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Saturday, November 5, 2005
Hard to say how Tech will use this win
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
This game was the latest tease for those into old gold and white. Block after block, tackle after tackle, run after run, throw after throw and kick after kick (yes, even the previously errant Travis Bell booted three field goals in three attempts), there were a slew of wonderful moments for Georgia Tech. In the end, the Yellow Jackets did enough Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium against Wake Forest to make you wonder if their rise to 6-2 for the season will evolve into something greater.
Here’s just a hunch: Look out, Virginia, this week in Charlottesville. Maybe we should say the same to Miami, along with that football team in Athens. After all, since collapsing at home to a shaky N.C. State team, Tech has a three-game winning streak going into its roughest stretch of the season.
So why did coach Chan Gailey treat talk of a renaissance for the Jackets as if he were asked to wear Buzz’s mascot outfit on the sideline for the rest of his Tech career? “I don’t know what kind of effect [this streak] will have [the rest of the way],” Gailey said quickly after the Jackets’ 30-17 dismantling of their decent foes. “Someone asked me if this would set the tone for the rest of the season. No, it’s one game. And we have to get ready to go to Virginia and play next week. Twenty-four hour rule.”
About that rule: It’s a mandate from Gailey to his players to forget about the past after victories or defeats and concentrate on the present. The mandate rarely has worked during Gailey’s four seasons with the Jackets, especially since they’ve suffered as many baffling meltdowns (Duke) as incredible upsets (Auburn, twice). Still, it’s a mandate that flashes signs of working this season after Tech followed its defensive thriller over Clemson with the Jackets’ most complete effort of the season.
Wake Forest isn’t Florida State, but Wake Forest isn’t Duke, either. If nothing else, the Jackets’ victory was enough to make you wonder why their 6-2 isn’t 7-1. I mean, did they really lose to N.C. State? Not only that, Virginia Tech is an ACC monster, but no way the Jackets should have looked so frightened in Blacksburg.
I say all of this because against Wake Forest, before a surprisingly thick home crowd at Bobby Dodd Stadium that finally didn’t need a bunch of visiting fans to populate its upper decks, the Jackets did all sorts of splendid things. Those things started in a hurry, with Reggie Ball firing a perfect pass that Calvin Johnson stretched and grabbed for a perfect catch. It went for 43 yards. Soon afterward, Tech’s dynamic duo connected on another pretty bomb of 45 yards along the way to pushing Wake Forest down by two touchdowns early in the second quarter.
Translated: Tech can throw deep, and Tech can do so regularly after spending much of the season keeping folks guessing about such a possibility.
In addition to that Johnson, there was the other Johnson named James. That other Johnson continued his rise from nowhere as a redshirt freshman when he dragged defenders 2, 3, 4 yards for a first down after one catch and made another catch of 8 yards for a touchdown. There also was P.J. Daniels rushing for 109 yards, while Wake Forest Chris Barclay, the conference’s leading rusher during the regular season for the past two years, was held to 24 yards. That was his lowest rushing total as a starter when he didn’t have to leave a game for injury.
The Barclay stifling wasn’t the only defensive highlight for the Jackets. There was Chris Reis ending potential momentum for Wake Forest near the end of the first half after he added to Tech’s slew of interceptions by making a swipe of a Cory Randolph pass. There also was Eric Henderson pounding Randolph into a key fumble in the third quarter.
Add all of that to Ball’s ongoing maturation as a quarterback who makes fewer mistakes and rarely gets sacked, and to Bell rediscovering efficiency with his right foot, and you have … what?
“We’ve got a lot of seniors on this team. We’ve got a lot of leadership on this team, and we’ve got a lot of experience,” Ball said, before delivering the clincher. “And we have the 24-hour rule.” Which means the Jackets suddenly have amnesia about the nice things they just did.
Permalink | Comments (64) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Improbable storyline unfolding at East Lake
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Three days you have been expecting the clock to strike midnight. For the wicked old witch to tell Bart Bryant his party is over, back to the scullery. That Bart Bryants don’t win the big one. (ABC, the television network, doesn’t believe in fairy tales, either. Those dudes shut off the Tour Championship Saturday just before he holed out of the bunker on the 18th hole.) Saturday a headline read, “Tiger 3 Shots Back After a 67.” Well, Tiger is now four shots back after another 67. Three days the No. 1 player in the world has been chasing the No. 40 player and the gap isn’t shrinking. And between them, there is Retief Goosen, No. 4 and the defending champion at East Lake Golf Club.
By this time they should be getting acquainted, but Bryant says Goosen doesn’t say much, and neither does he.
“He’s the nicest guy in the world, but he just doesn’t say much,” Bryant said. “He’s just a quiet fellow. I was paired with him at the Buick in Michigan and I felt very inferior to him.”
I’ll say this, that I thought we were sitting in on a shocking story in the fourth round here last year. Goosen began the day four strokes back of Woods and wound up four strokes ahead of him. It was a drop-dead round for this man of few words.
Now, this is another amazing kind of story again that East Lake is witness to. Here is Barton Holan Bryant — how’s that for a Western movie sheriff’s name, and with his moustache, he could play the part — riding herd on the 28 other highest earners on the PGA Tour this year. Until last year, he had been without a tour card since 1991, and he had his card last year only through a medical exemption.
Three times he has had surgery. He had more scars than the loser in a saloon brawl. Six times he had been to qualifying school. He was getting to be 42 years old and nothing was happening. Did he ever think that sons of a Baptist minister weren’t destined to grow up golf shooters? The family left Gatesville, Texas when he was two, and he did most of his growing up in Alamogordo, New Mexico. His older brother, Brad, has become a player and done well. Now, you’re growing into your 40’s and you’re still hacking your way through the wilderness.
It all began to change this year when he won Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament and finished the season 22nd on the PGA money list, and miracles were happening. The bunker shot that finished off the day was “fairly routine,” he said. “It was about 25 feet, I guess. It just hit the pin and dropped in.”
Now, three days in a row and you look for the bottom to drop out. This is not the easiest tournament to attack for a guy who has never been found in the front section of the PGA Tour Guide, where the rich guys live. Tiger Woods has won the Tour Championship only once — and that in Texas. He has never been a strong finisher at East Lake, 20th once, 7th once, second twice, to Goosen last year and to Vijay Singh in 2002.
“I guess there’s something magical about it,” Bryant said. “The No. 1 player in the world, and the No. 4 and I’ve got to go out there against them tomorrow. What I need to do is keep the ball in the fairway and make some putts, then I’ll have a chance. Look, I had a five-stroke lead one time yesterday, and it was gone in four holes, or something. It can change fast out here.”
I’ve been to a lot of these things and seen a lot of amazing finishes. But if Bart Bryant wins this one, it will be the most amazing of all. Just to hold the lead three days in a row, for a guy who has never been there before, that’s amazing enough.
Permalink | | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
