The Birmingham Bowl is over, and this ends the 2024 season for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, with a 7-6 record for the second consecutive year, but still remains to be looked at in how the Yellow Jackets lost the game to the Commodores and what the biggest issue was for the Yellow Jackets in it, which was turnovers and a lack of discipline.
If you have seen any of the Yellow Jackets 2024 season, you would know that the Yellow Jackets play a very disciplined style of football that includes not turning the ball over and not committing a lot of penalties. So much so, that coming into the game, the Yellow Jackets had only eight turnovers all season and averaged only five penalties per game.
While the Yellow Jackets continued that path to success in the first half, the second half was full of mistakes by the team, starting with three straight plays in the third quarter. With the Commodores driving in Yellow Jacket territory, the Yellow Jacket defense committed penalties on three straight plays for three different penalties: a pass interference, a holding call on the secondary, then an offsetting unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from Ahmari Harvey, when him and a Commodore receiver got in a wrestling match. The end result of the drive was a Commodore touchdown.
Then, Yellow Jacket quarterback Haynes King threw an interception on the first play of the next drive to give the Commodores possession inside the Yellow Jackets 15-yard line. The Commodores would score a touchdown three plays later.
Then on the next Yellow Jacket possession, Malik Rutherford fumbled the ball after a 29-yard reception that was recovered by the Commodores. Six plays later, Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia would score on a run from six yards out.
All in all, the Yellow Jackets would commit nine penalties in the game and commit the two turnovers, which one could argue was the difference maker in the game.
Between players playing undisciplined, whether it be unsportsmanlike penalties or false start calls on the offense, the game wasn’t at all a pretty one for one of the most disciplined teams in the sport this season, and it resulted in the Yellow Jackets ultimately losing the game 35-27.