Georgia Tech will probably have to try to win the ACC championship without one of its top playmakers. Due to a knee injury, wide receiver DeAndre Smelter is unlikely to play for the Yellow Jackets against Florida State in the ACC title game Saturday in Charlotte, N.C., coach Paul Johnson said Sunday.
Smelter suffered the injury in the first half of Tech’s 30-24 overtime win over Georgia Saturday and did not return to the game.
“I think it would probably be a reach,” Johnson said on a teleconference to preview the championship game.
Johnson said coaches and medical staff would have an update Monday, when they receive additional test results, but further termed Smelter’s chances “probably doubtful at best.”
Smelter has been a critical piece of Tech’s winning the ACC Coastal title outright with a 10-win season. In his second season with the team, Smelter has become quarterback Justin Thomas’ go-to receiver and a dangerous downfield threat. Smelter has caught 35 passes for 715 yards, a 20.4 yards-per-catch average that ranks second in the ACC. His reception total and seven touchdown receptions are the most by any Tech player since Demaryius Thomas in 2009 (46, eight). Smelter has caught 60 percent of all receptions made by Jackets receivers this season.
“He’s been a really good football player for us all year,” Johnson said. “He’s kind of been a go-to guy, and not only in receiving. He’s a really good blocker and just a really good football player.”
Tech managed without Smelter against Georgia. In the second half and overtime, when he was out, the Jackets ran 45 times out of 47 plays and averaged 6.2 yards per rush.
Micheal Summers would likely replace Smelter in the lineup and start alongside Darren Waller. Tech typically also plays Corey Dennis. Johnson did say that linebacker P.J. Davis and A-back Tony Zenon, who were also injured in the Georgia game and did not return, “should be fine” to play.
On the teleconference, Johnson did not shy from discussing two questionable fumble calls from Saturday’s game. Of quarterback Justin Thomas’ third-quarter fumble near the Georgia goal line, where the ball was stripped from him out of a scrum by Bulldogs defensive back Damian Swann and returned 99 yards for a touchdown , he said it “might be one of the most bizarre plays I can remember in my coaching career.”
Johnson contended that the play should have been whistled dead on Thomas’ forward progress being stopped. Johnson said he watched game video Sunday morning and “counted one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi with nobody moving, and all of the sudden, they came out of the pile with the ball. Really, it was unbelievable.”
Regarding Thomas’ other fumble, which occurred late in the fourth quarter when the ball slipped out of his hand after he pump faked a pass, Johnson said he was told by ACC officiating coordinator Doug Rhoads that “they’ve been told that anything that’s remotely close to a pass is supposed to be called a pass. Again, that was a different situation.”
Georgia gained possession at its 31-yard line with 2:41 to play and drove for a go-ahead touchdown with 18 seconds left, setting up Tech’s game-tying field goal at the end of regulation.
“Fortunately, we won the game,” Johnson said. “I think the ACC office maybe will talk to the (officiating) supervisor there and get an interpretation, but unfortunately, you can do that, but it doesn’t change the outcome.”
