DURHAM, N.C. — Playing quarterback for Paul Johnson means a lot of your tosses go backward. But Tevin Washington got a chance to add the long forward pass to Georgia Tech’s spread option offense Saturday against Duke.
Washington enjoyed the long ball. He threw only 13 passes and completed only six, but they were the kind of arching spirals that make it worth all those backward pitches and collisions with defensive ends. His longest pass went for 56 yards. Another went for 46 and two more for 31 and 29 yards.
“It felt really good to complete some big, long throws because we’ve been stagnant the last couple of weeks,” he said. “We’ve really had no big-time pass plays, so it was a great feeling.”
Johnson was quick in his postgame comments to deflate any idea that Tech was passing more and liking it.
“We threw it 13 times, and that’s about what we do, really,” he said.
But throwing it a stingy 13 times isn’t the same as having someone in the same uniform catch it for generous yardage.
Duke coach David Cutcliffe said his young defense did fairly well against Tech’s bewildering option runs, but Tech’s air attack hurt.
“The part I knew we couldn’t give up were the big passes — something like 51, 46, 39, 31 — those are big chunks of yards,” he said.
Senior A-back Embry Peeples ran under one of the long balls for a 46-yard reception. He said the difference in Tech’s 38-31 victory was the catching, not the throwing.
“We didn’t drop back to throw the ball any more than we usually do,” he said. “It’s that we actually connected on them this time.”
Peeples said the passing game was helped by Duke’s respect for Tech’s run. Duke crowded the line, he said, and when Tech faked the run, the defensive backfield opened up.
“We were well-prepared. We really knew what the defense was going to do,” he said. “They were playing up real tight and close and stuff like that. We figured, if we do a little play-action, we could hold them in their spot.”
Despite Saturday’s connections, Washington doesn’t think the run-first offense is a constraint on his passing arm.
“Its not a problem, no,” he said. “Like any other offense, when you’ve got the running game going, you just want to run it. It’s easier just to hand it off than to throw it downfield.
“I’ll take it anyway we can get it.”
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