Oct. 12, 2013
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PROVO, Utah (AP) – Vad Lee was held to only 133 yards passing and zero passing touchdowns, as the BYU Cougars battled to beat the Yellow Jackets, 38-20 on Saturday night.
Cougars quarterback Taysom Hill passed for 244 yards and a touchdown and running back Jamaal Williams added 86 yards and a touchdown as the Cougars (4-2) beat the Yellow Jackets for the second consecutive season.
BYU had 433 yards of total offense with 345 yards coming before halftime.
Georgia Tech (3-3, 2-2 ACC) totaled 400 offensive yards. But the Yellow Jackets could not stop the Cougar attack in the first half and failed to overcome a pair of costly fourth quarter turnovers.
Hill looked nothing like the quarterback who struggled so much in the passing game earlier in the season during the first half. He completed his first eight passes and did not throw an incomplete pass until early in the second quarter. The sophomore completed 16 of 20 passes for 226 yards by halftime.
His lone first half touchdown pass — a 45-yard toss that Cody Hoffman stretched across the goal line to grab — gave BYU an early 7-0 lead.
Georgia Tech responded quickly. Vad Lee completed a 49 yard pass to Michael Summers on third down to get into BYU territory and finished off the drive with a 2-yard keeper to make it 7-7.
After forcing BYU to punt on its first series, the Yellow Jackets struggled to mount much resistance against Hill and the Cougar offense through the rest of the first half.
BYU retook the lead on a 2-yard run from Jamaal Williams. Then the Cougars extended their advantage to 24-10 on a 1-yard keeper by Hill with 4:53 left before halftime.
Georgia Tech opened a door to get back into the game after it finally figured out how to slow down the BYU offense in the third quarter. The Yellow Jackets held the Cougars to just 33 yards over that span. It didn’t matter with the BYU defense stepping up its own effort in the second half.
Kyle Van Noy sacked Lee for a 10-yard loss on the opening play of the fourth quarter. It forced Georgia Tech to settle for a 42-yard field goal attempt, which Harrison Butker hooked wide left.
On the Yellow Jackets’ next series, Alani Fua ripped a pass from Lee out of the air and took it back 51 yards untouched to give BYU a 31-13 lead with 11:01 remaining. Any hope for a rally ended for good for Georgia Tech a few minutes later when Spencer Hadley recovered a fumble from David Sims at the Cougar 31.
BYU marched down the field with big runs from Williams and Hill following the fumble. Algernon Brown capped off the drive with a 15-yard run to give the Cougars a 38-13 lead with 3:11 left.
The Yellow Jackets finally finished a second half drive when Deon Hill caught a five-yard TD pass from backup quarterback Justin Thomas with 53 seconds remaining.
