Trailing with 1:30 left in its final home game of the season, Georgia Tech would depend on true freshman running back Aaron Philo to lead the way for the win against the Wolfpack.

While he has his entire career ahead of him, Philo had the signature moment of his young career by leading Georgia Tech on a drive to take the lead with 22 seconds left. NC State got into position to try to win the game with a field goal, but it went wide left and the Yellow Jackets won. They will enter their rivalry game with Georgia on a two-game winning streak and a 7-4 record.

Philo finished the game 19-33 for 265 yards and 57 yards rushing.

What was the message to the true novice on the last run? Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key went into detail in the postgame press conference about what he told his quarterback:

“Let’s go play. That’s the thing about him. I mean, Aaron has such, you know, he’s a very focused young man. Okay, but when it’s time to go, we just, Okay guys, let’s go, let’s go have fun, let’s play two man, they turned their backs on the quarterback and he saw it a couple of times, was able to take off and pick up two really big plays with his feet there.

I don’t remember it. Or I can’t say it, one of the two, no. Took him on and he gave it up on the last run and played with his feet as well.”

Just like last game against Miami, Georgia Tech used a two quarterback system with Philo and Haynes King and it worked. Key talked about their preparation and how they wanted to utilize the players against NC State:

“Yeah, going into the game we knew we were going to go long. I mean, it’s– we thought about what they were going to play, and they all had their hats on the ball. We tried, especially when Haynes was with Till and with Aaron, they played a little bit more of an umbrella, so we had to get guys through, or get through a couple of runs just to stay efficient and move the chains. We didn’t have a lot of success with that, so we were able to hit a couple of throws , a couple of cases where we could have had bigger, a few more big plays, but look, a lot of these things at the end of the day, we come in and correct them, work on them and then develop a plan for the next game.

The next step for Georgia Tech will be a massive test in Athens against rival Georgia, who they haven’t beaten since 2016. However, this could be their best chance in quite some time.