It’s been nine years since Georgia Tech took some souvenir hedges back to Atlanta.

After the Yellow Jackets’ 45-42 win over Georgia on Saturday, the Georgia Tech players got to take a few branches from Sanford Stadium’s hedges back to their visiting locker room.

“I don’t know who started it but I got to the locker room and there were a bunch of hedges so we’ll keep those a while,” Georgia Tech A-back Roddy Jones said. “It will be something to talk about for a while.”

Making this game a competitive rivalry again was something important to Jones, who grew up around a lot of Georgia fans in Stone Mountain.

“Growing up I heard how great it was to go to UGA,” Jones said. “It’s good to be a part of having a streak like that stopped.”

Jones was more than just a part of stopping Georgia’s winning streak as he gained 214 of Tech’s 409.

Jones wasn’t surprised at how Tech ran the ball. At halftime, Jones said that Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson told the team that Georgia’s defense wasn’t doing anything different than other teams to slow down the option.

“Coach Johnson just told us they aren’t doing anything we haven’t seen before,” Jones said.

Jones’ white Georgia Tech jersey was soaked in mud after the game, even though it didn’t seem he was tackled that much. Jones’ 214 yards came on only 13 carries.

“We know whenever we execute the offense it will be hard to stop,” Jones said.

Georgia linebacker Rennie Curran said Georgia’s defense, which has surrendered an average of 226.4 rushing yards in the last five games, did not execute the way it needed to.

“They didn’t do anything different that we didn’t know,” Curran said.

“We just didn’t get in there and execute and wrap up and make that tackle.

“We had 10 guys doing it right, and maybe one guy not getting off a block or something and it busts wide open. That’s how it happens.”

Defensive tackle Corvey Irvin felt Georgia stopped Tech’s ground game except for the big plays the Yellow Jackets broke off in the second half.

“We stopped them pretty much, but at the times we really needed to stop them, we couldn’t,” Irvin said.

“There was a missed assignment, or a missed tackle. We weren’t hitting on all cylinders like we were in the first half.

“In the second half, we lost our edge. I don’t know where it went. I guess we thought we had the game wrapped up in our pocket.”

At halftime, Georgia was up 28-12 and had given up 123 of Tech’s 409 rushing yards.

Georgia Tech B-back Jonathan Dwyer said the Yellow Jackets had a good idea how Georgia would defend their flexbone option.

“We saw, during the week, what we could or couldn’t do,” Dwyer said. “Sometimes they would overplay their formations and we took advantage of that.”

Dwyer set the tone rushing for the Yellow Jackets after halftime with a 60-yard rush on the third quarter’s first play from scrimmage.

Dwyer said he figured that rushing play would go the distance the second both teams lined up.

“It was open from the beginning and they overran it,” he said.

Georgia head coach Mark Richt said he wouldn’t point any fingers because of the defensive woes, saying that most of Georgia’s problems had to do with missed tackles.

“My thought is that a lot of times when things don’t go exactly the way you want it to, you have to find someone to blame,” Richt said. “And I’m not going to do that.”

He did say that there will be a lot of time to reflect on how the regular season unfolded for Georgia down the stretch since there’s a lot of time before Georgia’s bowl game.

“It is a time where you get to the end of the season before the bowl, there is so much time, you can have some reflection,” Richt said.

“And then you can think of what could I have done different.”

Although he has time to reflect on what he could have done different, he doesn’t anticipate any coaching changes due to the defense’s performance.

“I really don’t, I really don’t,” Richt said. “We’re going to get better, and we’ll do a better job next year I guarantee that.”