ATLANTA—For the second straight game, the Blue Devils found themselves playing from behind for much of the second half.
This time, Duke came all the way back, overcoming a 21-point halftime deficit to take a 35-31 lead with less than nine minutes left in the game.
But the Blue Devil defense could not preserve the lead.
A 21-yard touchdown pass from Georgia Tech quarterback Justin Thomas to running back Clinton Lynch with 5:38 left keyed the Yellow Jackets’ 38-35 victory against the Blue Devils Saturday afternoon at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Duke had a chance to get the ball back late in the fourth quarter when it forced a 3rd-and-17, but Thomas escaped the pocket and cut upfield for 50 yards to seal the win.
“Why we couldn’t finish, you have to just look at Justin Thomas and say he might have had his finest hour,” Duke head coach David Cutcliffe said. “He played like a senior.”
The redshirt senior’s final big play of the day was part of his best game since his 2014 second-team All-ACC campaign. Thomas had 459 total yards and four touchdowns, taking advantage of blown assignments and missed tackles by the Duke defense throughout the game. On each of their scoring drives, the Yellow Jackets (5-3, 2-3 in the ACC) had a play that went at least 20 yards as the Blue Devils (3-5, 0-4) had little success against Georgia Tech’s triple-option scheme.
But after Duke went down 28-7 at halftime because of two first-half turnovers and two failed fourth-down conversions, redshirt freshman quarterback Daniel Jones and the Blue Devils found a rhythm in the third quarter to get back in the game.
“You’re down 28-7. So what do you do?” Cutcliffe said. “We went step-by-step what we had to do as a team to put ourselves back in the game.”
Duke took advantage of two forced fumbles to outscore the Yellow Jackets 21-3 in the period, with Jones finishing 22-of-36 for 305 yards and two touchdowns through the air to tight end Daniel Helm.
He added 73 yards on the ground, as the Blue Devils racked up 254 rushing yards led by their quarterback and the running back tandem of Shaun Wilson and Jela Duncan.
“Daniel did a great job leading us,” redshirt junior center Austin Davis said. “He was able to put the ball where our receivers could get it, made great checks and reads considering all the fronts they threw at us and he was on point as a leader and as a quarterback today.”
But first-half fumbles by Wilson and Duncan and a late three-and-out following four consecutive touchdown drives to start the second half proved costly for Duke, which could never get the stop it needed Saturday afternoon. Following Helm’s seven-yard touchdown reception in the fourth quarter to give the Blue Devils their first lead of the contest, Georgia Tech controlled the rest of the game.
After Duke sacked Thomas, on 2nd-and-19 from his own five-yard line, the Prattville, Ala., native, retreated toward his own end zone, rolled out to his right, then darted up the sideline for 46 yards. A few plays later, he fired a laser across the middle to Lynch to put his team back on top before his back-breaking 50-yard scamper on what proved to be the game’s final possession.
The heartbreak did not end there for the Blue Devils.
Duncan left the game in the second half with a ruptured Achilles tendon he suffered celebrating a touchdown and did not return. The team announced Sunday that the redshirt senior captain is done for the year, joining Thomas Sirk and DeVon Edwards as redshirt senior captains who have suffered season-ending injuries. Duncan had two of the Blue Devils’ three third-quarter touchdowns, becoming the sixth player in program history to reach 2,000 rushing yards for his career.
“I am very saddened by Jela Duncan’s injury,” Cutcliffe said. “It’s been that year, but we will support him.”
Duke will take on Coastal Division leader Virginia Tech at home next Saturday looking to put a pair of losses that will be tough to swallow in the rearview mirror.
“Sometimes, it just doesn’t go your way,” redshirt senior safety Corbin McCarthy said. “In the second half, the comeback was pretty awesome to be a part of. But if we can play like that for 60 minutes, we’re going to have great success in the next four games.”
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