GA Tech Almost Chokes on Their Cupcake

Three weeks ago the Jackets put a hurtin' on SEC opponent Mississippi State. Last week, coming off of a bye, they thumped Duke. Yesterday, in what must have been the ugliest game of football of the weekend, Tech needed a missed field goal to win it in regulation.

It was all they could do to beat the "Runnin' Bulldogs" of Gardner-Webb.

As a bit of background, Gardner-Webb came into the game 2-3, having beaten Austin Pea and some school called Tusculum. Their three losses have been to powerhouses Tennessee Tech, Sam Houston State, and Charleston Southern.

Granted, Tech was starting 3rd-string Quarterback Calvin Booker, but a BCS team should be able to start the scout team quarterback and still handle a teams from the bottom half of the Big South Conference. The Jackets' offensive woes were summed up aptly by the Georgia Tech Sports blog:

There's a reason Nesbitt is #1 and Shaw is #2. They can run the system. Calvin Booker, bless his heart, did his best as the starter, but he just looks slow as molasses running the triple option. Plays just develop so slowly. Combine that with a swiss cheese O-Line and it makes for a long day. Calvin had a poor day throwing the ball as well, except for a short screen pass on a scramble to Jonathan Dwyer who managed to take it to the house for a 79 yard TD.

That one play, the 79-yard touchdown pass, accounted for well over a third of Tech's total offense for the day, which came in just under 200 yards. The Jackets and the Bullodogs both averaged a pathetic 1.7 yards a carry on the ground. Georgia tech completed only 3 passes on the day.

In short, though it doesn't say so in the record books, Georgia Tech really ought to have picked up a loss yesterday.

This week Paul Johnson's team travels to Death Valley to take on the Clemson Tigers who have been playing some pretty ugly football of their own for the past couple of weeks. One has to imagine that the lead-up to the game will be reminiscent of a South Park episode: which one of these teams will manage to give the game away best?