CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- The opportunity was 58 yards away.
The 58-yard expanse lay between Georgia Tech and the Virginia end zone, a distance the Yellow Jackets had covered in one play no less than 10 times this season. A touchdown would provide an escape and the likely preservation of perfection.
What followed instead, with the game on the line, was a four-yard loss after a botched play call and what looked like two busted pass plays in which quarterback Tevin Washington had plenty of blue-shirted company. Tech punted, never got the ball back and then had to evade the Virginia student body swarming the Scott Stadium turf.
Virginia 24, Georgia Tech 21.
"They were three pretty bad plays," A-back and team captain Roddy Jones said. "You can't have that when the game's on the line."
That possession and the Cavaliers' ensuing 14-play possession that consumed the final 5:58 encapsulated Tech's Saturday afternoon. The offense seized up at the wrong time and the run defense faltered. As night fell Saturday, Tech's No. 12 ranking and its best start since 1966 went with it. The loose wheels that had started to wobble in recent weeks finally spun free.
"We've gotten away with it the last couple of weeks, just kind of going through the motions," coach Paul Johnson said. "You could see it in pregame. There's no intensity, there's no emotion. It's hard to play this game without it."
Tech had its moments -- it rallied from a first-quarter, 14-0 deficit with two second-quarter touchdowns in a span of 98 seconds. Again apparently schemed to get the majority of the carries, Washington ran more productively. The defense, after giving up 272 yards of offense in the first half, limited Virginia to 135 in the second half and kept the Cavaliers off the scoreboard.
However, Washington said, "For the most part, we killed ourselves."
With the loss, Tech (6-1 overall, 3-1 in the ACC) relinquished its control of the ACC Coastal Division race, at least on paper, to the Cavaliers (4-2, 1-1). Even if the Jackets run the table -- which would be no small accomplishment, given the back half of their league schedule has Miami, Clemson, Virginia Tech and Duke -- they'll need Virginia to lose again.
However, the Jackets will need to address the deficiencies in their run defense for that to be a possibility. From the opening play, when Virginia running back Perry Jones found a crease for a 14-yard gain, it was clear that defensive coordinator Al Groh had not devised a sufficient response to the run-defense issues that have become glaring in recent weeks. In his first return as a coach to Virginia, which fired him after the 2009 season, Groh must have felt particular discomfort watching linemen he had recruited and coached steer and redirect his own players around the field.
"Those tall guys, once they get a hold of you, it was pretty hard for you to get off," defensive end Izaan Cross said.
Virginia finished with 272 rushing yards one week after Maryland ran through Tech for 246 rushing yards. Jones gained 149 yards on just 18 carries, becoming the fourth player to clear 100 yards in as many weeks against the Jackets.
Said cornerback Rod Sweeting, whose 32-yard interception return for a touchdown in the first half was rendered a mere detail in the loss, "They ran the ball down our throat all day."
The upcoming trip to Miami represents no respite. The Hurricanes have beaten Tech two years running.
"We can either be down about [the loss] and play worse, or we can use it as motivation and come out and turn everything around," Cross said, "and get back to where we were the previous six games."
