What is a career that finishes just shy of being called an era?
We’ll try this: The Justin Thomas Distinguished Term at Georgia Tech concluded Saturday in victory, albeit one that was a hiccup amid the thunder of College Football Playoff day.
No, not quite an era, there being neither a great title nor a big-name individual award to define Thomas’ three seasons as a starter at Tech. Just a body of work that speaks for a quarterback who ran Paul Johnson’s signature option with deft intelligence — and was the same kind of uncompromising competitor through times both fat and lean.
Never the loudest guy in the room, not one who will be remembered for his glibness, Thomas typically was reserved when asked about this, the end of a pretty good college run.
“I guess going into it, you know it’s the last one,” he said. “It’s a great feeling. Everything has to come to an end one day. I’m happy it ended like this. Looking forward to see what the future holds.”
For his final act — a 33-18 victory over Kentucky in the TaxSlayer Bowl — Thomas authored two dominant parting images.
One, the committed Tech viewer has come to expect. Thomas tucked away the ball, breaking around the right side and down the sideline in the second quarter, taking flight when needed to nip the end-zone pylon before splashdown and finish a 21-yard touchdown run. His aerodynamics gave Tech a 17-3 lead.
The other was a last fling, a there-I-told-you-I-could-throw-the-ball moment in which the option quarterback put the game away with his arm. The quarterback who did not have enough attempts to qualify for the pass-efficiency ratings this season — you need to average 15 attempts per game; Thomas had just a bit more than 12 per — completed his last collegiate pass. A 42-yard, third-down connection to Ricky Jeune with just more than three minutes left and Kentucky down only eight. Three plays later, bowl MVP Dedrick Mills ran in the day’s final score.
The house was blue all over with Kentucky fans, thrilled over the Wildcats’ first bowl game in six years. The Yellow Jackets were the decided minority, but not for lack of Thomases and their relations in the seats. They came from all over, the family homestead in Alabama, Louisiana, even an uncle from California, to watch the last act.
“The time has gone by extremely fast,” the quarterback’s father, Milton Thomas, said before the game, echoing every parent’s lament. “Unbelievable. I’m just numb now.
“I just want him to finish on a high note.”
Thomas’ numbers Saturday do not strike you like a trumpet’s blare. He was the MVP in Tech’s last bowl game, as a sophomore rushing for 121 yards and three touchdowns and throwing for another 125 yards and a score in the Orange Bowl. Thomas ceded stardom to a freshman Saturday, Mills’ 169 rushing yards carrying the Jackets. The quarterback ran for 42 yards — half of those on the touchdown sprint — and completed but 6 of 14 passes for 105 yards.
But his team won by 15, which probably should be a quarterback’s ultimate measure. His team finished off a redemptive nine-win season, which sure was a lot more pleasant than its nine-loss season of 2015.
Thus did Thomas finish with a 22-16 record as Tech’s pitcher of record. Some high points: 2-0 in bowl games, 2-1 against arch-rival Georgia, 5-1 vs. the SEC. Those are the little footnotes that make up a distinguished term at Tech.
Also measure the quarterback by the way he rode the extremes of his three seasons as the starter — breaking through as a sophomore whose team was oh-so close to winning an ACC title, enduring a junior season in which every injury and swing play went against the Jackets, and quietly leading the way through a 2016 that was, overall, a healing experience.
And he was the same unyielding fellow for every minute of it.
“So, just coming out, our class regrouping, getting the guys together, to come out of the season we had this year — I think it was a great turnaround. A great finish to our career,” Thomas said.
His sometimes biting coach laid on the compliments like a mason does mortar when it came time to bid farewell to his quarterback.
Johnson wants you to know this about Thomas: “I mean, he’s had a great career, no doubt. He’s such a great kid. He’s just been a joy to coach, a joy to work with. He’s got a great football mind. I think when he finishes playing football, he wants to coach. He’ll be really good at it.
“Nothing much bothers him. He stays pretty calm. Sometimes you have to be gone for a year or two before people really realize what you did. There’s no question that he’ll go down as one of the greats at Tech. I mean, he’s had a heck of a career.”
The football future for a 5-foot-11, 180-pound option quarterback is not easy to read. Thomas does not have NFL tattooed all over him.
Nonetheless, he says, “I’ll probably take a week or two off. I’ll start training, go for the next level. If it works out, it works out. If it don’t, I got to find something else. But I plan for it to work out.”
Thomas’ football at Georgia Tech is all played out. His determination isn’t quite.
