ATLANTA --- Call it ego. Call it guts. Call it crazy.
Call it glory.
There are plenty of ways you can analyze Paul Johnson's decision to bank the entire 2009 football season on one play and roughly 12 inches of Grant Field real estate. But the philosophy behind the Georgia Tech coach's decision is as unflinching as his personality.
"If we can't get a half a yard, we probably didn't deserve to win," Johnson said after his team collected that precious bit of turf to set up a 30-27 overtime victory over Wake Forest on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
This was hardly cavalier thinking. Johnson believes in will power and is simply unafraid of fourth downs. Prior to Saturday, the Yellow Jackets had gone for it on fourth down 12 times this season with a success rate of 75 percent.
But on this day against this Demon Deacons defense, the Jackets were 0-4 on fourth downs in regulation. The last thing you'd think they'd want to do was test that streak trailing by three points in overtime with the nose of the ball on the 5-yard line and a sure-thing chip shot by Scott Blair ensuring the game would at least go on.
We're talking fourth-down and over, people. Fail to pick this up and you can just about kiss the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game and potential BCS bowl berth goodbye. See you next year.
Johnson doesn't think that way, however. And neither does his team. When Georgia Tech lined up to see it they could draw the Deacons offside before calling timeout, the concept of changing their collective minds and sending in the place-kicker was laughable.
Quarterback Josh Nesbitt made sure of that by running to the sidelines screaming to his coaches, "I can make it!"
Johnson's conversation with his players in the huddle was nothing but a pep talk.
"We all just said this is why we play Division I football," running back Jonathan Dwyer said. "This is why you come out in the spring. This is why you have all the practices, the waking up at 5:30 a.m. and extra conditioning."
Johnson doesn't coach a sissy game. He will take his triple-option and run the ball down your throat all day long until you cry mercy. Eight times this season that Jackets have eclipsed 300 yards rushing, including Saturday. He's not going to back off just because it's fourth down and 12 inches and the consequences of a failure to execute might derail a championship season.
You seize the moment -- you don't try postpone it.
"I play to win," Johnson said. "The kids work hard and put in a lot of time and effort. Shoot, the ball's on the 3-yard line. Give the kids a chance to win the game."
When Nesbitt saw the way Wake Forest had its linebackers standing up in the gaps before he called the timeout, the junior from Greene County was adamant.
"I just told coach that without a doubt I could get the first down," Nesbitt said. "I knew I could get it and I told the guys that we would win."
So the offense trotted back out and Nesbitt pushed his way through the gap for 2 yards when all he needed was 1 foot. On the very next play, Nesbitt took a quarterback draw off the right side for the winning touchdown.
It was a gutsy finish to a mostly ugly game when missed opportunities and crippling penalties threatened to leave a long off-season of second guessing as to how the Yellow Jackets let a championship chance slip away.
Instead, No. 10 Georgia Tech sets up the sweetest words any ACC team could ever utter -- beat Duke and you're in.
"We've got ourselves in position for the biggest game of the year next week," Johnson said about the final conference game in Durham, N.C., that could clinch the Coastal Division title.
It could actually get bigger. Things started lining up beautifully for the Jackets on Saturday. No. 4 Iowa lost. No. 8 Oregon lost. No. 9 Louisiana State lost. The only thing standing between Georgia Tech and the top three spots in the BCS standings were less-than-sexy programs at Cincinnati, Boise State and Texas Christian. And two of those top three will have to play each other in the Southeastern Conference championship game.
Beat Duke, win a rivalry game against Georgia and take the ACC title and a BCS title appearance in Pasadena, Calif., is not out of the question.
Stranger things have happened.
Johnson, of course, wasn't thinking about any of that.
"I was only worried about Georgia Tech and we were losing for awhile there, too," he said of the BCS landscape. "Today was an elimination game. That's what I challenged them with. We eliminated a lot of people on our side of the (ACC) draw today."
Johnson avoided Tech's own elimination by putting it all on the line and showing the ultimate confidence in his offense. When the stakes were the greatest, Georgia Tech delivered.
"It hadn't hit me yet," Nesbitt said of the stakes he carried with him those 2 critical yards, "but I'm sure it will."
Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.
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big deal! it was wake forest, and, all-cup-cake conference football.