CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Even as Georgia Tech rolled to a 6-0 start and No. 12 national ranking, Paul Johnson didn’t have to squint to see ugly storm clouds gathering on the horizon.
Masked somewhat by lopsided victories over a trio of overmatched foes (Western Carolina, Middle Tennessee and Kansas) was a team that struggled at times to hold on to the ball and hurt itself with ill-timed penalties.
As Johnson noted Saturday evening after the Yellow Jackets’ 24-21 loss to Virginia, “If you play with fire long enough, you get burned.”
For the second consecutive game, Tech’s vaunted rushing attack was unable to dominate against a team picked in the preseason to finish fifth in the six-team ACC Coastal Division.
Other than a relatively brisk 80-yard touchdown drive early in the second quarter and a brutally methodical 19-play, 85-yard scoring march that consumed the first 9:31 of the second half, the Jackets spent most of the game accumulating a memorable assortment of self-inflicted wounds.
“For the most part, we killed ourselves,” said Tech quarterback Tevin Washington, who offset two rushing touchdowns with a pair of interceptions and also missed a few pre-snap “checks” he normally makes.
“We didn’t execute well. Not only did we get defeated by them, but we defeated ourselves. Georgia Tech stopped Georgia Tech today.”
Tech, which nearly squandered a 21-3 lead against Maryland last Saturday, was less-than-sharp from the outset against Virginia. Right guard Omoregie Uzzi was called for holding on the Jackets’ first offensive snap. Two plays later, right tackle Phil Smith drew an illegal-procedure penalty.
Washington appeared to make up for his two first-half interceptions with an 85-yard touchdown run on the first play of the third quarter, but it was wiped out by an illegal-block call against Stephen Hill.
The Jackets overcame that mistake and scored to draw within three, but ate up nine minutes of the clock in the process — time that would prove valuable by game’s end.
“It’s frustrating when you can’t make the plays you want to make,” Uzzi said. “They didn’t do anything we hadn’t seen on film. We just didn’t execute.”
Nobody was more frustrated than Johnson about the penalty that cost his team a golden opportunity to go ahead late in the third quarter.
Pinned deep in his own end after Virginia downed Jimmy Howell’s punt at the Tech 4, Washington and Orwin Smith hooked up for a pretty catch-and-run that netted 66 yards to the Cavaliers’ 14.
But Tyler Melton was flagged for an illegal block, bringing the ball back to the Tech 31, and the Jackets never came close to scoring again.
“We’re not good enough to have penalties and kill ourselves,” Johnson said.
Asked if he thought Melton’s block warranted a flag, Johnson added: “I don’t know if it was a penalty or not. I guess it was because they called it.”
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