AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > November > 25
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Rookie quarterback outplays veteran
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Athens — Forget the first half. Forget it was ever played. The two played like awkward burglers trying to blow a safe. Georgia Tech will be able to tell their grandkids, “Well, we were leading them dang Bulldogs at the half, 3 to nothing. We had ‘em panting.”
It was like this: Georgia and Georgia Tech combined gained only 114 yards on the ground. All told, passes, too, they rang up only 150 yards. Only one team got as far as what they call the Red Zone. This is what happens sometimes when a game is so hyped, the atmosphere is so charged, that all the participants have to play awhile to get the lump out of their throats. So it was that Georgia and Georgia Tech gathered once more for one of their annual Football Hatefests.
When the second half began, Georgia grabbed hold of the moment and turned on its offense, and now we get around to the variations that decided that in the end, the Bulldogs should win, 15-12. Sorry to reveal the climax too early in our daily get-together, but the major difference in this game wound up in the hands of the two quarterbacks. Not to take anything away from the two defenses, for they played their gizzards out.
But it is in this kind of pressure that you expect to see the veteran grab the helm with a steady hand and the kid stumble over his own feet. Just the opposite. Reggie Ball has had his suicidal moments in games against Georgia, but he turned this one into a sort of a collection of flashbacks to forget. The kid, the freshman, Matthew Stafford, was the Cool Hand Luke. The steady one, or rather, steadier, for he, the Bulldog from Dallas, had some tenuous moments of his own.
Ball has one of the most publicized receiving targets in college to throw to, and to be perfectly blunt, no telling what kind of figures Calvin Johnson might have had with one of those pinpoint pocket quarterbacks throwing to him these three years. This game was no exception. Time and time again, Ball’s delivery was high and wild, or low and outside. For the night in Sanford Stadium, he was 6-for-22, for a pittance of 42 yards. Johnson had two catches for 13 yards, a wasted night for a draft choice treasure for some NFL team. True, he was closely covered by Paul Oliver, and occasionally double-teamed, but while Stafford found a way to get the ball to his catching cast for 171 yards, and the touchdown that decided the game, Ball would never have won a fuzzy doll at a county fair. You might say, cruel or not, that it was fitting that his last pass thrown in a Tech-Georgia game was an interception, pulled in by the defender who shadowed Johnson all the night, Paul Oliver, around midfield. All that was left for the Bulldogs was a couple of kneels and for the sixth time in a row, Georgia had Georgia Tech’s number.
Good as the numbers look, give Georgia’s offense no credit for its first touchdown. Sorry, Reggie Ball again, running a keeper at his own 27-yard line in the third quarter, fumbling under a pile of Bullldogs, out of which came Tony Taylor, the linebacker, who scurried into the end zone. Touchdown.
Tech took the lead back, mainly on the hoofing of Tashard Choice, and this was exciting stuff, making up for the dismal first half. Here came the rookie Stafford at his best, on a drive from kickoff to the Tech’s end zone. Danny Ware came off the bench with fresh legs, and in the decisive moment of the game, Stafford fired a bullet to the No. 1 on Mohamed Massaquoi’s jersey in the back of the end zone, and three Tech defenders stood nonplussed, as if stricken dumb.
This has been going on for six games in a row, a Bulldog streak, since George O’Leary’s last season at Tech. At one time, Georgia Tech ran off a streak of eight against the Bulldogs, when Bobby Dodd was there, and the rivalry had become so one-sided it seemed that Georgia might never win again. These are different times. This is a Georgia Tech team playing for the ACC championship next weekend, but that makes this no easier to swallow. Champion of its conference, perhaps, but not the champion of its own state. Egad.
Permalink | Comments (38) | Categories: Furman Bisher
0-for-Georgia to be part of Ball’s legacy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — Reggie Ball was checking his e-mail as he walked into the interview room. Perhaps he found encouraging words therein. Perhaps he found an answer for what has become — and will forever be — unanswerable: How could the quarterback who has presided over 29 collegiate victories never win the game that matters most to his constituency?
Not that Ball was willing to concede the point. “I want to win every game,” he said. “I don’t buy into that ‘rivalry game’ — that’s for [the media] to do. I go out [and] I don’t care if it’s two old ladies playing flag football — I want to win.”
He wants to win. Nobody disputes that. But this much is likewise indisputable: Handed chances to win against Georgia each of the past three seasons, Ball and Georgia Tech lost instead. What transpired Saturday wasn’t his most egregious moment in the series — that remains the fourth-down throwaway in 2004 — but it was his worst overall performance against Georgia and among the worst of his strange career.
Ball’s numbers this forlorn day: Six completions, 16 incompletions, 42 yards passing, minus-10 yards rushing, three second-half turnovers. This from a fourth-year starter. This from the guy who has Calvin Johnson at his disposal. (Johnson had two catches Saturday, neither in the second half, for 13 yards.)
Asked if Georgia had become a personal speed bump, Ball said: “Come on, dog. It’s a game. Georgia’s Georgia. They’re a good team, but they’re no speed bump.”
Ball finishes his career 0-for-Georgia. Chan Gailey, who hitched his program to the true freshman four years ago, is the first Tech coach to lose his first five games against Georgia, and at some point we need ask: Is Gailey a great coach for having won so many games with such an inefficient quarterback, or is he a silly coach for having gone so long with such an inefficient quarterback?
Of Ball, Gailey said Saturday: “He didn’t play as well as he has … I don’t think he was in sync.”
Yes, Tech still has a chance to win the ACC championship and play in the Orange Bowl, but a goodly quotient of luster fell away from Gailey’s best season Saturday. The Jackets absorbed a curious haymaker — Tony Taylor returning Ball’s fumble for a go-ahead touchdown seemingly hours after the fact — and took a fourth-quarter lead. When finally Tech’s defense buckled, the Jackets still had time to answer. They could manage only one first down on their final possession, that courtesy of a Quentin Moses personal foul, and then the chance died. Throwing off his back foot yet again, Ball was intercepted by Paul Oliver.
“We were trying to make a play on the next snap,” Ball said of the Moses penalty. Was he pressured on the throw? “That’s what happens in football.”
It would be easy to feel a twinge of pity for Ball — Georgia students mocked him Saturday with chants of “Reg-gie, Reg-gie” — but he makes it apparent he wants no one’s sympathy. He suffers media inquiries with something approaching scorn, and maybe we shouldn’t blame him. Few collegians have ever been held up to such scrutiny.
Still, that’s the price for playing quarterback at a school that takes football seriously. Ball has had splendid moments in his career — two victories over Auburn, two over Miami, one over Virginia Tech — but he has never beaten Georgia and never will. Said Tashard Choice, who accounted for 151 of Tech’s 188 total yards Saturday: “Sometimes things don’t go the way they’re supposed to. You have to roll with the punches, and we roll with [Ball]. And we’re going to take it as far as we can go.”
If Tech wins its next two games, Ball will match Shawn Jones as Tech’s winningest quarterback. But Jones won a national championship and beat Georgia twice. For the Jackets as led by Ball, it’s clear now that this was as far as they could go — they could win big games but never the biggest game on their schedule. Never even once.
Permalink | Comments (132) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Stafford doesn’t play like freshman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Athens — Two weeks ago at Auburn, the thought occurred that the kid had finally broken through. But how could anybody be sure? The same green-tinted freshman who completed 14 of 20 for 219 yards and a touchdown in intimidating surroundings had been intercepted three times only seven days earlier … in Lexington.
The answer came Saturday. There will be more mistakes by Matthew Stafford. But in the final regular-season game of his first season, Stafford reaffirmed he is that special kind of quarterback. Some crumble in these situations (see: Reggie Ball). Some don’t (the other guy).
Stafford threw five passes on Georgia’s final possession. The first three resulted in first downs. The fourth resulted in the go-ahead touchdown with less than two minutes left. The fifth completed a two-point conversion.
Through it all, Stafford didn’t look like a freshman.
He barely looked like a college player.
“He was calm — he’s always calm,” tailback Kregg Lumpkin said. “At the start of that drive, he said, ‘This is our drive. We have to get in the end zone now.’ And that’s what we did.”
Georgia won, 15-12. But what happened Saturday in Athens wasn’t the result of one team thoroughly outplaying the other, as much as it was one quarterback thriving in pressure situations.
Stafford faced Tech’s blitzing defense all day but often responded with screen passes, frequently getting leveled just before releasing the ball. Quote: “That’s all right. It’s part of the game.”
With Georgia trailing 12-7, Stafford didn’t look like a guy trying to engineer a game-winning drive. He looked like he was taking a stroll on the beach. On the first play from the Dogs’ 36, he completed a 14-yard pass to Kenneth Harris. On the second play, he had a pump fake and then tossed a 10-yarder to Mohamed Massaquoi at the Tech 40.
The Dogs ran the next six plays with Danny Ware and Lumpkin, then faced a third-and-6 from the Tech 11. Stafford? He threaded a pass between two defenders to Massaquoi at the 4.
Two runs netted 0 yards, setting up another third down. Stafford? He sat in the pocket while Massaquoi got open in the end zone and fired on target for the touchdown and a 13-12 lead. The two then hooked up for a two-point conversion. Of course.
In the postgame, Stafford said everything he was supposed to. He credited his offensive line, his receivers, his running backs, his coaches. But his most comforting words for a Georgia fan came when he was asked about being in the huddle with the game on the line.
“Absolutely,” he said. “That’s what you dream of if you’re a competitor, especially at quarterback. You get the ball every play. You’ve got to want it at the end, and it’s something I do want.”
Stafford laughed when reminded he didn’t throw an interception for the second straight game after throwing eight in the previous three. “Yeah, it’s unexpected for me,” he said, smiling. “But that’s the way it should be. That’s the way you’re supposed to play here.”
But that’s not the way an 18-year-old generally plays. Georgia Tech defensive tackle Joe Anoai commented afterward, “He didn’t play like a freshman.”
Jackets linebacker Gary Guyton added in perfect understatement: “I told him after the game he’s going to be all right.”
It was about the quarterback Saturday. In close games, rivalry games, it’s always about the quarterback. One won it. One lost it. Stafford threw for 171 yards and a touchdown with no turnovers. Tech’s Ball threw for only 42 yards on 6-of-22 passing with no touchdowns and three turnovers.
This has not been a great season by Georgia standards, just a strange win. Consecutive wins over Auburn and Tech followed a stretch of four losses in five games. The Dogs lost to Vanderbilt and Kentucky. They watched Tennessee score 37 second-half points on their home field. There will be no BCS bowl, no SEC title game, no Sugar on their tongue.
But we now know they have a quarterback who treats pressure situations like his own personal playground. And if you want to know how special that is, ask Georgia Tech.
Permalink | Comments (48) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
