Georgia is tied atop the SEC East. Georgia Tech is atop the ACC Coastal.
Sometime in the next few weeks, either Mark Richt or Paul Johnson may have to make a decision to go for a two-point conversion to win a game, break a tie in the standings and earn a spot in Atlanta or Charlotte, sites of their conference’s championship games.
It seems like an easy decision: Move 3 yards — 9 measly feet — for a shot at a potential BCS game worth of millions of dollars to a school and conference. It can instantly boost confidence and change a team’s fortunes. There’s even a chart, first made by a famous coach, that someone on the coaching staff carries that clearly breaks down when a team should, and shouldn’t, risk it.
But it’s never that easy because of the stakes involved.
The decision has cost at least one team a national championship, and other staffs and fan bases millions of dollars in antacid tablets.
The history
The origination of the rule is as murky as the decision-making process can be.
No one knows where two points came from, only that it was introduced by former official Irish Krieger at an NCAA convention in 1958 in Florida, according to the College Football Hall of Fame.
The “why” is known: Scoring was declining because teams were no longer using two platoons. To boost excitement, the two-point try was proposed.
At first, the 10 voting members on the rules committee (which included Georgia’s Wally Butts), voted it down. But then Wallace Wade, the legendary coach at Alabama and Duke, started talking to committee members at an evening social and at breakfast the next day, and they brought the matter back up for a vote.
It was on the verge of passing until one of the coaches, Illinois’ Ray Eliot didn’t want the attempt to be from the 3-yard line. He reasoned that putting it so close to the goal line meant that Ohio State’s Woody Hayes would go for it with his “three yards and a cloud of dust” and likely convert it every time.
Eliot finally was swayed and the rule passed. Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd loved the kicking game and therefore hated the rule. In subsequent years, he asked for it to be rescinded.
Dodd didn’t mind pointing out the rule’s failings, one time sending correspondence to Delaware coach David Nelson, who was on the committee that passed the measure and whose team later lost two games because of the rule, once when they failed to convert and another when their opponent was successful. To summarize, Dodd said, “Way to go.”
Famous attempts
Perhaps its most famous use came in the 1984 Orange Bowl. Top-ranked Nebraska trailed Miami 31-17 in the fourth quarter of a game that would decide the national championship. The Huskers scored twice to cut the Hurricanes’ lead to 31-30 with less than a minute remaining. Coach Tom Osborne decided to go for the two-point conversion and title-clinching win. Instead of running the ball, Nebraska’s strength, Turner Gill attempted a pass that was batted down. The Cornhuskers didn’t win a national title until 11 years later.
“There was no doubt in Tom Osborne’s mind, and there was no doubt in my mind. It was a championship game, and he went after it like a champion,” Miami coach Howard Schnellenberger said afterward.
It was a brave decision, one not every coach would make.
Auburn’s Pat Dye was scolded by most everyone except his own fans when he elected to kick a 30-yard field goal, instead of going for the winning touchdown, with one second remaining in the 1988 Sugar Bowl. The Eagles made the kick and settled for a head-scratching tie. The result was the only blemish on Syracuse’s record that season and cost them a slim shot at being named national champions.
Dye’s defense: “My decision was not to get beat,” he said afterward.
Locally, No. 1 Georgia Southern remains there today because it defeated Chattanooga 28-27 on Oct. 8, when the Moccasins went for the two-point conversion and victory, but failed with less than two minutes remaining. The win could mean the difference between the Eagles making the FCS (formerly Division I-AA) playoffs as a runner-up from the Southern Conference and being the top seed.
“We had confidence in our defense to make a stop,” quarterback Jaybo Shaw told the Savannah Morning News. “A win is a win for us.”
The calls
Johnson and Richt have elected to tie games with two-point conversions.
Johnson went for it and tied Wake Forest on the road with nearly seven minutes remaining last season. The Yellow Jackets converted the play, added another touchdown and won the game.
Richt rolled the dice and tied South Carolina at 28 with a two-point conversion in the fourth quarter earlier this season. The Gamecocks eventually won.
Both the Bulldogs and the Jackets spend a part of each week’s practices working on two-point conversions.
There have been 105 attempts of two-point conversions in FBS (formerly Division I-A) this season, with a 41-percent conversion rate, according to cfbstats.com. That percentage is slightly off the seven-year average of 40.5.
Of course, going for two when you’re trailing by the same margin is an easier decision than making that decision when trailing by one.
Though most coaching staffs carry a “When to go for it” chart that is credited to Dick Vermeil when he was an assistant at UCLA, Johnson and Richt said the circumstances usually will dictate the decision.
“If you feel like it’s going to be a high-scoring game, you don’t worry about it,” Johnson said. “You’re not going to chase it early because once you miss, you’re going to have to start chasing — so you just look at the scores.”
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