By BOB SUTTON Associated Press
No. 8 Georgia Tech is a front-runner to reach the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.
Staying on course will require the Yellow Jackets (8-0, 5-0) to avoid a misstep at N.C. State on Saturday night.
“We’re going into an environment up there that’s going to be an extremely challenging environment versus a challenging team,” Georgia Tech coach Brent Key said. “They haven’t gotten the outcome they’ve wanted the last few weeks. But if you turn the tape on and watch them play … you make a judgment based on the team and how they play.”
This is the sixth time in Georgia Tech history that the team is 8-0, and the first season since 1966. In each of those previous five situations, the Yellow Jackets won the next game to move to 9-0. Going back to last season, the Yellow Jackets own a program-tying seven consecutive ACC victories.
N.C. State (4-4, 1-3) has lost two in a row and four of its last five games. That includes giving up 89 points in losses at Notre Dame and Pittsburgh.
“Nobody’s given up,” Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren said. “We just got to play better and it starts with me. … (Our players are) frustrated, they’re mad, and they want to do something about it.”
Fit for a King
Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King is getting more attention with each win.
“He represents all that is great in college football,” Key said. “He is the best representative of any one individual for this entire sport that we play and we all love.”
Among King’s latest notable performances was completing 25 of 31 passes for 304 yards in last week’s 41-16 victory over Syracuse. That marked the highest single-game completion percentage in program history (.806) for a player with at least 30 attempts.
In last week’s game, he became the first Yellow Jacket to throw for three TDs and run for two more in the same game.
Taking notice
The rash of coaching firings at power conference schools hasn’t gone unnoticed in Raleigh. The Wolfpack will need a solid November to avoid back-to-back losing seasons for the first time under Doeren, who’s in his 13th season and is the program’s all-time winningest coach.
“I don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ve got to worry about my players. I’ve got to worry about my staff, my wife, my children. Those decisions aren’t mine to make.”
We meet again
These teams were in opposite ACC divisions for years, so they seldom met.
The Yellow Jackets won 30-29 last November in Atlanta, where the teams combined for 36 fourth-quarter points. Georgia Tech’s last visit to Raleigh came in 2020, suffering a 23-13 loss. That marked N.C. State’s first home victory against the Yellow Jackets since a 2000 overtime win.
In a rush
Hollywood Smothers’ ACC-leading 825 rushing yards have come despite N.C. State’s last three Bowl Subdivision opponents holding him to less than 90 yards.
Smothers scored a touchdown last year at Georgia Tech, but quarterback CJ Bailey had three of the Wolfpack’s rushing scores in that game. Smothers ran for 86 yards last week on just eight carries in a game that saw Pitt build a big third-quarter lead.
Reversal?
This is the first meeting with either in the top 10 since 2002 — almost 23 years to the day — in a game that saw the Wolfpack holding a 9-0 record and a No. 10 national ranking entering a visit from Georgia Tech.
But the Yellow Jackets, who were just 5-3 at the time, derailed the Wolfpack’s perfect season with a 24-17 win in Raleigh that started a three-game skid for N.C. State.
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AP freelance writer Alan Cole in Atlanta contributed to this report.