NC State
Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech Decks Wolfpack, 29-21
10/4/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 4, 2003
By Tony Haynes
Atlanta, Ga.--Is it Grant Field or Grant's Tomb? As far as NC State is concerned, the stadium that Georgia Tech calls home is a graveyard of bad memories and broken dreams. Led by poised freshman quarterback Reggie Ball and an opportunistic defense, the Yellow Jackets (3-3, 1-2) took out the Wolfpack (3-3, 1-2) Saturday afternoon, 29-21. It marked NC State's 7th consecutive loss at Bobby Dodd Stadium, a streak that was started all the way back in 1990. And perhaps most importantly, the defeat was the Pack's second in ACC play, meaning the conference title that NC State has been talking about for months is now almost completely out of reach.
"Every year we play Georgia Tech it seems like we find a way to lose," said NC State wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery, who had five catches for 71 yards and one touchdown. "The little things like penalties and turnovers cost us. They're a disciplined enough team to take advantage of the mistakes that we were making."
Unflappable for all four quarters, Ball finished 24-of-37 through the air for 283 yards and a pair of touchdowns. His favorite target was wide receiver Jonathan Smith, who repeatedly burned the NC State secondary for big catches, especially on 3rd down. Smith had nine receptions for 155 yards. Georgia Tech also received an effective effort from tailback P.J. Daniels, who churned out 99 tough yards on 23 carries.
"Reggie Ball is going to be something," said Pack coach Chuck Amato. "I was talking to Chan Gailey before the game and he said `the best thing about this game is that it will be the last time I see Philip Rivers.' I said the worst thing about this game is that it will be the first time I see your quarterback."
Unable to run the football at all against a swarming Tech defense, NC State had, by its lofty standards, a very sporadic day offensively. With minus 8 yards on 19 attempts, the Wolfpack finished with the third worst rushing day in school history. Playing without star tailback T.A. McLendon for the second straight week, the Pack's troubles on the ground were exacerbated in some key short-yardage situations in the second half. Twice in the 3rd quarter, NC State moved inside the Tech 5-yard line, but came away with just three points.
Trailing 22-10 at intermission, the Wolfpack moved steadily down the field on its first drive of the second half. A 16-yard swing pass from quarterback Philip Rivers to receiver Tramain Hall gave NC State 3rd and goal from the one. Next came a bootleg pass that was dropped in the end zone by T.J. Williams, forcing the Pack to settle for a short Adam Kiker field goal that made it 22-13.
There was even more frustration in store for NC State on its next drive when five consecutive Rivers completions put the Pack right back in front of the south end zone with first and goal from the two. But again, NC State was denied. After tailback Josh Brown was dropped for a 1-yard loss on first down, Rivers threw an incompletion in the end zone. On third down, a lateral pass to Hall went backwards for a loss of eight. Then to compound matters, Kiker hooked a 29-yard field goal to the left, leaving the Pack without any points on one of its best drives of the game.
"If we score when we come out [to start the second half], we're right back in the game," said NC State coach Chuck Amato. "We go down there and can't get it in and have to kick a field goal. We stop them on three plays and get the ball back and drive to the 2-yard line and come away with nothing. That's big. We score down there and it's a different game."
The inability to get anything moving forward with the running game certainly affected NC State's ability to get points down on the goal line. In another short yardage situation early in the 3rd quarter, tailback Cotra Jackson dropped a swing pass that would have kept another drive alive. Two plays later on 4th and three, Rivers couldn't hook up with Cotchery on a curl pattern to end what appeared to be yet another promising drive.
"That's tough," Cotchery said. "I think complacency has to play a role in that. We're an offense that's been putting up a lot of points on the board and we expect to score all the time. I guess when we get down there, we feel like we're going to get into the end zone. The coaches did a good job of play calling down there, I think. They gave us the opportunities to make some plays, but we just didn't make them."
Although Rivers finished 31-of-46 for 344 yards and two touchdowns, he was overshadowed to a certain degree by Ball, who came up with some huge throws throughout the game. Facing several 3rd and long plays, Ball and the Jackets converted 8 of 17 third downs on the day.
"That was obviously the best we've done and he made some great throws and guys made some great efforts," said Tech coach Chan Gailey. "They wanted to play man-to-man all over the field, so we wanted to see if they could go cover us one on one. That was the objective. I thought it was going to be a game of big plays and that's what it was, although we didn't allow a lot of big plays. That's what you have to do."
There were also some big plays in the kicking game, most of which went against NC State. With the Wolfpack leading 3-0 following a Kiker field goal from 41-yards out, Ball found Smith wide open behind the NC State secondary for a 42-yard TD pass that gave the Jackets a 7-3 edge. After Dan Burnette's career-best 48-yard field early in the 2nd period made it 10-3, Cotra Jackson muffed the ensuing kickoff on a pooch kick. Chris Reis's recovery gave Georgia Tech the ball at the NC State 32. That turnover led to another Burnette field goal, this one from 26 yards away, to give Tech a 13-3 advantage.
NC State then closed to within 13-10 when Rivers completed a 63-yard drive in seven plays by finding Cotchery between the hash marks from 15 yards out. But that's when another big play in the kicking game put the Yellow Jackets in position for another field goal with 4:28 left in the opening half. The kick was set up by Kenny Scott's 90-yard kick off return that would have resulted in a touchdown had kicker John Deraney not made a shoestring tackle at the 10-yard line.
At the end of the half, Ball added even more points, driving his team 55 yards in nine plays, with Nate Curry catching a 5-yard scoring pass with 15 seconds remaining to push Tech's lead up to 22-10.
After the third quarter adventures near the goal line left NC State trailing 22-13, another kicking game error set up another Georgia Tech touchdown when a roughing the kicker penalty on an attempted punt gave the Jackets a first down at the Pack 34. On the very next play, NC State was called for another 15-yard penalty, this time for a personal foul. Three plays later, Ball scampered into the end zone from four yards out to put the Jackets ahead 29-13 with 12:35 remaining in the game. An 11-yard scoring pass from Rivers to Richard Washington with just six seconds remaining was not enough to offset another long, error-filled day in Atlanta.
"We have thrived on the kicking game here, and the things that happened in the first half with the kicking game killed us," Amato said. "Then there were those silly penalties. We kept stopping ourselves and that allowed them to score in the second half. Those are things you cannot overcome. Give credit to the other people for making plays. They weren't as productive on third down conversions coming into the game, but they certainly were today."
One of NC State's 10 penalties for 105 yards resulted in tight end John Ritcher's ejection from the game for unsportsmanlike conduct, an infraction that occurred in the first quarter. All in all, it was yet another very disjointed performance against Georgia Tech, which has now won 8 of the last 9 games in the series.
With no running game to speak of, the NC State offense produced just 336 total yards, a far cry from the Wolfpack's average of 486 yards per contest.
"It felt like we were out of sync," Cotchery said. "We never got into that rhythm that we had last week against North Carolina. We didn't get that rhythm until late, so that played a big role. That was big for them to hold us to negative eight yards rushing. Once you get one-dimensional on offense, they can do whatever they want on defense. They can come with all kinds of blitzes when they know you can't run the ball."
