ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) \u2014 Things got ugly pretty quick for No. 16 Georgia Tech on Saturday. And just as it seemed the tide might be turning for the Yellow Jackets, it swallowed them whole and pulled their hopes of reaching the ACC Championship down with them.<\/p>\n
This is in reference to quarterback Haynes King\u2019s pivotal third-quarter miscue in a win-and-get-in matchup at Bobby Dodd Stadium, a turning point in Georgia Tech\u2019s 42-28 loss.<\/p>\n
Down 28-0 early in the second quarter, the Yellow Jackets were able claw back and make it a 14-point game at the half. Around six minutes left in the third quarter, Tech was on Pittsburgh\u2019s 5-yard line before King was picked off by Braylon Lovelace, who then returned it 100 yards for the touchdown.<\/p>\n
It was simple. Beat the Panthers and play in the ACC championship game in Charlotte. Lose, and it gets complicated.<\/p>\n
Well, it just got a little complicated.<\/p>\n
Despite the Yellow Jackets\u2019 rigorous attempt at a comeback – they were able to make it a 7-point game with around five minutes left – a Ja\u2019Kyrian Turner 56-yard touchdown run sealed the deal for the Panthers.<\/p>\n
With that, for a trip to Charlotte, Georgia Tech needs Pitt to beat Miami in the regular-season finale, Virginia to finish 6\u20132 with a loss to Virginia Tech, and SMU to end up either 6\u20132 or 5\u20133 in conference play. In that scenario, Pitt would secure the ACC Championship berth, and Tech would place ahead of both Virginia and SMU based on its record against common conference opponents, with all teams having faced them an equal number of times.<\/p>\n
Since SMU beat Louisville on Saturday, the same tiebreakers apply, but the Mustangs will need to lose to Cal in the season finale.<\/p>\n
Tech last played in the ACC Championship in 2014.<\/p>\n
The Yellow Jackets will face the No. 5-ranked Georgia Bulldogs, winners of seven straight, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium next Friday.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 WANF. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) \u2014 Things got ugly pretty quick for No. 16 Georgia Tech on Saturday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10561,25240,25247,25248,25249,25241,20090,25238,25239,25250,25236,25243,25237,25245,25246,25244,3398,11860,25242,73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-42178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-acc","9":"tag-acc-championship","10":"tag-braylon-lovelace","11":"tag-braylon-lovelace-interception","12":"tag-braylon-lovelace-pick-6","13":"tag-brent-key","14":"tag-georgia-tech","15":"tag-georgia-tech-acc","16":"tag-georgia-tech-acc-championship","17":"tag-georgia-tech-acc-championship-scenarios","18":"tag-georgia-tech-football","19":"tag-georgia-tech-pitt","20":"tag-haynes-king","21":"tag-jakyrian-turner-run","22":"tag-jakyrian-turner-stats","23":"tag-jakyrian-turner-touchdown","24":"tag-pitt","25":"tag-pitt-football","26":"tag-pitt-georgia-tech","27":"tag-pittsburgh","28":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","29":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}