But all the smoke and mirrors in the world by the offensive star can’t hide one simple fact — the Yellow Jackets possess a porous defense that’s going to come back to haunt them sooner or later.

For one day, Duke quarterback Spencer Romine was nearly as good as Heisman hopeful Hamilton. The Georgia Tech defense helped a lot, squandering a three-touchdown lead before holding on 38-31 at Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium Saturday afternoon.

The game was far closer than the eighth-ranked team in the country would have hoped and came on the heels of an overtime win a week ago against North Carolina. The Atlantic Coast Conference teams Georgia Tech beat the last two weekends have combined for two wins for the year.

“We’re very fortunate to get a win today,”Yellow Jackets head coach George O’Leary said. “I’m annoyed that we don’t line up and have a killer instinct to put people away when you have a chance to do it. When it’s 21-0, that’s when you really need to get things done.”

Hamilton led Georgia Tech (4-1 overall, 2-1 ACC) on three picture-perfect drives that spanned 81 yards, 58 yards and 80 yards. In the first quarter alone, Hamilton completed 9-of-10 passes for 154 yards. His 25-yard strike to Dez White accounted for the first TD before Phillip Rogers punched in two 1-yard scores for a 21-0 advantage with 13:29 remaining in the second quarter.

That’s when Duke (1-4, 1-1) finally emerged from its fog and discovered the joys of playing the Georgia Tech defense, which has allowed an average of 25 points per game.

Romine, a junior, settled in for his second straight start after recovering from a separated shoulder. He completed 5-of-6 passes for 87 yards on Duke’s first drive of the second quarter to put the Devils on the board, then ran in from 1 yard out after the Devil defense recovered a fumble.

Hamilton completed another touchdown pass, this time from 14 yards out, but the QBduel had begun by the time Georgia Tech went into the half leading 28-14.

“I was recruited in high school by Georgia Tech and they told me, ‘Joe Hamilton, he’s too short, he’s not going to stay there long, he’s moving to wide receiver,’” Romine said. “Seeing he’s out there as a leading Heisman candidate, that’s pretty fun to go out and play against him.”

But most important is what Romine did against the defense, not against Hamilton’s numbers.

“He doesn’t play against Hamilton, he’s playing against their defense,”Duke head coach Carl Franks said. “I don’t think there should be any concern at all for him about how Hamilton plays.”

Of major concern for the Georgia Tech defense was the way Romine kept playing. Duke took the opening second-half kickoff 80 yards in nine plays, with a 35-yard strike to Terrence Dupree setting up Romine’s 5-yard score to make it 28-21.

The Yellow Jackets punted for the first time and again Duke marched down the field. On the 14th play, Romine scrambled out of the pocket and threw to a wide-open Devin Pierce at the goal line. Tie game — except Pierce dropped the ball. A Sims Lenhardt field goal made it 28-24 instead.

“It was just one of those things,”Romine said. “Maybe he was too wide open. You can think about it too long, maybe that happened.”

With Romine leading the charge, the Duke defense got into the act, recovering another Tech fumble early in the fourth quarter. The Blue Devils used the short field and went 44 yards on four plays, taking their first lead at 31-28 when Romine ran in from 11 yards out.

Nearly an entire quarter remained, however, and Hamilton returned to his bag of tricks. After a Luke Manget field goal tied things with 7:12 remaining, the Blue Devils got two first downs before punting.

Hamilton took over on his own 30 and launched a 36-yard pass to Kelly Campbell, who was pushed out of bounds on the route and came back in to make the catch. The go-ahead score came on Sean Gregory’s 19-yard run with 2:56 left, and a quarterbacksack of Romine on the next Duke possession secured the Tech win.

With the final game-winning drive under his belt, Hamilton finished 23-for-34 for 324 yards and two touchdowns. Romine posted season-highs by ending 25-for-43 for 294 yards with a touchdown. He also ran for three scores.

Those numbers were close enough for Franks to grudgingly accept the battle of the QBs.