Roddy Jones takes part in Georgia Tech passing game

By Special

For the AJC

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Yes, there had been some good-natured but memorable rhetoric in private moments. Georgia Tech A-back Roddy Jones hadn’t caught a pass in competition in 626 days, the drought marked by a bad drop in the Orange Bowl.

“Yeah, I knew it,” quarterback Joshua Nesbitt said. “We constantly remind him.”

Nesbitt, for his part, had completed eight of his previous 30 tosses entering Saturday, including a costly overthrow at Kansas last week.

It wasn’t that something had to give; it was that somebody had to receive.

“You never know in this offense who’s going to have to step up to the plate and make a play,” Nesbitt said after accumulating the incongruous stat line of 3-for-4 for 76 yards and a touchdown.

The attempt total was the lowest for the Jackets in decades. It was small even by the standards of coach Paul Johnson’s triple-option offense. No Johnson team had thrown fewer than five times in a game since his Navy team went 1-for-3 in a win over Tulane on Nov. 5, 2005.

But the Yellow Jackets maximized what they did try. The day’s first pass found Jones wide open on the right flat for a 23-yard touchdown 13 minutes into the game. The call was the same one on which Nesbitt had missed Embry Peeples at Kansas last weekend, and hitting this one made everybody breathe a little better.

Nobody was more pleased than Jones, who carried 53 times last season but made nary a pass reception.

“I didn’t do a great job of catching the ball last year,” Jones said. “I’ve been trying to prove it to Joshua and to the coaches in practice. I was wide open, and he found me. He did a great job of making the right read and throwing a good ball.”

Although not intended as such, the touchdown compensated Jones for a tremendous block on the previous play, in which he liberated Peeples for a 14-yard gain.

“I guess you could say that,” Jones said. “As A-backs, you could be blocking one minute and going out for a pass the next. You’ve got to be ready.”

The Jackets were equally prepared for the most important moment of the day’s key touchdown drive, a 41-yard strike down the middle to Jones that set up the tying score in the third quarter.

“I didn’t rush my throws and the offensive line gave me time to throw,” Nesbitt said, typically understated.

The extent of the imbalance -- 63 rushes to four passes -- wasn’t entirely intended, Johnson said. But it developed out of undeniable providence.

“We probably could have thrown the ball a little more, but the way the game was going, you didn’t want to take a chance,” Johnson said. “I really didn’t feel like they could stop us if we ran the ball three times. Or four times.”