Georgia Tech Football: Georgia Tech Gets win over Tulane in The Big Easy

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (2-0) helped the Tulane Green Wave (0-2) christen Yulman Stadium by handing Tulane a 38-21 loss on Saturday afternoon.

Georgia Tech has to break the habit of getting off to slow starts. That is the early trend that fans of the Yellow Jackets have had to deal with.

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The first half was whacky for Tech. On their opening play, quarterback Justin Thomas fumbled the ball giving Tulane possession deep in the red zone.

Tulane was able to cash in with a 12-yard touchdown from Tanner Lee to Justyn Shackleford.

Georgia Tech was able to answer back with a 75 yard drive capped off with a Tim Byerly 2-yard touchdown run. The drive was vintage Georgia Tech football with the Yellow Jackets using power football to gain all 75 yards.

The Tech defense for the most part was nonexistent in the first half as evidenced by the 10 play 75 yard drive that Tulane was able to put together to regain the lead. That drive was capped off with a 24-yard TD run by Teddy Veal off the left side.

Tech was able to even things up with a pick-6 by Quayshawn Nealy to make the score 14-14. But as soon as the Yellow Jackets would get the lead, they would quickly give it back.

Tulane was able to hit a big 61-yard touchdown pass from Tanner Lee to Xavier Rush to regain the lead 21-14.

Tulane’s play calling to close out the half became suspect from that point forward.

Demond Smith was able to intercept a pass that truthfully Tulane had no business trying to attempt.

The interception led to a Tony Zenon touchdown to even things up at 21.

Then, just before the half, Tulane elected to go on 4th down and 3 instead of punting, and they failed to convert. That led to Harrison Butker being able to knock down a 48-yard field goal to send the Yellow Jackets into the half up 24-21.

Georgia Tech, on their opening drive of the second half, pounded the ball down Tulane’s throat and ate up a lot of clock in the process.

Tech drove 12 plays and 76 yards to score on a Tony Zenon 2-yard carry. This drive was set up by Lawrence Austin’s first career interception.

Tech’s defense did a solid job in the second half of playing “bend but don’t break” defense. In the fourth quarter they forced Tulane to punt. The Tech special teams blocked it and took it the other way to set up a 1-yard Tim Byerly TD run.

This game boiled down to whichever team made the least mistakes, and took care of the ball, being able to come away with the win.

Georgia Tech was able to capitalize on three interceptions which they turned into 21 points, and a blocked punt which also became a touchdown. That is 28 points off of Tulane miscues.

Overall on offense, the Jackets were able to run the ball at will to the tune of 344 yards. The Jackets were also efficient on third downs converting 10 of 12 third down situations.

Zach Laskey was a monster out of the backfield toting the ball 12 times for 86 yards.

Justin Thomas got to show off his speed with 10 carries for 70 yards, and Tony Zenon was effective with eight carries for 62 yards and two touchdowns.

The defense was solid in the second half pitching a shutout. They obviously made some adjustments to combat Tulane’s offense, which at times, made it look as though they were going to be able to move the ball at will.

Georgia Tech is going to need to develop some kind of pass rush soon. They were able to capitalize on mistakes that were made by freshman QB Tanner Lee, which really were unforced errors.

Tech’s defense held Tulane to 327 total yards. Those yards were pretty balanced for Tulane with 231 coming through the air and 96 coming via the running game.

Georgia Tech now moves to 2-0 on the season and will now face Georgia Southern next Saturday.