DUBLIN — For a school that churns out astronauts and engineers with astonishing efficiency, spontaneous moments of joy can easily be traced to meticulous preparation.

And that’s why the big hugs, heavy fist bumps and unbridled excitement that Georgia Tech unleashed at Aviva Stadium after its 24-21 win over No. 10 Florida State on Saturday night in Ireland were both a celebration and a highlight.

By beating a Top 10 team for the first time since 2015, Georgia Tech opened the 2024 season with a stunning upset, capped by a 44-yard walk-off field goal from Aidan Birr. It was also the empirical tipping point of Tech’s nascent ambitions.

For Yellow Jackets coach Brent Key, a proud former player and avid supporter of Tech’s aggressive identity, all those joyful moments of spontaneity were byproducts of a meticulous plan, both game and program, executed to perfection.

“More than anything, to see or know that so many people are seeing Georgia Tech and the brand of football that we’re playing right now, and it’s not a gimmicky brand of football,” Key told ESPN in a quiet moment after the game. “It’s real. It’s brutal. We’re going to build at the line of scrimmage. That’s where games are won.”

Keys’ signature victory in his second year as Georgia Tech’s full-time coach was the stuff of a former offensive lineman’s fever dream. It was crafted with a determination that would make George O’Leary smile, featured enough quarterback runs to make Paul Johnson wink and evoked familiar big-game trappings that harkened back to the glory days of Bobby Ross.

Victory on a misty Saturday at Aviva Stadium during the Aer Lingus Classic came thanks to deft execution of a game plan that yielded 190 rushing yards, a game clock that ran like a podcast at 1.5x speed and a pressure cooker that demanded every possession be treated like a Fabergé egg.

Star quarterback Haynes King had his shoulder hunched forward so often to create distance that he ran the ball 15 times, almost as often as he threw it (16).

And there was spitfire tailback Jamal Haynes, who scored a pair of touchdowns, rushed for 75 yards and finished as the game’s leader in grass stains and end zone paint on his uniform, fitting badges of honor for a game of this nature. And there was leading tackler Kyle Efford (10 tackles and a half TFL), filling holes and pushing back piles.

“It means a lot,” Key said of the moment. “I love this place and I give everything I have to this program to make sure these kids have everything they need to be successful on and off the field. It’s awesome to see them have the success they had tonight.”

Tech entered the game with a classic underdog plan: run the ball, run out the clock, and shorten the game. The quarterback run game has long been the great equalizer of sports, and the more things change in sports, the more that will resonate as an eternal truth.

Tech essentially made the second quarter disappear with a 14-play masterpiece that lasted just under eight minutes. It would be framed and hung on the wall of the Georgia Tech facility if Key could figure out a way to distill it into a fresco.

Offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner turned in a maestro play-calling performance with a delectable array of pre-snap and post-snap shifts and motions. FSU’s talented defense was flat-footed and confused for most of the night. But that innovative window dressing shouldn’t take away from the collective gritty growl of the Tech offensive line, which had a Florida State defensive line in complete control that spent long stretches of the game with its hands on its hips.

Tech’s determination and strength neutralized FSU’s individual defensive talent, which included two 2023 All-ACC defenders. FSU’s starting defensive line didn’t record a single sack or TFL and had just one hurry.

On defense, Tech rolled out seven new starters and a new play caller in coordinator Tyler Santucci. It sought to change the look frequently before the snap to confuse FSU quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, consistently forcing him to make long throws downfield and limiting big plays. FSU finished with seven possessions, 291 total yards and just 3.2 yards per carry.

“It’s very intentional how we build this program,” Key said. “We build it with a strong foundation to last.

That’s a dramatic difference from the Tech team that finished 128th in rushing defense last year. Those who followed Tech closely last year saw the potential of King, the tenacity of Haynes and the ways Faulkner could fool a defense. But without a defense that could play complementary football, it resulted in a team that played a bit of a tease, beat UNC, played Georgia to a one-score game and exploited Mario Cristobal’s epic clock-management blunder to beat Miami.

But it also lost to Bowling Green and gave up 21 unanswered fourth-quarter points in a loss to Boston College, as consistency wasn’t possible without answers on defense.

“First we learned how not to lose, then we talked about how to win,” Key said. “The next step in this journey is learning how to win consistently.”

That long hug between Key and Santucci after the game showed what’s possible with the combination of Faulkner’s innovative offense, Key’s ethos of toughness and a stout defense. (Key has 16 former linemen on his staff, a clear testament to the program’s dedication to the line of scrimmage.)

“That hug was just confirmation of what I already knew about Tyler,” Key said. “He said, ‘Thank you for bringing me here.’ And I said, ‘Thank you for saying yes.’ It’s going to be a really good match.”

It’s hard to make sense of FSU’s loss, as limited possessions and a flood of new faces make it hard to draw any grand conclusions. “The importance of every snap in that game was monumental,” Norvell said, clearly frustrated by the limited possessions and short play.

The scary thing long term was the lack of explosion at the skill positions for FSU, which will have to change. Maybe the slick grass, Tech’s superior schemes and the Seminoles adjusting to a new identity took their toll and are issues they can overcome.

But as Georgia Tech shifted the chains and continued to look clearly at its identity, it was clear which team had the better quarterback. It was King, who wanted to play the game with his legs but also executed with his arm when necessary. On Tech’s other masterful drive of the night — an 11-play, 89-yard march to take the lead 21-14 early in the fourth — King completed all five of his passes. (That included a 15-yard pass on third-and-12 to leading receiver Malik Rutherford, which lifted Tech from a likely punt to a touchdown drive.)

“Haynes is without a doubt the best quarterback in this league, and I think he has a chance to be the best quarterback in the country this year,” Key told ESPN. “The cool thing about him is it doesn’t have to be throwing the ball. It doesn’t have to be running. He can do both and he’s such an unselfish guy and an unselfish player that he puts the team first and does whatever it takes to win.”

King did just that, bailing Tech out of a disastrously fumbled snap on a motion play that went awry with a minute left. The 10-yard loss derailed Tech from a field goal and loomed as the type of self-destructive play that could derail a near-perfect game plan from the first 59 minutes. But King kept his cool and found star receiver Eric Singleton for 12 yards on third-and-17 on the next play.

“You can’t say all week you have confidence in your players and then be afraid they won’t do their job properly when the game starts,” Key said.

And that’s exactly what Tech did: a painful reminder of how great college football can be in 2024. And it also provides a taste of what Tech plans to become under Key.

“It’s a big step forward for our program,” Tech athletic director J Batt said after the game, “but this is really where we belong.”