North Carolina State University Athletics
Georgia Tech Hands NC State A 48-21 Loss
10/30/1999 12:00:00 AM | Football
Box Score
By Tony Haynes
Quarterback Joe Hamilton did nothing to hurt his Heisman Trophy hopes on Saturday afternoon. And, NC State did nothing to enhance its post-season bowl hopes either.
With the ever-efficient Hamilton passing for 212 yards and three touchdowns, and rushing for another 84, the 7th ranked Yellow Jackets (6-1, 4-1 ACC) won their fifth straight game, whipping the Wolfpack 48-21.
Tailback Sean Gregory added 117 yards on 22 carries for the Jackets, who rolled up 513 yards of total offense.
"I thought it was the first game since early in the season where I thought we came out and played an entire game," said Georgia Tech head coach George O'Leary. "If you take away the two or three plays that they scored on, it was a complete game by the defense."
And that could be bad news for the rest of the ACC. Coming in, Tech's defense was ranked 7th in the ACC, but on Saturday, the Jackets came up with one of their best defensive efforts of the season, holding NC State (5-4, 2-4 ACC) in check most of the day.
It didn't take long for Tech to take control on a pleasant fall afternoon at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta. On Georgia Tech's second possession of the game, Gregory stormed in from the one, giving the Yellow Jackets a quick 7-0 advantage. The first scoring drive covered 55 yards in 8-plays.
Less than four minutes later, Hamilton had his team in the end zone again. Receiver Kelly Campbell's 17-yard run on a slick reverse concluded a 5-play, 46-yard march.
While all of this was going on, NC State could get nothing going offensively. The Wolfpack, which had shown tremendous improvement in recent weeks, again started looking like a team in need of a tune-up.
"We just never could get in sync," said Pack head coach Mike O'Cain. "They got off blocks better than we did. We just never seemed to get our feet on the ground offensively."
For a brief moment early in the second quarter, Koren Robinson gave NC State the spark it had been searching for throughout the opening half. The redshirt freshman receiver hauled in a long Jamie Barnette bomb and outran the Georgia Tech secondary on a pretty 70-yard pass play. Kent Passingham's conversion made it 14-7.
A 49-yard field goal by Luke Manget gave the Yellow Jackets a 17-7 advantage with 6:13 remaining in the half, but at the point, the Pack seemed to still have life. Moments later, Hamilton would drive a stake into the heart of those hopes.
Georgia Tech got the football at its own 41 with 2:01 remaining in the opening half. With the Wolfpack sitting back in a soft zone, Hamilton picked away time after time. Six straight completions moved the Yellow Jackets to the NC State 14 with just :56 left in the half.
Three plays later, Hamilton gave Tech a seemingly insurmountable 24-7 lead when he hit Kerry Watkins with a three-yard scoring strike. The touchdown, which came with just 32 seconds remaining in the half, seemed to take the life out of any NC State comeback hopes.
"That score was a killer," O'Cain said. "With two and a half minutes left in the half, you can't give them the ball in that kind of field position. They played on a short field all day while we played on a long field."
NC State's average starting position was on its 16-yard line. Meanwhile, Tech seemed to start most of its drives in the middle of the field all day.
The Jackets had a very short field to work with early in the second half when linebacker Nick Rogers picked off a Barnette pass and returned it to the NC State 23. It didn't take Tech long to take advantage.
Three Gregory runs were followed by a Hamilton to Campbell touchdown pass of 11-yards. The conversion made it 31-7. The time had come to turn out the lights in Atlanta, although the entire third and fourth quarters still remained.
The Wolfpack's other scores came on a Barnette run of ten yards in the third quarter and a 20-yard pass from freshman quarterback Jativis Sanders to fullback Cotra Jackson with 1:53 left in the game. Sanders, who has seen very little action this season, connected on four of his five pass attempts after replacing Barnette midway through the final period.
Potent may be to mild a word to describe Tech's powerful offense, which has been incredibly balanced all season. On Saturday, the Yellow Jackets had 266 yards rushing to go along with 247 passing yards.
"If you can take the option away from them a little bit, you have a better chance of honing in on them," said O'Cain. "But with him (Joe Hamilton) keeping the ball back there, it's like having three running backs. He gives them such a threat at the quarterback position, it makes it very difficult to defend them."
With his three touchdown passes on Saturday, Hamilton set a new school record for a career. He now has 53 scoring tosses in his career. The senior signal caller also moved into second place on the ACC's career total offense list, passing former Duke quarterbacks Ben Bennett and Spence Fischer.
Barnette's lone scoring pass tied him with former Florida State QB Danny Kanell on the ACC's all-time touchdown list. The touchdown pass was the 57th of Barnette's career.
More importantly though, the Wolfpack is now faced with the task of winning two of it's last three games to secure a bowl birth. The final stretch run begins with a home game against Maryland next weekend.
"As a senior and a captain I have to make sure the group sticks together," said NC State cornerback Lloyd Harrison, who hauled in his fifth interception of the season on Saturday. "We've got to win two of our last three games to get to the bowl game we want to go to. It's my job to keep guys into it."
The last three games will be tough, but it's doubtful they'll present an offense as good as Georgia Tech's or a quarterback like Joe Hamilton.
