GEORGIA TECH 41, MIAMI 23: Tech gets unlikely taste of first place

It wasn’t quite a sellout, and it wasn’t nearly a whiteout, but it absolutely was a wipeout. Georgia Tech played like the best team in the ACC if not the whole wide world.

Thus will Paul Johnson’s first Tech team finish in no worse than a tie atop the Coastal Division. “We’ll at least be co-champion, tri-champion, quad-champion, something,” he said afterward. “Nobody’s going to have a better record than us.”

That’s true, and so is this: Tying for first in anything is a massive achievement for a program that changed coaches and offenses and thereby changed itself for the better. If Year 1 under pugnacious PJ is this sweet, what might Years 2 and 3 hold?

Although Johnson always seemed a terrific tactician and an inspired choice, nothing prepared his new constituency for this much this soon. In one autumn the Jackets have whipped Clemson and Florida State and Miami, schools that take the sport seriously. But something often overlooked, at least outside the Perimeter, is how serious the Institute is about football, and once again it has a coach who’s every bit as driven.

Miami has claimed five national championships in the past quarter-century, but against the Jackets it was made to look less robust than Gardner-Webb. The ‘Canes defense played as if it hadn’t scouted the option-based spread —- a grievous oversight, wouldn’t you say? —- and the Miami offense looked the way we’ve come to expect a Patrick Nix offense to look.

Nix was the Tech offensive coordinator who turned Reggie Ball into … well, Reggie Ball. Apparently the Auburn grad has taken that special touch to Coral Gables. The first touchdown Thursday was a function of a Ball-like lapse. Miami’s Robert Marve sought to throw a screen pass and failed to note the presence of Michael Johnson —- a grievous oversight, given that Johnson stands 6-foot-7 —- and flung the ball into the defender’s gut.

Tech fans groused about the offense throughout the tepid Chan Gailey era. They grouse no more. Johnson is among the best offensive minds anywhere, and for all his emphasis on the run he isn’t afraid of the newfangled forward pass. The Jackets threw on each of their first three snaps —- they would pass only three times thereafter —- and the first was delivered by Demaryius Thomas, who’s a receiver.

Tech being Tech, it got around to running. Jonathan Dwyer took the first snap of a second-quarter possession for a 58-yard touchdown, and Josh Nesbitt touched off the next drive by gaining 54 yards. When Dwyer gained only 2 yards on the next play, PA announcer Chris Capo informed the assembled media, “That breaks a string of consecutive 50-yard rushes at two.”

With 2:07 left in the third quarter, Capo made another announcement: “Georgia Tech has rushed 38 times for 395 yards.” By then the score was 41-10, and the only defensive adjustments Miami had made was to turn Lucas Cox into Larry Csonka. A 32-yard touchdown burst had given Cox 75 yards on the night —- he would finish with 78 —- but made him only the fourth-leading gainer among Jackets. Amazing.

There could have been no finer ACC culmination for Johnson and his team than this. Said Dwyer: “You could see it in everyone’s eyes on the bus to the stadium. We knew this was a big game for us and a big game for the program. We had a chance to make history.”

For Tech to play for the ACC title, three other teams must lose. The Jackets can do nothing about that, but they’ll have some control over what happens in Athens on Nov. 29. And they could beat Georgia. They really could.

mbradley@ajc.com

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