Meanwhile, at that other big house of football in Georgia, in a game that had a certain independent film, boutique hotel, slightly-out-of-the-mainstream feel to it …
Really, isn’t it just a little stunning how quickly Georgia Tech was relegated to the periphery of our football vision? A couple of weeks ago, the Yellow Jackets were a solid top-20 team, readying for a game at Notre Dame and a future bright with championship dreams. Then two early losses later, they dropped out of the daily conversation quicker than Scott Walker.
Or not so stunning, after all. Perhaps silence is the kindest reaction to what is becoming of this once-promising season.
On Saturday, all hue and cry belonged up the road in Athens (to Georgia’s dismay, it turns out). Unranked and marked down like day-old bagels, Tech, rather than react with righteous and victorious anger actually visited its deepest low yet. This time, it squandered a 21-point lead at home in losing to North Carolina 38-31.
That would be 0-2 in the ACC Coastal Georgia Tech. With Clemson up next. Paul Johnson never has lost four in row since arriving here in 2008, but keeping even that modest claim alive now seems on the yonder side of improbable.
It was the kind of lead that no Tech team since the invention of the face mask has been able to turn into a loss. Thus did Johnson diagnose the emotion of this defeat: “I feel like I’ve been gut-punched.” He was being kind. I would have chosen another area of the anatomy, just a little south of there.
For its first three possessions Saturday, the Jackets seemed to have turned all the minuses of the preceding two weeks into pluses, all the whiffs into hits. Tech’s offense controlled the ball for absurd stretches. It rushed for more yards in a half (204) than it did in an entire afternoon of work against Duke a week ago (173).
But none of it mattered in the slightest.
Not when it yielded 14 points to the Tar Heels in the final four-plus minutes of the half. Just like that the heartbeat the Tar Heels found in those few minutes would become the pounding of 11 timpanis in the second half. If Tech only could have run out the final 1:29 of the half rather than throw a couple incompletions and use up only 33 seconds, this game may have turned so differently. If, if, if.
As it was a year ago, Tech ultimately had no answer for North Carolina quarterback Marquise Williams. Williams — he of 463 yards of total offense against the Jackets last season — once again was too much to contain.
As a receiver, he pulled in a 37-yard touchdown pass on a bit of razzle-dazzle that blinded Tech. As a runner, he went for 148 yards and two more touchdowns.
No matter what the Tech defense did to Williams, he kept getting up. Adam Gotsis took him down hard in the second quarter and was ejected for allegedly getting too much helmet into the hit (bad call). Jabari Hunt was flagged for unnecessary roughness in the third quarter when he ripped the helmet from the quarterback’s head (silly play).
Gotsis’ ejection seemed to provide a very temporary jolt of energy — call it the passion of the wronged. But there was no doubt, as North Carolina shortly afterward began exploring the end zone with alarming frequency, that Tech missed the big Aussie.
But defense is not why anyone watches Tech and North Carolina. There is a certain promise whenever they play. Don’t throw out any of the record books when these two meet, but do at least be sure to take the restrictor plate off the scoreboard.
You know there’s going to be some lush scoring — the teams have averaged a combined 75 points over their past five games. In fact, Tech undergrads should receive two credit hours just for attending this game, having so thoroughly exercised their math skills.
Only it was North Carolina doing most of the scoring in the minutes that matter most. That would be the Tar Heels scoring 38 of the last 48 points.
The fourth quarter was an absolute Tech hellscape. You want to know why this season is turning to fertilizer? Here is the one quarter that explains it all:
Where in good times, Tech converted almost everything, quarterback Justin Thomas could not run it in from a yard out on fourth down at the beginning of the quarter.
Where a year ago the Yellow Jackets owned the turnover differential, this time the quarterback fumbled on Tech’s next possession in the quarter (and Tech lost the turnover count, 2-0).
Where Tech was never at a loss for some nifty variation off its offense, there was North Carolina scoring the touchdown that gave the Tar Heels their first lead on a reverse pass back to its own quarterback. Williams was as open as a Waffle House.
And while the Yellow Jackets have not made their reputation on defense, you’d like to think they might have been, sometime in their history, capable of getting at least a mitt on Williams as he broke free, unbothered, on his 27-yard, fourth-down touchdown run that proved decisive.
Nonsurvivable mistakes in all facets — it is beginning to sound like a theme.
Desperation can be a great motivator. It did not work for Tech on Saturday. It only got deeper and darker.
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