It was a glorious day.  The weather was perfect outside and Tech was the featured game on national television against FSU, the one team they had never beaten in ACC competition.  GT got off to a great start and the triple option was hitting on all cylinders.  Tech was leading 24-20 going into halftime and received the ball first in the second half.  On the third play from scrimmage in the second half, Dwyer broke one for a 66 yard touchdown, his second of the game to put Tech up 31-20.  GT then forced FSU to punt the ball and started marching back down the field.  Josh Nesbitt was making all the correct reads en route to 61 rushing yards and a very efficient 4 completions on 5 attempts for 55 yards.  Tech had orchestrated 327 yards of total offense, including 274 on the ground and it was only midway through the third quarter!  They were absolutely dominating FSU, but then the impossible happened.  Josh Nesbitt got hurt and the momentum turned.  The once hollow FSU war chants picked up volume after Jaybo fumbled when a defensive lineman had an unblocked path to the qb.  Tech then went three and out on its ensuing possession and FSU marched right down the field and scored.  They tacked on a two point conversion to make the score 31-28 with only 6 minutes to go in the game and suddenly things didn’t feel good anymore.   GT got the ball back but gave it away on the first play when Jaybo threw an interception.  I remember thinking that this felt all too familiar, but strangely I still had a slightly confident feeling.  GT then stopped FSU on third down and forced a fourth and long punting situation.  Ha, things were looking good again, but wait, offsides….ON A PUNT!  Hold on what are they doing, why is the punter running off of the field?  Noooo, they are going for it!  First down FSU.  The stadium is rocking at this point, but it’s the team wearing the scarlet colored jerseys that is making all of the noise.  This can’t be happening….AGAIN.  First and goal on the GT 6.  Once again the improbable transpired….FSU fumbles in the end zone and GT recovers the ball!!  That didn’t just happen, GT doesn’t win games like this.  But wait a minute, a new era has begun.  One lead by a coach that is gutsy enough to call a play action pass on first down with a freshman qb under center and only 6 minutes to go in the game.  One with a coach who refuses to back down to anybody and whose team reflects this attitude.  One with a coach that makes his own luck.  This is Coach Paul Johnson.  These are your 7-2 Coastal Division leading Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets!

Tech will have no time to recover from the emotional roller coaster of last weekend as they travel to Chapel Hill to take on the highest ranked ACC team in the BCS standings.  The game pits two of the top young coaches in the ACC against one another in a huge match up where the loser is all but eliminated from the ACC title game.  UNC comes into the game rested from a bye week, while GT comes in battered and bruised.  Tech will also be without arguably the best player on their team in offensive tackle Andrew Gardner as he elected to have season ending shoulder surgery in order to be ready in time for the NFL Draft.  This will be a big loss as he anchored Tech’s offensive line, but as CPJ has said the best team finds ways to overcome adversity and win.

UNC finds themselves in a similar situation as the Yellow Jackets, having brought in a new coach to turn their program around in Butch Davis.  This turn around process was thought to take 4-5 years as the new coaches were able to get recruits that execute their system, but in both cases the teams have greatly outperformed expectations by winning sooner than anticipated.  This is especially true of the Tar Heels who are currently starting their third string quarterback, Cameron Sexton, according to the opening season depth chart.  Incumbent starter TJ Yates has been injured since the third game of the season and highly touted Freshman Mike Paulus (the brother of Duke point guard Greg Paulus) was benched after not performing well as a back-up to Yates.  Enter Cameron Sexton, an efficient drop back passer who is coming off of a breakout 3 td performance against Boston College.  UNC also lost another playmaker when dynamic starting receiver Brandon Tate succumbed to injury for the year after only playing 5 games.  In his first game of the season, Tate broke a UNC school record by going for 397 all purpose yards and his loss has been felt, especially returning kicks on special teams.  He was leading the ACC in all-purpose yards before he was injured.  However, in Tate’s absence starting wide receiver Hakeem Nicks has stepped up in a big way by leading the ACC in receiving yards per game.  He has caught 7 touchdowns for the season and probably makes Sexton look better than he really is, having caught 5 of the 6 td passes that Sexton has thrown including all 3 last weekend against BC.  A key to this game will be getting pressure on Sexton so that he does not have time to stretch the field by going deep to Nicks.  Hakeem is a good enough player to where he will probably get his yardage, but preventing him from entering the end zone on a huge game breaking play is a must.  This will be a particularly tough task considering how thin Tech is in the secondary right now.  Word Daniels will still not be available to play and it looks like the burden will fall on the shoulders of freshmen corners Michael Peterson and Rashaad Reid and sophomore corner Mario Butler.  One encouraging sign in the secondary has been the play of freshman safety Cooper Taylor, who was named ACC Freshman Player of the Week after leading the team with 10 tackles against FSU, intercepting a pass and returning it 28 yards to set up an easy touchdown, and last but not least putting his helmet on the ball to force what turned out to be the game winning fumble.  Quite a performance for a freshman.  Of course at the other safety spot is the predator, Morgan Burnett, who is always out for blood.  Burnett dealt some vicious hits last weekend and with 6 picks on the season he is still on pace to break the Tech record of 9 interceptions set by Jeff Ford in 1969 and Willie Clay in 1991.

On the defensive side of the ball UNC has some talent but doesn’t bring anything special to the table.  They are decent against the run but towards the bottom of the ACC in pass coverage.  One area that they do excel in is creating turnovers and also protecting the ball on offense.  They are currently 6^th in the nation in turnover margin at +10 for the season.  This will be the second key to game – protecting the ball.  Nesbitt did a great job with this last game, but he has struggled holding on to the pigskin at other crucial times this season.  The Tar Heels will also have an added benefit of an extra week to prepare for Tech’s triple option offense that most teams have had difficulty game planning for.  Nevertheless CPJ did a good job putting it all in perspective, “My take on that is if they can get better at stopping it in two weeks than we can in running it 19, they’re going to beat us anyway,”  Well played CPJ.

All in all GT is easily the more talented team in this game.  The loss of Gardner will hurt a good bit, but the Tech coaching staff has been encouraged by the play of his replacement, red shirt freshman Nick Claytor.  The offensive line will of course need to step up to replace a player of his caliber, but the important thing for this game is that Nesbitt has been declared 100% as he went through a full practice yesterday.  If he can play like he did last week it is tough to see anybody beating Tech.  It would be easy to predict a let down for any team coming off of such a hard fought, emotional win like Tech had against FSU.  This is particularly true considering that Tech is going on the road against a rested top 25 team.  Nonetheless, the confidence and swagger that CPJ has brought back to GT football is contagious and I simply don’t see us backing down to anybody this season.  We will find a way to win.