Head coach Brent Key said he suspected from the early going that the game would come down to a field goal in the end. Kicker Aidan Birr said he had no intention of missing two kicks in a row.
Both were right, which (to understate it) made a lot of Tech fans very, very happy both in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium and back home in the US.
Following a clean snap and a clean hold—the latter by Ireland native David Shanahan—Birr drilled a 44-yard field goal as time expired, giving Tech a thrilling upset victory over #10 Florida State in the Aer Lingus Classic in Dublin, Ireland. The Week 0 game was the first FBS game of the 2024 season, and it marked Tech’s first season-opening win since the 2020 campaign.
The win in Dublin was Tech’s first win over a top-10 team since their 2015 win over Florida State (which was just a tiny bit memorable as well). It made Tech 2-0 in games played outside the United States and the first team not named Notre Dame to win two games in Ireland, while FSU is now 0-1 in games played outside the United States. That 2020 season-opening win also happened to be over FSU in Tallahassee. And this win also, for at least a time, leaves GT in sole possession of first place in the ACC while FSU, the defending ACC champion, sits alone in 17th place in the standings.
That concludes today’s edition of FSU Fun Facts. For now.
For a moment in the early going, it looked like it wouldn’t be pretty. FSU moved the ball practically at will on their first drive, bludgeoning a seemingly overmatched GT defensive front for one gain after another, and running back Lawrence Toafili’s 28-yard run capped a 7-play, 75-yard TD drive. As the cherry on top, they lined up in a swinging gate formation for the conversion attempt and actually ran a play, with tight end Brian Courtney punching it in to give FSU an 8-0 lead.
But it turned out GT’s defense wasn’t the only one that needed to calibrate itself. When the Jackets got the ball, they returned the favor, opening with gains of 14 (Jamal Haynes run), 10 (Eric Singleton jet toss sweep—it truly is the new meta), and 42 (Malik Rutherford screen pass with a terrific run after the catch). Zach Pyron ultimately finished off a six-play drive with a one-yard TD from a heavy package, making it 8-7.
And from there… the defenses woke up.
It looked like Tech was on track to give up a second TD drive as FSU churned their way past midfield, but they quickly pulled it together, forcing an incompletion and containing a pair of runs to force fourth and 4. FSU coach Mike Norvell rolled the dice on a conversion attempt, and Uiagalelei swung a pass out to Toafili, who had only one man to beat—but that man was Tech cornerback Ahmari Harvey, who made a perfect rugby-style tackle to drag Toafili down two yards short of the line.
That stop set the tone for what turned out to be an extremely effective performance by the GT defense in Tyler Santucci’s debut as defensive coordinator. FSU gained 58 yards on the ground on their opening drive, but they didn’t even make it to 100 for the game. Once they got their feet set, Tech was formidable against the run all evening, holding FSU to 40 yards over their 26 carries over the rest of the game. From the advanced stats angle, FSU had -0.17 EPA/play on rushes in the game. It forced FSU to lean more heavily on Uiagalelei, the former Clemson QB who spent last season at Oregon State.
All told, Santucci’s unit held FSU to 291 total yards—a major achievement for a GT defense that gave up an average of 437 yards per game last season and had major struggles in the front seven.
“You don’t build that type of resiliency unless you start early … Our confidence came from seeing the defense progress through the spring and summer, and our offense got punched in the mouth during training camp,” Key said.
The strong play happened at all three levels of the defense. Tech had seven tackles for loss in the game, including one sack by Kevin Harris (a second sack by Romello Height was wiped out by a facemask penalty), and a total havoc rate of 12% compared to FSU’s 8%. Kyle Efford swept the field and finished with a team-high 10 tackles. The secondary wasn’t able to force a ton of incompletions, but their support was integral against the run and in containing plays before they could develop—as evidenced by plays such as Harvey’s fourth-down stop and a later run stuff on a Uiagalelei keeper.
Tech’s offense ran into a defensive wall too, going three-and-out on their second possession. But after FSU added a field goal to pull ahead by the normal football score of 11-7, they followed that up with possibly their best drive of the day—which, aside from one Haynes King completion to Chase Lane, was entirely on the ground. Tech went 75 yards in 14 plays for a go-ahead touchdown, with 64 of those yards coming on the ground, as they pulled ahead 14-11. FSU had the last possession of the first half, and Ryan Fitzgerald’s 59-yard field goal made it a 14-14 game at halftime.
The third quarter was scoreless—that’s when the game truly became a defensive struggle—but Tech put together a long drive to wrap up the quarter, with King picking up 21 yards on a QB keeper to get it to FSU’s one-yard line on the final play of the third. Jamal Haynes punched it in to start the fourth, capping an 89-yard, 6:22 drive and setting the stage for a dramatic final quarter with GT ahead 21-14.
FSU put together a backbreaking drive that chewed up more than half the quarter and featured two fourth-down conversions, going 84 yards on 15 plays and taking up 8:18 to tie the game at 21-21. At this point, it was essential that Tech burn clock, pick up first downs, and protect the ball.
They did the first two nearly perfectly, as King relied on a run-heavy offense to drive the team to the fringe of field goal range. That’s when they almost had a disaster with the third, as a mistake with receiver motion resulted in a botched snap that King recovered for a 10-yard loss. But he got the yards back with a pass to Eric Singleton on the sideline for a 12-yard gain, which set the stage for Birr’s winning kick.
Among the specialists, Birr missed a 51-yarder in the third quarter, which he said hardened his resolve to hit the final kick. Shanahan, making his debut in his native Ireland, had two punts for 44 and 49 yards, the latter of which he managed to get out right as FSU’s coverage team was bearing down on him. And the team avoided near-disaster on a punt return when Rodney Shelley got leveled after not signaling for a fair catch but managed to hold onto the ball.
King himself didn’t have an overwhelming stat line; he finished 11-for-16 for 146 yards and had 15 carries for 54 yards, a total dented by a pair of botched snaps. The main story was the balanced ground game. Running back Jamal Haynes led the team with 75 yards and two TD on 11 carries, and Chad Alexander emerged as an intriguing second back, showing speed and toughness (and some impressive agility) as he picked up 41 yards on seven carries. Malik Rutherford led the team with 66 receiving yards, of which 42 came on the opening drive screen pass.
And as the final cherry on top, Paul Johnson came out of Twitter retirement to applaud the team’s effective ground game—something he might just know a thing or two about from his time around the game.
