Georgia Tech hits walk-off FG to UPSET No. 10 Florida State | CBS Sports

Breaking news here on CBS sports HQ, Georgia Tech has pulled off the first upset of the season, beating Florida State on a game winning 44 yard field goal by Aidan Burr. They take down the Seminoles 2421 at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Florida State fall to zero and one in conference play. Because remember, this was a conference game. They have now lost four of their last five openers as a ranked team. They were 20 and zero versus unranked teams in the past two seasons. That's now 20 and one. They had 12 straight wins against ACC opponents. That streak is now over. What a huge day for the Yellow Jackets. Aidan King 11 of 16 for 146 yards passing. He had 54 yards on the ground. But of course the story is going to be Aidan Burr, who earlier in the game had missed a 50 yard field goal that would have put Georgia Tech ahead. He nails the game winner. So in terms of the playoff hopes, remember coming into this season we've been talking about two loss teams still making the playoffs, three loss teams going to be a fight Florida State already. Oh, and one before week zero 43.5. Now it's down to 18% to win the ACC. And you see that finishing with one loss now down to naught point zero 8%. All right. So let's talk about this by bringing in our guys from the cover three podcast host Chip Patterson. Contributor Bud Elliott. Gentlemen it was a ten and a half point spread between these two. That's what it closed at chip coming in I know you guys talked on the pod. You kind of stayed away from the spread in terms of the play here. But first I just want to get your reaction to this an upset right out of the gate as a top ten team goes down. Well, first let's talk about the winners here. Because for Georgia Tech this is a continuation of what we saw last year. They brought back so many pieces. You know Haynes King obviously the one that's going to get a lot of our attention from last year. And what did they do last season. They finished tied for fourth in the ACC they got two wins against top 25 teams, and they showed that they can hang with about anybody in the conference. And so I think one reason on the cover three podcast, you didn't see anyone other than our own Danny Kanell confidently laying these points is because everyone recognized that Georgia Tech was dangerous. And because of all that continuity, the only unknown here was Florida State, which is where for Florida State, you come out of this extremely disappointed in a few things. Number one, that you are not able to get more out of your downfield passing attack. Some of that is going to be put at the feet of D.J. Uiagalelei. Maybe it is at the feet of the wide receivers as well, but this is just not a dynamic offense. Through the first game of the season. And then number two, I think that Florida defense is incredibly talented, but they needed to get a few more stops. The fact that Georgia Tech ate up so much time on some of their touchdown drives, we're talking six, seven, eight minutes. You know, those were times where you needed to be able to get off the field and it wore them down across the entirety of the game. So for Florida State, a lot to work on for Georgia Tech. Watch out. They can hang with anybody in the ACC. Chip I got to agree with you there. I thought Haynes King you know passing the ball was kind of rough early in the game. But in that third and fourth quarter, he had some critical third and fourth down conversions, especially the one where he dodges pressure, steps up on third and 12 and throws an absolute strike to keep that Georgia Tech touchdown drive alive. I thought tech tackled pretty well and offensively I thought tech did a great job of using shifts and motion to attack Florida State's linebackers and safeties. They really didn't attack down Hill very well against this tech offense. I think a lot of that was they were kept off balance by Texas Tech's play calling, and really that was kind of the key to the game. Bud, were you surprised by how good this Georgia Tech defense actually was at stopping the things that Florida State wanted to do? I was I think we knew they would be somewhat improved, but it's week zero, so we hadn't really seen any proof of concept. I thought they did a really nice job right? They were able to play downhill. I think we knew that Florida State's passing attack would be kind of iffy. I think that's why most of us on cover three, you know, took first half or full game unders because FSU's intent was to rush the football and because they don't really have much of a passing attack right now, like DJ Pooh is. Okay, I don't think Florida State thought that he was going to be amazing. And the receivers right now are kind of kind of mid. Right. So, their inability to run the ball better I think was key. And Georgia Tech allowed a lot of rushing yards on that opening drive. They made adjustments after that and they kind of made Florida State play left handed a bit. And Florida State could not punish them enough. Throwing the football down the field. Yeah I'm glad you mentioned that bud. Because the thing that stands out to me is everything that happened between that opening drive where it looked like Florida State was going to win by 20, and then the drive that tied it at 2121 with DJ, I thought doing a great job of stepping up, showing composure and converting multiple fourth downs of seven yards or more. But everything in between, it just didn't look like Florida State was dictating what was happening offensively. And so when you're just all of a sudden getting all this extra pressure, you know, they were sending safeties, they were sending linebackers. There is, as Bud was mentioning, an apparent disrespect for what Florida State was going to be able to do down the field, but also credit the adjustments that were made. Georgia Tech finished dead last in the ACC in total defense last year. They go out and they hire Tyler Santucci. You know, after he spent time with Mike Elko at Duke and Texas A&M, that hire might be one of the best hires that Brant Key has made in his very young career. Whether it's someone in the office, whether it's someone, somewhere else, this defensive coordinator has been a big part of what a lot of Yellow Jackets fans are going to remember as a great win from the early Brant Key tenure. I mentioned the season opener thing with Florida State here and the last four season openers as a ranked team, you see it there the last four seasons ranked team, just one win. So obviously when you look at this, you know, historically, perhaps it's not something to panic about. But Chip, you know, what are you taking away from this if you're a Florida State fan, given the fact that, you know, this isn't necessarily something that's that's brand new to you? Well, first of all, any Florida State fan is memory hold the Willie Taggart era. So take 2017 to 2018. Those do not exist to Florida State fans. We've just set that to the side we did. We talk about it like it didn't happen. Lots of families have situations like that, but there is a lot to be concerned about. There is a laundry list of things that you would like to see Mike Norvell be able to address before. Oh yeah. By the way, your next ACC game, which is coming up on Monday, not two days from now, but nine days from now. So they've got to do travel all the way back to the United States, and then they will open up their home schedule against Boston College. And look, they are going to be favorites again against Boston College. There's definitely going to be a desire to think that Florida State will respond in a strong way. But that same Boston College team kind of gave the Seminoles fits in September last year. So this is a very, very tricky spot. And I think that for Florida State fans, you're just hoping that you can get to the next week one and one by any means necessary. Then let's get into the lab and let's figure out if we can fix some of these things around the edges. I got to agree with Chip there. Again, I think if you get the win over Boston College, who you won't have any film on, right. Because it's a new scheme for Boston College with new head coach Bill O'Brien, who came over from Alabama. He's taken over for Jeff Hafley, who went to the green Bay Packers. So you're not really sure what BC is going to run. It's kind of a weird home opener on Labor Day night. On a Monday night in Tallahassee. I think you did see some things here that you can feel good about, and some things that are obviously concerning. You'd like to get this win, at the same time, it's seven drives of football, right? And there's some things you did that like you couldn't finish. There's some things like on defense you did that couldn't finish. I thought tech did a great job of executing and finishing. I don't know if I'm really ready to abandon all my priors on either of these teams over, you know, 50 plays. But Boston College, Bud, you said it there. I mean, if you're Florida State, you don't have tape on Boston College, but they've now got tape on you. Right. So if you're Boston College, what did you learn today about Florida State? I think you learned that they are not a team that is likely to be able to drop back and throw the football in long down and distance situations. So if I'm Boston College, I'm trying to really kind of gamble to get those first and second down tackles for loss, to knock this team off schedule. I think this offense is fairly capable of scoring if they're ahead of the chains, because they do have a variety of play, action and slip screen stuff. They can run and the backs are pretty good. But I think you saw Georgia Tech repeatedly try to get those, you know, stuffs and those tackles for loss. Of course everybody wants them, but strategically it made sense to gamble and sell out for it a little bit more than maybe you otherwise would, because you're able to back them up off the chains, a spot where they're really not equipped to attack right now. Yeah, Boston College might have quarterback Thomas Castellanos, but they don't have the type of continuity that Georgia Tech has. Georgia Tech brought back three of their top four wide receivers. They brought back 1000 yard rusher Jamal Haynes, who I thought was a huge part of the win today. They had four of their five starters along the offensive line. You throw in the coaching change as well. I don't know if Boston College's offense is going to have the kind of success. The question is whether Boston College's defense, which I think lost a lot of key players off last year's team, whether they're going to be able to have the personnel to get the same kind of stops because everything that went well from that opening drive, the way that you were getting Roydell Williams and Lawrence Toafili, Jakai Douglas, Jaylen Lucas, like getting those players in space is going to lead to great things. The blocking that Florida State had on that 28 yard touchdown run for Toafili. You know that showed you what this offense can look like when you've got the defense off balance. I, I expect that Florida State even being at a tape disadvantage is going to feel better about the Boston College game. Knowing who they are and what needs to improve. D.J. Uiagalelei, of course, is going to get a lot of attention. He has gotten a lot of attention. Let's talk about his numbers and what we saw from him today. Going 19 of 27 for 193 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions. One of the things that head coach Mike Norvell said coming into the season is that D.J, you came in humble with humility and he's led by example, and his teammates have followed him. So So, Chip, when you look at this performance today on a scale of 1 to 10, give me a rating for D.J, you based on what you saw. Because he wasn't terrible. He led he showed leadership, leading them on that drive where they needed to tie the game. And he got them down there. Two fourth down conversions, big fourth down conversion. So when you look at the game as a whole, though, how would you rate this performance on a scale of 1 to 10? From D.J, you 4.5 I'm not going to get you to midway because you could have won this game and probably not been higher than a six or a seven. I think that for Florida State, the most concerning thing again, is that Georgia Tech, with the way that they were calling their defense in the second half, especially during those stretches that we talked about before that final drive that got it tied 2121, there was just not a lot of respect for the deep ball. And when they were trying to take advantage of that lack of respect, D.J. was missing wide receivers. I mean, he had a several deep passes where a little bit of a better throw could have led to an explosive play, and yet it wasn't there. And so when you don't have that kind of accuracy on the deep pass, and when you don't have that kind of execution or that crispness in the downfield passing attack, then it is going to make it so much tougher to run the football. And that's what Florida State does best. They got a big, experienced offensive line. They got two great running backs that are really physical and nasty and run mean. But if all the bodies are going to be right around the line of scrimmage because no one respects what is happening 20 yards down the field, it's going to be harder to be able to build that with any kind of consistency. So I give D.J. a 4.5. I think he needs to be able to help elevate the downfield passing attack because it's hurting the Seminoles run game. I agree with Chip there. Look, there's a reason that D.J. is in Tallahassee and not in an NFL training camp, right? Like he's a okay college quarterback. He's a very experienced guy. He's probably not going to lose you the game. He didn't have any turnovers. He didn't really put any any balls that even were possibly intercepted. I don't think not not that I can recall. But yet he also had 12 attempts, only two receivers passed five yards down the field. Like that's just not really like scary to a defense if you will. So I think Florida State largely showed its intent and its knowledge of what it had with D.J. and with these receivers. Obviously, Hakeem Williams has missed a lot of fall camp. They hope to have him back probably after the bye week, which is coming up in week two. But right now they are pretty limited. I also thought it was notable he seemed to be really reliant on the helmet communication. I think both quarterbacks were actually. But you know, after that 15 second mark when the helmet comms shut off and that's new to college football this year when Georgia Tech had some of those late rotations, I don't think Florida State handled it very well, particularly in the late second and early third quarter. It's going to be interesting to see how they adjust things, because at at Oregon State last year, D.J. was 75% completion percentage inside of nine yards. But over that it was just over 50%. So obviously stretching the field has been certainly something that's been a challenge for him, at least for the last year or so. Guys, you saw the graphic coming in about what this does for the college football Playoff, chances for this Florida State team. Favorites to win the ACC that now drops to 18%, finished with one loss, 0.08%. So. But I'll ask you here in terms of the College Football Playoff, you guys have talked about this that, you know you're probably looking at a two loss team. That's it. But how much pressure now does this add to Florida State on that schedule in terms of making the playoff? Sure. I do think it adds some playoff pressure because you still have games remaining against the Clemson at SMU at Miami. Right. And you're going to need to win at least two of those. If not, sweep them. If you want to get to Charlotte for the ACC title game. And that's because there are some teams in this league this year with the 18 teams we have in this league, like some of these schedules are really imbalanced. And like Virginia Tech, easily could go undefeated in the conference because they don't really play that many challenging games. NC state has a very favorable schedule. Heck, SMU has a really nice schedule, so you kind of have to have in the back of your mind, guys like you better not lose any more games because somebody could easily sneak in there. You don't even play Florida State has to win the ACC to make the college Football Playoff, but I don't have enough confidence in the rest of the ACC to say that Florida State is out of it. To win the ACC, I think the College Football Playoff selection committee will penalize the Seminoles if the Seminoles are there at the end of the year, and they're trying to get that 11 seed or that ten seed this season. Opening loss could be something that ends up weighing them down. And I say that too, because knowing that to win the ACC right now, sitting dead last at zero and one in conference play, they are going to have to go beat Clemson. They're going to have to go beat Miami. They're going to have to win that game against SMU. And so if Florida State can get into the conference championship game and win the conference, then they do have the kind of quality wins that would help when it comes to at large. But I do think that Florida State's path to the College Football Playoff right now runs through winning the ACC championship, because this is going to be a tough one to overcome if they're sitting there with 1 or 2 losses. And you saw on the schedule, too, from September 20th 8th to October 26th, they've got at SMU, at Duke, at Miami. And they also have Clemson in there as well. So that is going to be a tough part of the schedule for them. Chip Patterson but Elliott from the cover three podcast joining us to break down Florida State upset by Georgia Tech in Week zero 2421 at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Of course, these guys will be talking about it over on the cover