AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > August > 29
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Tech-Irish always classic
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
It might seem that, for all the furor about us, Georgia Tech and Notre Dame are breaking new ground this weekend, but the truth is, these two have been at it on the football field since the “Four Horsemen” were sophomores. You remember, I’m sure, Grantland Rice’s immortal lyric in 1924, composed in the icy press box of the Polo Grounds, “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.”
Not famine, pestilence, destruction and death as in lore, but Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden, the Irish backfield that beat mighty Army. Two weeks later, Notre Dame would win its 200th football game, and the victim was Georgia Tech. In 1928, on its way to the Rose Bowl, Georgia Tech would get its first taste of victory over the Irish, 13-0, in Atlanta. It would be 14 years before it happened again, this time in South Bend, and it was one of those games that still lingers lovingly in the minds of Tech historians. The star of the 13-6 game was a freshman, Clint Castleberry, though he never scored one of Tech’s two touchdowns, a freshman All-American who lost his life flying a bomber during World War II.
When the two teams played 11 years later, Georgia Tech was unbeaten and riding high after a national championship season. South Bend rocked. The day was dour and chilled, and the game was close until a high snap and a blocked punt turned matters the Irish way. However, something happened at halftime that is best recalled. When the Notre Dame team came back to the sideline, their coach, Frank Leahy, never came with them. When it was called to the attention of Charlie Callahan in the press box, Notre Dame’s information director, Charlie said, “Oh, no, can’t be.”
But it was, and checking with the sideline, he found out that Leahy had suffered some kind of seizure in the locker room. The game went on without him, but it would turn out to be Leahy’s last season, though unbeaten.
On a snowy day in 1959, Georgia Tech upset the Irish in South Bend when Bobby Dodd had to dig into his reservoir of quarterbacks and came up with Marvin Tibbets, who’d been raised less than 10 miles from the campus. Tibbets came off the bench, scored both touchdowns in a 14-10 game. It was the last time Tech has won in Notre Dame Stadium.
Then there was the “Rudy” game of 1975, when Notre Dame’s celebrated benchwarmer, Rudy Reuttiger tackled Georgia Tech’s Rudy Allen for a sack on the last play of another defeat for the Jackets. After which the Irish Rudy parlayed his nondescript career into a movie. Then came an improbable game the next season in which Georgia Tech beat the Irish at Grant Field without throwing a pass. It was Gary Lanier’s day, a 5-foot-8, 170-pound quarterback from Savannah, who executed Pepper Rodgers’ wishbone offense to perfection, and you can still find Gary around, raising money for the Alexander-Tharpe Fund.
Now comes the most unlikely game of them all. 1980. Notre Dame came to Grant Field ranked No. l. Georgia Tech had beaten only Memphis State, and would not win another game. Meanwhile, all eyes were centered on Jacksonville, where the Georgia-Florida game was on. That was the Buck Belue-Lindsay Scott game. Every guy wanted to cover that one. Nobody wanted to cover Tech-Notre Dame, but 41,266 paid to watch an astonishing event. Johnnie Smith kicked a field goal in the second quarter and Tech led, 3-0, until the last four minutes, when Harry Oliver kicked a wobbler that cleared the crossbar and the Irish were lucky to get away with a 3-3 tie. All the while, Georgia Tech quarterbacks had fallen like flies, until Bill Curry was down to his fourth, or maybe fifth number, a freshman named Ken Whisenhunt, later a Falcons tight end, and now offensive coordinator of the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers.
“All I told him to do was keep order, don’t try anything foolish and remember you’re not Johnny Unitas,” Curry said.
The two teams have met in one bowl game, the Gator Bowl of 1999, nothing of any great distinction about that one, except that Tech did win, 35-28, with 70,790 paying witnesses.
There has been a somewhat now-and-then flow of personnel traffic between the two states. One of the “Four Horsemen,” Don Miller, was an assistant to Bill Alexander at Georgia Tech in the 1920s, but retired after four years to go into law practice. Harry Mehre, the “Four Horsemen’s” first center before they became “Four Horsemen,” came to Georgia as coach from 1928 to 1937, whereupon, he later said, “They tore up my lifetime contract and declared me legally dead.” And Bill Lewis, who has coached at both Georgia and Georgia Tech, is now an assistant at Notre Dame.
It was early in 2002 that Notre Dame reached down to Georgia Tech for a new coach to follow Bob Davie, and thus developed an embarrassment to both the new employee and school. For less than a week George O’Leary was football coach at Notre Dame, a likely fit of Irish coach for the Irish. Then when it became public that his record as player and career were not what they seemed, he resigned, Notre Dame blushed and moved on, and both O’Leary, at Central Florida, and the Irish, with Charlie Weis, have done quite well since. Strange thing, that a fellow could go to Notre Dame, not play the game that nearly defines the school, and wind up as coach.
Permalink | Comments (35) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Jackets primed for upset
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
One team that will play at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday has demonstrated the capacity to beat strong opposition, and it isn’t Notre Dame. One team has proved it can stop a good offense, and it isn’t Notre Dame. One team seems equipped to win this hugely ballyhooed game, and it isn’t Notre Dame.
Notre Dame is No. 2 in the Associated Press poll and No. 1 according to The Sporting News, but at some point a disinterested observer must ask: Exactly what did the Irish do to merit such effusion? Notre Dame didn’t beat a single team ranked in the final AP poll last season. When last seen, it yielded 617 yards to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. Yes, it has the newest anointed genius in the coaching fraternity and a quarterback of the first rank, but isn’t it true that the biggest noise the Irish have made under Charlie Weis came in a loss?
Georgia Tech, by way of contrast, beat three of last season’s top 21 teams. Georgia Tech, by way of contrast, can play some D. Georgia Tech, by way of contrast, makes the most noise when confronted by an opponent that has been heralded to the heavens.
Asked if he had wearied of hearing how mighty the Irish are supposed to be, Tech linebacker KaMichael Hall said: “Any team would be tired of it. Not taking anything away from [Notre Dame], but the hype is something serious. If I was the Fighting Irish, I might be a little worried.”
Sometimes the tub-thumping is justified. In Notre Dame’s case, it sounds a bit tinny. Can you be a great team with a lousy defense? (The Irish yielded 397 yards a game last season, and that number wasn’t utterly skewed by the production of big boys Southern Cal and Ohio State. Washington, which finished 2-9, gained 442 yards.) Can you be a great team without actually beating anybody? (Technically, the epic near-miss against the Trojans doesn’t qualify.) Can you be a great team just because you’re Notre Dame and the masses want you to be great?
“America loves Notre Dame right now,” said Joe Anoai, the defensive tackle. And then: “I’m not sick of [the hype]. It’s just more fuel to my fire.”
As bad as Chan Gailey can be in games he’s expected to win, he’s that good in games in which his team is afforded no chance. (Think N.C. State in 2002, Auburn in 2003, Auburn and Miami last season.) Gailey and his men revel in feeling slighted, and here they are again. Asked if this correspondent is the only person who thinks Tech can win, Hall said: “You and the rest of our team.”
Said Anoai: “We don’t think we can win. We know.”
Notre Dame may be the one team in the land with its own TV network, but the cold truth is that Notre Dame hasn’t mattered much since Lou Holtz left. (Of the two schools who will play here Saturday, Tech has been crowned national champion more recently.) Much of the embrace of Weis and Brady Quinn has to do with the legions of subway alums who yearn for the Irish to be restored to their place in the football firmament. But does Notre Dame possess more aggregate talent than Auburn or Miami? And if Tech was stout enough to topple both of those on the road, why should it wilt at home?
Jeff Samardzija is a splendid receiver, but is he better than Calvin Johnson? Darius Walker is a nice back, but Tashard Choice seems poised for a breakout. And while Quinn against Reggie Ball is regarded as an abject mismatch, it should be noted that the much-lampooned Ball has become rather adept at the major upset.
At issue is whether Patrick Nix, the newly minted play-caller, can engineer an offense that will keep the ball from Quinn. Early returns on Nix, whose previous responsibility was the two-minute drill, have been mixed, but a bad Irish secondary figures to fare even worse against the elongated Johnson. Tech should be able to move and to score, and in the end Jon Tenuta’s defense will make the stop it has to make.
Come midnight Saturday, one team will have seized a famous victory, and it won’t be Notre Dame.
Permalink | Comments (278) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Jeff Schultz: Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Atlanta’s LPGA tournament has been cancelled. Wait. Atlanta has an LPGA tournament?
9: John Smoltz is my homey.
8: I think they should trash every reality show on TV but add a 24-hour Bill Parcells’ network, with nothing but press conferences about Terrell Owens.
7: Seriously, I don’t know whom to root for in this one. T.O. is T.O. But Parcells is the same slimeball who coached the Patriots in the Super Bowl while negotiating with the Jets - the epitome of a non-team guy - and never seems like he really wants to coach as much as he wants to be ASKED to coach. Owens can’t cause him enough grief, as far as I’m concerned.
6: I’ll make every Braves fan a deal: I won’t say, “You’re out of it,” if you don’t say, “We’re in it,” until the team has at least as many wins as losses (which hasn’t been the case since June 3).
5: I’m pretty sure John Schuerholz would say I’m not his homey.
4: Some in boxing are concerned because Evander Holyfield reportedly plans to partner with another crooked promoter, Murad Muhammad. But after you’ve worked with Don King, isn’t everybody else in the minor leagues of corruption?
3: I watched some of the Emmys. Even watched some of the red carpet arrivals. I have no idea who Vanessa Minnillo is. But after seeing her in that low-cut blue dress, I’m pretty sure I want to date the dress. (Note to Wife: Fear not. There is no shot of Vanessa being my homey.)
2: Barry Bonds is in town and I sense a distinct lack of buzz. Can there be a greater indictment on how he’s perceived as both an athlete and a person?
1: Richard Williams wonders about his daughter Serena’s commitment to tennis. I wonder if this means he’ll have to go out and get a job.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
