In the season opener for its 119th season of football, Georgia Tech treated Western Carolina the same way that Stephen Hill treated Elijer Martinez.
On the Yellow Jackets' second possession Thursday night, quarterback Tevin Washington drilled a quick pass along the line of scrimmage to Hill. Martinez, the Catamounts' 5-foot-9 cornerback, tried to lock in on the 6-5 Hill. Martinez absorbed a stiff-arm from Hill and grasped at air as Hill turned upfield and sprinted to the end zone for an 82-yard score.
They didn't do everything right, but the Jackets overpowered the Catamounts at Bobby Dodd Stadium by a 63-21 count. Tech hand-delivered two of Western Carolina's three scores with botched special-teams plays.
"I think that they were just, in this game, a little bigger and a little faster and a little stronger than the guys they were playing against," Johnson said.
Tech rolled the Catamounts with 662 yards of total offense, second most in team history. Almost incomprehensibly, the team that averaged 83.9 passing yards last season gouged Western Carolina for 365 yards through the air with just 16 pass attempts.
Before the game was 12 minutes old, the Jackets had dialed up plays of 82, 77 and 66 yards on Hill's catch and run, an Orwin Smith touchdown run and a 66-yard reception by wide receiver Tyler Melton. Hill added another 77-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter, hauling in a precision strike from Tevin Washington as he streaked through the Western Carolina secondary.
"Everything's pretty much slowed down now," said Washington, in his first start as the full-time starter. "It's just a matter of taking things one thing at a time."
Playing before 42,132 at Bobby Dodd Stadium, Tech (1-0) offered a promising start.
Thursday's results may have said as much about Western Carolina (0-1) as they did about Tech. The Jackets at times looked sharp – they averaged 23.3 yards per play in the first quarter – but the Catamounts were one of the weakest teams in FBS (formerly Division I-AA) last season and were debuting a new offense and a new quarterback, sophomore Brandon Pechloff.
Tech charged out of the gate with the fury expected of a team that has spent the last eight months aching to wash away the sour taste of the 2010 season. Tech forced its first turnover three plays into the season, its first touchdown on the next snap and led 28-0 by the end of the first quarter.
Tech's defense batted down passes, laid big hits and forced punts. The run defense, anchored by defensive tackle Logan Walls, particularly thwarted the Catamounts. Western Carolina had 104 rushing yards on 40 carries.
"We've been working on ball disruption," Walls said. "I think we did well out there [Thursday] with all the picks and batted passes and a little bit of everything."
The play wasn't spotless. Pechloff eventually found his range and completed 20 of 33 passes for 180 yards. Tech's special teams were responsible for two high-grade snafus. As Catamounts players surrounded a second-quarter punt to down it near the Tech goal line, Euclid Cummings unsuccessfully attempted to corral the ball. Western Carolina recovered, leading to Johnson blistering Cummings on the sideline, and scored on its first play.
At the end of the first half, Justin Moore's 45-yard field-goal try was blocked and returned 69 yards for a touchdown, one failure compounded by another. The plays were window dressing on the scoreboard Thursday but could be potentially devastating if repeated later in the fall under more stressful circumstances.
"I'm probably as disappointed with that area as I am with anything because we have spent a lot of time" working on it, Johnson said. "Just bonehead. We've got to do a better job of coaching special teams. We've just got to, because we do some dumb stuff out there at times."
Tech also fumbled the ball six times, more than it had in any game in last year's fumble-ridden season. A handoff was botched, center-quarterback exchanges failed and a Washington pitch to A-back Tony Zenon fell to the ground. The Jackets lost two of them.
"I think anytime you've got a young team, they're going to make mistakes," Johnson said. "We made more than I thought we would."
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