Georgia Tech: 17
Duke: 41

Standing at 5-3, Georgia Tech looked to become bowl eligible when it traveled to Durham, North Carolina for an ACC battle with the Duke Blue Devils. The Yellow Jackets and Blue Devils would be meeting for the 70th time on the gridiron in a series dating back to 1933. The Jackets had enjoyed recent success over Duke, winning each of the eight previous meetings, as well as twelve of the previous thirteen to extend their overall series lead to 40-29-1. Duke’s lone victory during the stretch came in 1994 in Durham.

The Blue Devils opened the game with a 10 play, 62 yard drive that consumed five minutes of clock and ended in a 1 yard Cedric Dargan touchdown run. The highlight of the drive was a 25 yard pass from Mike Schneider to Andy Roland to escape 3rd and 9 from the Duke 39 yard line. Chris Dapolito found Ben Patrick for 15 yards later in the drive to setup the score.

The Jackets pushed to the Duke 36 on their first possession before turning the ball over on downs on an incomplete pass by Reggie Ball.
The Blue Devils then struck up their offense again and marched 39 yards before stalling at the Tech 25 yard line. Brent Garber came on shortly thereafter to connect from 43 yards out to increase the Duke lead to 10-0.

Tech’s offense collected itself for its second drive and covered 85 yards in 10 plays to crack the scoreboard. Ball highlighted the drive with a 39 yard pass to Jonathan Smith before eventually scoring on a one yard sneak to make it 10-7 early in the second quarter.

Midway through the second, Duke would begin at its own 28 following a Georgia Tech punt. Chris Douglas reeled off 50 yards on 3rd-and-1 to push to the Tech 13, and Dapolito hit Roland for a 7 yard touchdown shortly thereafter to make it 17-7.

Tech would go on to add a 41 yard Dan Burnett field goal late in the period to cut the margin to 17-10 at intermission.

Following halftime, the game was all Duke, as the Blue Devils scored 10 unanswered points in the third quarter to extend their lead. Matt Brooks first hit a 30 yard field goal to make it 20-10 at the 10:10 mark before Douglas added a 12 yard touchdown with 4:02 left in the period to make it 27-10.

P.J. Daniels gave Tech one more score early in the fourth quarter with a 1 yard touchdown run, but the Yellow Jackets continued to surrender points. Duke scored twice more in the final period to reach the 41-17 final. Malcolm Ruff accounted for the first score with a 42 yard Reggie Ball interception return for a touchdown, and Douglas added the second on a 27 yard touchdown run with 2:49 remaining.

The win gave Duke its first conference win since November 13, 1999 when the Blue Devils defeated Wake Forest 48-35 in Durham, thus ending an ACC record 30-game conference losing streak. After falling to Clemson a week later, Duke went on to defeat North Carolina 30-22 to finish the year at 4-8, overall.

Statistics:

First downs:
GT – 22
DU – 17

Rushing:
GT – 142
DU – 253

Passing (Comp-Att-Yds):
GT – 27-47-247
DU – 8-15-141

Interceptions thrown:
GT – 3
DU – 1

Fumbles (Total-Lost):
GT – 1-1
DU – 0-0

Penalties (Total-Yds):
GT – 4-30
DU – 6-35

References:
Game Summary: http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-footbl/recaps/110803aaa.html
ESPN Game Summary: http://espn.go.com/ncf/recap?id=233120150