Shared the national championship with Colorado my rear end. There was only one real national champion in 1990, Ga Tech!
ATLANTA --- Josh Nesbitt had already fumbled on one fourth-down play, gotten tripped up on another. He'd also been stuffed trying to run for a first down, and had yet another all-or-nothing play ruined by a dropped pass.
Yet there he was in overtime, standing on the sideline with coach Paul Johnson, insisting he could get the 18 inches or so Georgia Tech needed to keep alive its Atlantic Coast Conference title hopes.
"Are you sure?" Johnson asked his quarterback.
"Yeah," Nesbitt replied. "No doubt."
He was true to his word. No. 10 Georgia Tech pulled off a gutsy play on fourth down after failing four times during regulation, and Nesbitt ended it with a 3-yard touchdown run that pushed the Yellow Jackets to the cusp of the ACC Championship game with a 30-27 victory over Wake Forest on Saturday.
Jonathan Dwyer rushed for a career-best 189 yards and went over 1,000 yards for the season, but it was Nesbitt and the guys on the defensive side who bailed out the Yellow Jackets at the end.
After stifling Wake Forest on the first possession of OT, forcing a field goal, Georgia Tech drove to the 5 where it faced fourth-and-less-than-a-yard. The Yellow Jackets initially tried to draw Wake offsides, but was forced to burn a timeout when that didn't work.
Instead of sending Scott Blair in for a chip-shot field goal, Johnson decided to go for the win. If Johnson had any thoughts of kicking a field goal, Nesbitt persuaded him for one more chance.
"I could see the defense they were in," the quarterback said. "I just knew in my heart I could get it."
Nesbitt lowered his head and powered up the middle for a 2-yard gain. He scored on the next play, bouncing off the right tackle to go in standing before he flipped the ball high in the air and raised both arms in triumph. The entire team poured onto the field to celebrate underneath the goal posts.
"I felt like there was a monkey off my back," Nesbitt said. "Nothing was going right for me the whole game. To get that run and score to end the game just felt great."
Georgia Tech hasn't won an outright conference championship since 1990, the year they shared the national championship with Colorado.
"I play to win," Johnson said. "The kids work hard and put in a lot of time and effort. If we can't make an inch there, we don't deserve to win the game."
It was another excruciating loss for Wake, which must win their final two games to become eligible for its fourth consecutive bowl trip. Five of their defeats have come by a total of 13 points, two of them going to overtime.
"It's frustrating," said Riley Skinner, who passed for two touchdowns. "We are right there in every game. We're just not finishing it."
UP NEXT
WHO: Georgia Tech at Duke
WHEN: Noon, Saturday at Wallace Wade Stadium
WHAT'S ON THE LINE: The Yellow Jackets win the Coastal Division and earn a spot in the ACC Championship game with a victory.
TODAY'S POLLS: Georgia Tech could move up with its win coupled with losses by Iowa, LSU and Oregon.
Comments
Shared the national championship with Colorado my rear end. There was only one real national champion in 1990, Ga Tech!
I agree TL. I would have loved to seen a Ga Tech/Colorado game in '90.
Whoa. TL and WP agreeing on something. My heart.... Can't help but notice that, once again, the AC gives UGA the "big" story...while Tech, which will be #7 or #8 in the country, once the rankings come out later today, gets pushed down the list. They also routinely publish stories about UGA's ranking in US News & World Reports annual list, but neglect to note that Tech is ranked 7th among all public universities. The AC's anti-Tech bias rankles.
That's Billy for ya. Actually it should have been Tech #1, Miami #2. Miami had 2 losses and Colorado had one loss and one tie (on the books) They actually had 2 losses and one tie since one of their wins was by scoring on FIFTH down. Geez.
The whining never stops.
Ah, the reliably anti-Tech JTF weighs in. How refreshing.
TL, UGA tried to get an ACC school to ensure victory, but...
I agree with TechLover and HotFoot for a change.
What are you talking about, Hotfoot??? If you look in the hard-copy edition of the newspaper, you won't see ANYTHING about Georgia football until you get into the middle of the sports section! Tech is right on the front page! Okay?? Are you happy with that? I mean, right now, Tech is more "front page" worthy than is Georgia. Good grief! And as far as the 1990 National Championship thingy, you're right..there was only ONE national champion and that was Colorado! Tech couldn't carry Colorado's jockstraps that year!
tech stinks!! they haven't played anyone, as usual, and the only decent team they have played, killed 'em, as usual. they'll NEVER beat the dawgs 2 years in a row. you'll see! i'll be easy to find on november 29th, i'll be right here, waiting to here you nerdy tech fans pathetic excuses.
RE: smartie's "nerdy tech fans" comment. Yeh, it's great to be nerdy, as in, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban, Michael Dell, Scott MeNeely, Mike Duke (wouldn't really expect ole smartie to know that he is President & CEO of the world's biggest corporation, Wal-Mart -- Georgia Tech IE '71). In addition to the previous comment on Georgia Tech's academic standing, consider this: Georgia Tech was recently ranked #4 by USN & WR among all graduate engineering programs in the county, public and private, behind only MIT, Stanford and UC-Berkley. That's right, sports fans, ahead of Cal Tech, all of the Ivy League schools, Michigan, USC, etc, That is rarefied academic air, folks. Now, if all of the money that is spent on the hardy-partyers at the Athens Asylum would be redirected to the world-class programs at Georgia Tech, imagine what could be accomplished. Well, we should extend a little sympathy to the Athens Asylum boosters, since in a good year most all they have to brag about is their football guerrillas. And, 2009 is not shaping up to be a good year. Putting "had winning football team (& chugged 25 beers)" at the top of your resume is probably not going to get the job.
It seems like smartie might be smarting.
REALLY, Knave! REALLY!!! man alive!!! mike duke!! awe!! that's too much!! what a guy! he's used his higher education to pay several hundred thousand people minimum wage, practically drive all the competition, who thought just a little more of their employees, down the toilet. import all kinds of chinese made crap, thus flushing several thousand more american jobs down the toilet. bankrupt several other american companies by pricing their products down. what a fine guy, Knave. thanks for enlightening me on that one. i gotta tell you, though! tech still stinks!! and, as bad as it's been this season, and it's been bad, it's going to seem alright, come november 28th. go dawgs! sic' em.
Yes, smartie, "REALLY," and, you're welcome for the enlightening. That's the thing about Georgia Tech -- most folk matriculating there acquire enough "enlightening" to be able to share some with others, without charge. And, after many years, I think that the "stink" has pretty much worn off me.
nah! you still stink!
Knave, Duke would be an exception on your list. Gates and Dell were dropouts (Gates would get "honorary" degrees), Buffett, Cuban and McNealy all majored in business/economics from non-southern schools. Granted, I will admit that GA Tech players are more articulate and well spoken than most other Southeast athletes.
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