss. The Jackets had six tackles for a loss in the win.

Tech has won the last four regular-season meetings against Florida State and the two ACC Championship losses between 2009 and 2015 were by a combined 8 points. The Noles had won 12-straight between 1992 and 2003 prior to Tech's win in 2008 in Bobby Dodd Stadium.

Up next for the Jackets will be a game against Central Florida next Saturday.