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DEL.ICIO.USPoor play ruins Booker’s feel-good story
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It wasn’t supposed to be like this for the Yellow Jackets overall and for their senior quarterback in particular on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
First, Georgia Tech’s football team spent the afternoon scrambling for its life against a pathetic Gardner-Webb bunch that lost to the likes of Tennessee Tech, Sam Houston State and Charleston Southern.
Second, everybody loves Calvin Booker, that senior quarterback.
He’s the epitome of the student-athlete with a finance degree just three months away. He’s a splendid role model who regularly studies his favorite book from Genesis to Revelation (I know, because I was his Sunday School teacher). He’s also the consummate teammate.
“He’s a character,” said running back Jonathan Dwyer, forcing a smile to keep from crying after the listless Jackets barely managed a 10-7 victory because Gardner-Webb missed a game-tying field goal in the final seconds. “You can talk to Book about anything. He’s a very emotional guy, and he’s a leader. He has the mentality that you need to be a quarterback.”
That said, this was brutal for Tech and for Booker. Tech’s offensive line was overpowered from start to finish. There were silly penalties, including one that negated a missed Gardner-Webb field goal. The new life enabled the Bulldogs to score a touchdown. When the Jackets’ defense wasn’t allowing huge yardage through the air, Tech’s offensive players were bringing in the wrong plays at times.
None of those things were pages in what should have been a feel-good story involving a Mays High graduate making his first collegiate start.
There was Booker’s 79-yard touchdown pass to Dwyer in the second quarter. There also was Booker slipping and sliding but keeping his balance for a first down inside the game’s final two minutes deep in Tech territory. Anything less than those two plays and Gardner-Webb makes Tech a loser to a Division I-AA school for the second time in 116 years.
So why was Booker as melancholy as everybody else?
Because this was Gardner-Webb.
“They stepped up and punched us in the mouth, and we didn’t punch back, which is why today was just a wasted day, as far as I’m concerned,” said Booker, who completed three of 11 passes for 120 yards and an interception. Then again, his statistics were deceptive. They don’t show the wrong route that Demaryius Thomas ran that caused an interception, or the pass Thomas dropped on Tech’s first play, or A-Backs running left when they should have been running right.
Said Tech coach Paul Johnson, looking as if he’d been run over by Tech’s Ramblin’ Wreck car, “There were a lot of times Calvin didn’t have a chance. It was a comedy of errors, really.”
Consider, too, that there rarely is a moment in Johnson’s news conferences when he doesn’t say something about his third-string quarterback, and the coach usually does so with adoring eyes.
Booker began at Auburn as a backup, then transferred to Tech in 2006 for more playing time. When it didn’t happen in Chan Gailey’s traditional offense last year that was suited for Booker’s drop-back style, he didn’t whine. Neither did he scream after Johnson replaced Gailey this season and installed a triple-option approach, the antithesis to Booker’s game. It made his teammates hug him more.
“I’m like granddad to the rest of the guys, because I’ll be 23 next week,” said Booker, also forcing a smile to keep from crying.
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