Avery Boyd, Chase Lane, and Malik Rutherford decided to celebrate with their Georgia Tech teammates by doing an Irish jig while the team was passing around the Aer Lingus College Football Classic trophy.
It was the perfect dance for the occasion, and they performed it well. It was their second great performance of the day at Aviva Stadium.
Aidan Birr kicked a 44-yard field goal as time expired, leading Georgia Tech to a 24-21 upset over No. 10 Florida State on Saturday in the first major college football game of the season.
This win was Georgia Tech’s first against a top-10 team since they beat the Seminoles 22-16 in October 2015.
Jamal Haynes rushed for 75 yards and scored two touchdowns for Georgia Tech, while Haynes King passed for 146 yards and ran for 54 yards. The Yellow Jackets (1-0, 1-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) controlled the game by running for 190 yards and averaging 5.3 yards per carry.
“Really proud of the offensive line,” coach Brent Key said. “Shocking there, right? Really proud of those guys and how they were prepared.”
The Seminoles, coming off an undefeated regular season and with a new roster, tied the game with 6:33 left in the fourth quarter after a 15-play touchdown drive that included two fourth-down conversions by DJ Uiagalelei.
Florida State (0-1, 0-1), which was favored to win by 10 1/2 points according to BetMGM Sportsbook, never got the ball back. Birr kicked the winning field goal with 5 seconds left, which stayed inside the left upright.
Uiagalelei completed 19 of 27 passes for 193 yards in his Florida State debut, mostly making shorter passes until the late fourth-down completions.
Ryan Fitzgerald made a 59-yard field goal, which was his career-long and the second-longest in school history, just before halftime to tie the game at 14. He had earlier made a 52-yarder.
Each team had only seven drives. Georgia Tech’s final two drives were among the best: an 11-play, 89-yard touchdown drive and a 12-play, 49-yard drive that set up Birr’s kick.
“Very limited possessions,” Florida State coach Mike Norvell said. “The importance of every snap in that game was monumental.”
