Bent at the waist, and dejected, Demaryius Thomas was in a position he hadn't been in much all game or all season after a pass had come his way – empty-handed.
Tech's star receiver, who might have single-handedly kept the Yellow Jackets in the game with a 76-yard touchdown to open the second half, let a fourth down pass slip through his fingers.
He would have had a first down at the Georgia 36 with 1:22 to play. Instead, it became Tech's last offensive play before succumbing to Georgia 30-24.
"We just didn’t make a play," Tech coach Paul Johnson said. "Kid has made plays all year. If it wasn't for him we wouldn't have been in the game. There's no one play. We just didn't make enough plays."
Thomas had caught a 17-yard pass on fourth and 9 in the third quarter, no problem, extending a drive that ended with a Jonathan Dwyer touchdown to cut Georgia's lead to 24-17. On the opening possession of the third quarter, he had caught a pass and broken free up the sideline for a 76-yard touchdown to ignite the Yellow Jackets after a stagnant first half.
Thomas finished with five catches for 127 yards – for his fourth 100-yard game of the season -- but was inconsolable for the sixth he didn't make. It might have been only the second catchable pass he dropped all season.
Quarterback Josh Nesbitt was among the first to get to Thomas.
"‘Keep your head up,'" Nesbitt said he told him. "‘Don't let one play define what you've done.' He's done a lot of great things for us. We're not going to look down on him. We've still got a lot of football to play. We need him."
Thomas wasn't available to the media after the game.
Thomas topped 1,000 yards on the season Saturday night. His 1,077 yards are the fourth-most in a single season in Tech history.
Thomas had been the target on the first of four consecutive pass attempts Johnson called for once Tech got down to one final timeout with 1:53 left. Nesbitt overthrew Thomas on an open post route on the first of four consecutive incomplete passes, which also included one Stephen Hill caught just out of bounds.
"We felt like we had some things we could hit," Johnson said.
So did Thomas.
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