Flat Day on the Flats as Tech Survives 

By Don Stone - Tech Express

    The weather was ideal on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium. The play of the teams on the field was not so perfect.
     It wasn't pretty. But it was a win. And, an impressive stat had me confused for a second. This is the Yellow Jackets' first 6-0 start in 45 years.
     I heard Wes Durham say mention that impressive number as the game clock wound down in the 21-16 win over Maryland. My first thought was that he had made a mistake. How could that be when Tech won the national championship going undefeated in 1990.
     I was quickly reminded that there was a small asterisk on that undefeated record. Tech had won its first five games against North Carolina State, Chattanooga, #25 South Carolina, Maryland and #15 Clemson in that storied season twenty one years ago. That moved them up to a #18 ranking.
     Then, the smudge. At 5-0, the Jackets visited unranked North Carolina and came away with a 13-13 tie. Even with that, they moved up to #11 in the polls due to a lot of teams ahead of them losing. They finished the season as national champs, undefeated, but with a record of 11-0-1.
     So, this year's 6-0 team has accomplished that mark for the first time since the Bobby Dodd led 1966 team got off to a 9-0 start, only to drop the last regular season game 14-23 to rival Georgia. It was a pretty big game with national implications as Tech came into the match ranked #5 with Georgia #7.
     The Rambling Wreck moved on to the Orange Bowl only to lose big time to the Florida Gators by a similar score of 12-27.
     They finished with a #8 ranking. Still a great season, but disappointing given the great start after winning the first nine games.
     So, now that we have that bookkeeping out of the way, let's look back for a moment at how this Yellow Jacket version got to its 6-0 mark, matching its win total of 2010, by the way.
     Tevin Washington's stats looked impressive, running for 116 yards and two touchdowns. The passing numbers - not so much. The GT QB threw for just 114 yards and was 6-of-19 passing with one interception. Several long balls were dropped or just missed in the process.
      Head coach Paul Johnson was clearly unhappy with the performance by the offense after the game.
     "Offensively we struggled, never got any continuity," he said. "It was a myriad of things, and we will have to watch the tape, but we didn't do very many good things today. It was like popcorn trying to get it fixed. We had a chance to hit some big plays early in the passing game, and we missed them again. We really struggled. But you have to give them credit, their kids played hard, their defensive tackle was all over the place. They whipped our tail pretty good in the end."
     Washington agreed. "Overall, I think offensively we came out flat in the second half and I think in execution we had a bunch of penalties this game, probably more penalties than we've had all year" he said. "On my part, I know I did a poor job in the reads in this game running the option. It's just some things we've got to get better at this week and make sure we stay focused, and make sure that we pay attention to detail this week to those little things that gave us trouble this game."
     Maryland head coach Randy Edsall returned to the place where he used to coach and was not happy with the loss, but pleased at how the Terps were effective against Tech's high powered offense.
     "I thought they did what they were coached to do," Edsall said. "They went out and executed the defensive game plan that the defensive coaches put together. When you do that, that's what happens. Those are the expectations we want. Everybody has to go in and play as good as they can, and today they did.
     "We wanted to hold them to zero points. But again, we played great team defense. When you play great team defense, you're able to do the things that we did today."
     The star of the game was the Tech defense. Except for a 77-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter by Terrapin QB Danny O'Brien, Maryland's offense was held in check. The Terps' only points in the first three quarters were a 30-yard field goal by Nick Ferrara.
     Sophomore cornerback Louis Young talked about how they planned to defend against O'Brien's passing attack. "I knew this week I was going to have to do a lot of nickel. We prepared all week for it. I just studied their routes. I expected a lot more screen plays from their previous games but we held them to some down and distance plays and they tried to go deep on us. We just adjusted to it and I put my eyes in the right spot."
     Georgia Tech takes their 6-0 record on the road to 3-2 Virginia who will have had two weeks to prepare for the Jackets' Triple Option Offense. Their last game was on October 1, a close 21-20 OT win at home against Idaho.