ACC: Officials missed key offsides call in GT-Wake

The ACC said Saturday night that officials missed a pivotal offsides call that allowed No. 16 Georgia Tech to eventually overcome Wake Forest 30-29 in overtime in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

With the Yellow Jackets holding no timeouts and the Demon Deacons with the lead and working on the clock late in regulation, Wake Forest quarterback Robby Ashford threw a free-play deep ball on third-and-5 after a Georgia Tech player appeared to leap well offsides.

But officials didn’t throw a flag, sparking an irate reaction from the entire Wake Forest sideline and boos cascading from the stands.

The penalty would’ve been a 5-yarder and likely moved the chains, putting Wake Forest in position to potentially kneel out the clock. Instead, the Yellow Jackets got the ball back with 1:41 left, marched down the field and saw kicker Aidan Birr convert a 33-yard field goal with 2 seconds left in regulation to send the game to OT.

“I’m not putting that on Robby,” first-year Demon Deacons coach Jake Dickert told reporters. “There’s no way he can see the flag. We wanted to see the defensive look, we clapped, we’ll see what it ends up. And then Robby does what he’s trained to do, and that’s take a shot because he doesn’t know if that’s offsides or not.”

In overtime, Georgia Tech intercepted Wake Forest’s 2-point play to close out the win. The Yellow Jackets rallied from 17 down in the third quarter to stay unbeaten (5-0, 2-0 ACC).

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.