Georgia Tech had trouble blocking Clemson’s superb defensive tackles Thursday night, so the Yellow Jackets solved their problem in an unusual way.
They didn’t try to block behemoths Jarvis Jenkins (310 pounds) and Brandon Thompson (305). Instead, they “read” them with a two-way option, called the mid-line option.
Paul Johnson, the Georgia Tech coach, rescued his beleaguered offensive line in the fourth quarter Thursday night with that play-calling on the drive for the tying field goal.
The Yellow Jackets ran the “mid-line option” on the 12-play, 69-yard drive where quarterback Josh Nesbitt started reading the tackle, instead of the end, which is the usual method of the triple option. If the tackle turned his shoulders toward B-back Jonathan Dwyer, Nesbitt would pull the ball from Dwyer and dash through the hole left by the tackle.
Nesbitt ran nine times in the drive for 44 yards, including three straight plays on the mid-line option. Twice he used the mid-line option for runs of 14 yards. The play-calling, and execution, set up Scott Blair’s tying 34-yard field goal with 5:40 to play before Blair won it, 30-27, with a 36-yarder with 57 seconds to play.
Dwyer had carries of 2, 1, 4, 3, and 1 yard in the third quarter because of Jenkins and Johnson, and they looked eager to stuff him on Tech’s drive in the fourth. They were baited and erased.
The Yellow Jackets managed over 400 yards of offense, but the offense scored only one touchdown.
“We could have worked harder getting a better push on them,” Tech tackle Brad Sellers said. “We got to rely on our techniques and just keep pushing throughout the game and not get tired.
“I think we were kind of dead in the second and third quarter and part of the fourth.”
Ready as a remedy
Kevin Cone, the wide receiver on the other side of the field from Demaryius Thomas, had one ball thrown to him Thursday, which was incomplete. He is prepared for a heavier workload as opponents bear down on Thomas, who set up the winning field goal Thursday with a 39-yard catch.
“That’s what I’m expecting, I’m expecting one-on-one,” said Cone, a 6-foot-2, 206-pound wide receiver from Stone Mountain who played at St. Pius.
Cone has good size, and in the Cover-2 defenses where cornerbacks try to jam a receiver at the line, Cone can beat the jam and get to that hole behind the corner and in front of the safety in the flat. If Georgia Tech can get that safety closer to the line for run support, Cone will get his one-on-one chances against a corner because teams are likely to make sure there is safety support on the other side of the field against Thomas.
“I trust him,” Nesbitt said of Cone. “If I put it up in the air, he will come down with it.”
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