DEL.ICIO.USGeorgia Tech survives Gardner-Webb scare
Yellow Jackets improve to 5-1 but struggle against Division I-AA Bulldogs
The Atlanta Journal-Consitution
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Steve Patton had spent the afternoon making right call after right call against Georgia Tech. Now, in the quiet of a team bus heading back up I-85, the Gardner-Webb coach had the Jackets sized up again.
“I think we surprised ‘em a little bit,” said Patton. “They probably didn’t take us as serious as they should have, and it backfired a little bit.”
Johnny Crawford / jcrawford@ajc.com
Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson was not happy with his team’s play against Gardner-Webb calling it a ‘comedy of errors.’
Tech, a team that had won four of its first five games and attracted notice as an ACC title contender, avoided a seismic upset Saturday. The Jackets won 10-7 over Division I-AA Gardner Webb by perhaps the length of defensive end Derrick Morgan’s hand and the width of umpire Tom Laverty’s waist.
This one had the feel of an NCAA basketball tournament game where the No. 15 seed does everything right against the No. 2 seed but somehow comes up short.
“I hope they’re embarrassed,” Tech coach Paul Johnson said of his players. “I am. I hope they are. If they’re not, we won’t be very good.”
It started from the first, when wide receiver Demaryius Thomas — the star of last week’s win over Duke — dropped a catchable pass on Tech’s first play.
It continued through three turnovers, a failure to adjust to Gardner-Webb’s defensive tactics and, Johnson said, players being sent in with one play from the sideline and then communicating another in the huddle. The coach called it a “comedy of errors.”
The Jackets avoided overtime when Morgan deflected Gardner-Webb kicker Ryan Gates’ 43-yard field goal try with nine seconds remaining.
The Jackets, who had threshed their first five opponents for an average of an ACC-best 290.2 rushing yards, managed 79 against the Bulldogs. Subtract Tech’s longest play of the game — Jonathan Dwyer’s 79-yard catch-and-run in the second quarter, a score abetted by umpire Laverty’s inadvertent screen of a Gardner-Webb linebacker — and the Jackets averaged 2.1 yards per play.
It bears mention that Gardner-Webb entered the game with the No. 3 rush defense in Division I-AA. But it is also worth noting that Tech might be fairly expected to outproduce Austin Peay, which was able to ding Gardner-Webb for 19 more rushing yards than the Jackets.
“Everyone out there, coaches, players, fans, everyone was yelling at us to get going,” junior center Dan Voss said. “We were trying. It never fully clicked for us. Thank god our defense played really well and special teams played really well and kept us in the game.”
Quarterback Calvin Booker, playing in place of starting quarterback Josh Nesbitt (hamstring strain) and backup Jaybo Shaw (held out after taking a shot to the head last Saturday), had a rough afternoon in his first start.
The offense, Booker included, had difficulty executing the triple-option play, a staple of Johnson’s system. Booker attempted 11 passes, completing three, for 120 yards with one interception and the touchdown to Dwyer. He was often under pressure.
“Those five guys up front had their lunch handed to them pretty good, too,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t just the quarterback.”
Booker was beyond despondent after the game.
“It has to be on me,” he said. “I’m the senior quarterback. I was supposed to take charge today and as an offense, we just didn’t produce, from quarterback to B-back to A-back, offensive line to receivers, everybody. It was really embarrassing.”
Chastened, the Jackets head to Clemson next Saturday to start the ACC stretch run. From the same stretch of asphalt that Tech will ride up next week, Patton made one final call on the Jackets.
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