Comments (0) | |

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009

Looking back at the ‘moment to be savored’

As the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and their supporters head to Charlottesville, Va., for today’s game between the Yellow Jackets and Virginia Cavaliers, The Telegraph’s Coley Harvey looks back at the last time Georgia Tech won there. With possibly their greatest chance to win on the road there since 1990, the Yellow Jackets are hoping for a familiar outcome this afternoon. Sixteen current players weren’t even alive when Georgia Tech last won at Virginia; another was born just the day before. With information from Telegraph archives, here is a look back at the “moment to be savored.”

In anticipation of a huge homecoming victory, officials at Scott Stadium had greased down both field goal posts to prevent them from being taken down.

Maybe someone should have warned officials at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta to do the same.

It was the afternoon of Nov. 3, 1990, and the pair of unbeatens — No. 1 Virginia and No. 16 Georgia Tech — were squaring off in a key conference battle that was expected to help set up the year’s national championship race.

From one tunnel entered the Cavaliers, the hometown team with a Heisman trophy candidate quarterback, a future NFL receiver and a large, enthusiastic crowd fully on their side.

Out of the other tunnel came the Yellow Jackets, a team that had won seven games, tied one and lost none. Outranked by the Cavaliers, they were the underdogs.

In terms of the specks of white-and-gold clad Yellow Jackets fans, Macon Telegraph and News columnist Harley Bowers wrote, “Throughout the afternoon, they were overwhelmed by the overwhelming numbers decked out in orange.”

But playing in front of the largely Virginia-supporting record crowd of 49,700 did not seem to phase Yellow Jackets. Neither did they appear flustered when they trailed by 13 points in the second quarter.

“We just kept thinking we could win, even when we were down 13-0,” Georgia Tech head coach Bobby Ross told Telegraph reporter Kamon Simpson that afternoon. “Our (players) never stopped believing. I told our (players) that this was a special game.”

By the time the final quarter had rolled around, the game went from being special to something otherworldly for Georgia Tech fans.

Storming back — at one point scoring off a rare reverse, no less — the Yellow Jackets finally took the lead for the first time with 7:17 remaining in the game, when place-kicker Scott Sisson booted home a 32-yard field goal. Up 38-35, the impossible was beginning to look possible.

Then, it happened.

On Virginia’s final drive, the Cavaliers drove downfield to put their offense in a goal line situation with 2:34 left in the game. With fourth-and-goal and the ball at the 6-yard line, Virginia head coach George Welsh opted to kick a field goal for a tie, instead of passing for a win.

After the kick sailed through the uprights for a tie at 38, the Yellow Jackets had one more chance at victory.

“Personally, I wanted to go ahead and go for it,” Cavaliers receiver Herman Moore said.

According to story written that night by current Telegraph columnist Ed Grisamore, Moore went on to say, “I have that kind of confidence in our offense.”

Moments later, Georgia Tech proved the confidence it had in not just its offense, but also its kicker.

Driving in the final minutes to the Virginia 20, the Yellow Jackets’ offense gave Sisson a chance to win the game. Some fans may have initially balked at the move, as he had been just 10-for-16 in his kicking opportunities to that point in the year.

Things got so bad during the season that Sisson, Simpson wrote, “had stopped watching his kicks past the moment of impact.”

Sisson later explained that he would rather holder Scott Aldredge call out whether his kicks went in or not.

This particular afternoon, Aldredge went wild on his call.

With seven seconds remaining, Sisson’s 37-yard field goal proved to be all Georgia Tech needed to beat Virginia and to waltz near the top of the nation’s top-25 rankings. In addition to Virginia, No. 3 Nebraska was upset that day, as was No. 4 Auburn and No. 5 Illinois.

“No. 1 has fallen. With a thud,” Grisamore wrote that night.

As the celebration ensued in Charlottesville, another, wilder one began in Atlanta.

Students who had not made the road trip ascended on Bobby Dodd Stadium and found their way inside to attack the field goal posts. They removed both and lit a joyous bonfire outside the stadium to add to the celebration.

“This, you see, was a moment to be savored, a moment to never forget,” Bowers wrote. “This was the one the Jackets had to have if there were to be other great moments.”

Georgia Tech went on to claim a share of the national title, its fourth and most recent.

Information from The Telegraph’s archives was used in this report.