Georgia Tech gets 1st victory at Scott since 1990

Midway through the third quarter, it was third-and-8 for Georgia Tech at the Virginia 24-yard line. The game was still hanging in the balance. UVa trailed by just a touchdown.

That’s when Yellow Jackets running back Jonathan Dwyer, in essence, said, “Enough is enough.”

The 6-foot, 235-pounder burst into the open field and introduced himself to Virginia cornerback Chris Cook.

“A lot of guys on the team were challenging me to go full speed and go all-out for the whole game and take every opportunity,” Dwyer said. “[Cook] was there and I was just trying to make a play to get the team fired up.”

Dwyer steamrolled Cook, scampering all the way down to the 4-yard line in the process. The 20-yard gain set up a Josh Nesbitt touchdown run three plays later that paved the way for a 34-9 Georgia Tech victory — one that snapped an eight-game losing streak to Virginia at Scott Stadium. (The Yellow Jackets’ last win in Charlottesville had been in 1990.)

“I didn’t break [the streak],” said Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson afterward. “The players broke it. It wasn’t me.”

Johnson, though, did admit to using the streak to his team’s advantage.

“I talked to them about it because if it will motivate two or three of them, then I wanted them to know,” said Johnson, whose team snapped a similiar streak to Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla., earlier this season. “We talked about how Georgia Tech had not won in Tallahassee and how we hadn’t won here since 1990, and that they could be the team that broke that. I don’t know how many of them cared. Most of them were, what, 2 or 3 years old in ’90? They could probably care less.”

But the smile on Georgia Tech running back Anthony Allen’s face said otherwise.

“We’ve had a lot of firsts this year,” Allen said, “and this had to be one of the biggest ones.”

When asked what the secret to his team’s success has been this season, Johnson — whose team plays at Vanderbilt next Saturday — said that everyone is “believing in themselves.”

“They’ve worked hard, and when they come to play, I think they feel like they’re going to win the game,” Johnson said. “Everyone keeps doubting them and then every time they doubt them, they come back and try and answer the call.”

Georgia Tech (7-1, 5-1) didn’t get off to the start it had hoped to against Virginia. The Yellow Jackets trailed 6-3 early in the second quarter. But Johnson said his players never lost focus.

“You don’t panic,” he said, “and the defense held them to field goals, so you’re not losing anything.”

As the game wore on, Georgia Tech’s unique running attack imposed its will on Virginia, outrushing the Cavaliers by a staggering 332 yards. That was the plan all along, according to Allen.

“We knew we had to take it to them,” he said. “We knew what we had to do — play smash-mouth football, and that’s what we did.”

No doubt about that. Just ask Chris Cook.