Tech's Tarrant has plenty to ponder during offseason
For the AJC
MIAMI -- If Georgia Tech cornerback Jerrard Tarrant taped Fox’s telecast of the Orange Bowl on Tuesday night, he’ll want to spend some time editing it before depositing it in personal archives.
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No. 37 got more camera time than Jay Leno early, but it was a schizophrenic experience, especially in the first half.
Highlights and lowlights dueled as the Yellow Jackets fell into a 14-0 hole from which they couldn’t dig out in a 24-14 loss to the Big Ten’s Iowa Hawkeyes.
“Just getting the jitters out,” senior linebacker Sedric Griffin said of the shaky first quarter in which Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi passed for two Hawkeyes touchdowns and one Tech score. “We made one or two adjustments and had a very solid performance after that.”
All-American defensive end Derrick Morgan called across an interview room to Tarrant after the game, “Hey, Jerrard, in four minutes I’ll be 21 years old.” But midnight had struck early for the Jackets this night.
Tarrant was the luckless defender on both of Stanzi’s touchdown passes as the Hawkeyes bolted from the gates with drives covering 80 and 83 yards.
Tarrant had tight coverage on Marvin McNutt on Stanzi’s lob into the deep right corner of the end zone to cap an 80-yard scoring drive but got outleaped on the 4-yard payoff.
“He lined up pretty wide, and I thought he was going to come across the middle,” Tarrant said. Instead, McNutt broke out to the corner and “I got there a tad late. It was a perfect throw.”
On a 21-yard Stanzi hookup with Colin Sandeman to climax the second drive, a lightning strike of four plays, Tarrant again was close but not close enough.
However, the sophomore from Carrollton also accounted for those seven Georgia Tech points as the normally potent Jackets attack sputtered uncharacteristically.
He darted in front of Iowa receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos on a curl route late in the first quarter, intercepted on a dead run and sprinted 40 yards unimpeded to the end zone to cut the Hawkeyes’ lead in half.
“I could tell the way the receiver came off the line that he wasn’t going to cut across the field. I saw him turn back, and I just jumped the route and saw nothing but green [grass].”
Earlier, he had punched the ball from the grasp of McNutt after a third-down reception that would have given Iowa a first down, and Griffin pounced on the fumble.
“I thought about trying to scoop and score,’’ Griffin said, “but decided to be safe” and drop on the ball.
Stanzi’s nine completions in 10 first-quarter attempts accounted for 157 yards and probably struck a chord of deja vu with Tech defenders.
They were bent, folded and mutilated in the same stadium early in the season, when Miami quarterback Jacory Harris completed 20 of 25 attempts for 270 yards and three touchdowns in a 33-17 Hurricanes victory.
At that point, Morgan said after what might be his final game at Tech, “We knew if we didn’t buckle down and hold up our end, it was going to be like that Miami game.”
Then, the Tech defense never truly got into synch. Tuesday night, however, the Jackets did regroup to pitch a second-quarter shutout and budget the Hawkeyes to Daniel Murray’s 33-yard field goal in the third quarter.
They also put up a stout defense in the fourth quarter until the Hawkeyes secured victory with Brandon Wegher’s 32-yard escape inside the final two minutes.
Stanzi, who missed the Hawkeyes’ final 2-1/2 regular-season games with a high ankle sprain, completed seven of 19 passes for only 74 yards over the final three quarters.
But the damage had been done in what became an unexpected defensive struggle.
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