High-wire act tough on fans, but it works

ATLANTA --- There is no more quintessential hold-your-breath player in the nation than Georgia Tech's Josh Nesbitt.

The Yellow Jackets live and die with their junior triple-option quarterback from Greene County. Every play Nesbitt presides over has the potential to be sensational or disastrous. He's a one-man firestarter -- a tight-rope walker whose latest high-wire act threw wide open the doors of Coastal Division race in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

For the second consecutive week, Nesbitt hoisted his team on his back and delivered a huge ACC win -- this one a corner-turning 28-23 victory over No. 4 Virginia Tech on Saturday night at frigid Bobby Dodd Stadium.

"This is the biggest thing that's happened since I've been here," said Nesbitt of the first Georgia Tech victory at home over a top-five opponent since 1962.

Bigger than beating Georgia last year?

"By far bigger," he insisted.

In the weirdest way, he's right. The same Georgia Tech players who tore off big chunks of the hedges at Sanford Stadium last season were beaming even bigger this night as they huddled for warmth with about 20,000 of their fellow students in the middle of Grant Field long after the result went final.

This is an outcome Georgia Tech has been sneaking up on for years but usually seemed to find ways to lose until Saturday. The Jackets probably should have won last year in Blacksburg, Va., only to lose a heartbreaker that cost them the tiebreaker for the Coastal Division. This victory sets them up in what everybody knows is a three-team race with the Hokies and Miami for a championship game berth and BCS promise.

(Pay no attention to the only unbeaten conference team, Virginia, who the Yellow Jackets must avoid some kind of bizarre negative outcome in Charlottesville, Va., next week. The Cavaliers are merely leasing the top spot short-term to keep it warm for any team that did not lose its season opener to William & Mary.)

This Georgia Tech team goes as Nesbitt goes. He carries the fire in a risk-reward option offense that seems to hold the balance of the game in midair every time he lets go of the ball on a pitch or launches one up for grabs deep. On Saturday night he completed one pass -- ONE PASS -- and they still beat the No. 4 team in the nation. Granted, that one pass went for 51 yards and set up a momentum changing touchdown at the end of a bleak first half, but it's still one pass nonetheless.

"I'm very satisfied with one completion as long as we're ahead at the end of the game," Nesbitt said.

That passing statistic somehow seems misleading. Nesbitt puts the ball in the air as much as any conventional offense in the country, only the vast majority of his releases are live balls that leave everyone in the stadium and watching on television gasping. His pitches either seem to have hang time or get fired on a rope, giving his trailing running backs the versatile roles of being receivers or fumble recovers and those plays that don't happen to bust the opposing defense wide open.

Nesbitt's obvious skills, if not his nerve-wracking style, leave admirers on both sides of the field.

"He's like having a running back at quarterback," said Virginia Tech's Ryan Williams, the conference's leading rusher.

Nesbitt put everything he has on display in the second half Saturday. After its vaunted option that couldn't be stopped by Florida State a week ago put up a feeble 37 yards in the first half, Nesbitt took over in the second half.

Georgia Tech rushed for 272 yards after intermission, making them the first offense to pile up more than 300 yards against the Hokies in 13 years. Nesbitt -- who accounted for a leading 122 of those rushing yards -- repeatedly kept altering the momentum of the game.

His 31-yarder set up his own 1-yard touchdown that made it 14-3 on the first possession of the second half.

Then after a big fourth-down stop by the beleaguered Yellow Jackets defense, Nesbitt got picked off on one of his deep lobs that Virginia Tech capitalized on with a one-play 66-yard touchdown burst by Williams.

When two Jackets collided and fell down on the ensuing kickoff, you could sense the opportunity spiraling away again. Only Nesbitt instead orchestrates a 12-play, 86-yard drive, twice converting third downs himself and springing the 13-yard touchdown pitch to Marcus Wright with one of his breathless last-second tosses.

"All he does it what it takes to win the game," said his coach, Paul Johnson, who clearly hides his ulcers well. "When your back's against the wall, he engineers an 86-yard drive to take the momentum back. That's what he's done all year."

That's what he did the rest of the night. Nesbitt seemed to be leading an extended, game-sealing drive that ate up more than half of the fourth quarter clock, but disaster was always just a botched pitch away. He tossed one to apparently nobody that Wright managed to recover in a scrum. Then on first down at the Hokies 15, he pitches another one well wide of Jonathan Dwyer that Virginia Tech recovered.

"A couple of those fumbles, as soon as I let it go I knew it was a fumble," said Nesbitt, who admitted that sometimes he makes himself gasp when he reviews the game film.

Relying on Georgia Tech's defense -- the one that never made the trip to Tallahassee, Fla., last week -- can be dicey, and the Hokies used the gift turnover to cut the lead to 21-16 with a quick 77-yard drive.

But back comes Nesbitt juggling torches. Allen makes a shoestring snag on a pitch to trigger another hair-raising 75-yard drive. Nesbitt polishes it off with a 39-yard touchdown on third-and-7, this time literally tip-toeing the last 15 yards up the sideline for a nice touch and a 12-point lead with three minutes remaining.

"I'm surprised every time a hole opens up for me," said Nesbitt, who is hardly as quick or elusive as his counterpart Saturday, Tyrod Taylor.

Like his coach said, Nesbitt finds ways to win. His high-wire act is a long way from over, but after Saturday night the potential for an ACC title hovers in front of the Jackets like one of his option tosses.

Now they just need to hold on a grab it.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.