September 27, 2002

Forget about dawgnation or Jacket Nation. What we’re seeing here is Prozac Nation. Our first letter this week is but one of many examples:

1. Many of the Tech faithful who are cussing Gailey for leaving Hollings in the game too long against the Brigham Young polygamists were also yelling at Chan and Bill O’Brien the week before for not using Hollings enough against Clemson. I should know – I was one of them. I thought then (and still do) that Tech should have put the ball in Hollings’ hands more times than it did against the Tiggers – which might well have brought on Tony’s season-ending knee injury a week earlier. Or it might also have given Tech a win over Clemson. Who can say?

   The point is, football is a game where shi’ite happens. Players get injured all the time – sometimes on their first carry of the ballgame, sometimes on the 36th. The job of a head coach is to use the players that he reasonably feels will win the game for him. If he thinks that giving the ball to his tailback 25 or 30 or 35 times will ensure the victory – and said tailback still has both legs under him – then I can’t really fault him for doing that. If you look at the stats for last year, there were several games where Joe Burns carried the ball a comparable number of times as Hollings did against BYU. Burns made it through the season without serious injury; Hollings didn’t. I don’t want to sound too cold about this, but them’s the breaks. Those are the risks that every football player takes every time he steps onto the field.

   Tech had a nine-point lead against BYU when Hollings went back in the game for his last carry, but it was a very shaky nine-point lead. As I watched the game, I remember I felt relieved that Hollings was in there. I thought he was still strong enough to run out the clock against the Mormonists and experienced enough not to fumble the ball away. I imagine Gailey felt the same way. Obviously, if Gailey had known Hollings was one play away from a season-ending injury, he wouldn’t have put him in there. But how can anybody – save for John Edward on the TV show "Crossing Over" – have known that?

   I feel badly for Tony. The kid was having the kind of season that players dream about, and was on his way to making some All-American teams – maybe even contending for the Heisman Trophy. He was that good. It’s heart-breaking to me, to other Tech fans, and especially to Tony, that he went down with that injury. But again – those are the breaks. You play the cards that are dealt you, and you move on.

1. This is the real puzzler for me. I thought the Jackets were in decent shape at quarterback coming into this season, based on what I had seen A. J. Suggs do in his brief stint as a starter at Tennessee two years ago. I don’t think I was imagining this, but I saw him do a commendable job of directing the Vols’ offense against Florida (a game where Tennessee was robbed at the end by a terrible officiating call) and I also saw him put up some big numbers against LSU (a game that was lost because of the Tennessee defense). Was I on drugs then? Or was that another person named Suggs at quarterback? I ask because the A. J. Suggs I saw play against Clemson and BYU doesn’t seem to be the same person.

   Suggs did not look good the entire Clemson game. He started off slowly against BYU, but didn’t do badly in the second half when he directed three scoring drives. I would suggest that this week’s game against North Carolina will be a make-or-break time for Suggs. Hopefully he will at least be the quarterback we saw in the second half against BYU and will show some improvement as the game progresses. But if he drops back to the level of performance that we saw in the Clemson game, then Chan Gailey will find himself in a make-or-break situation. He will have to make the hard decision of whether to let the carnage continue, or sit Suggs down and begin the Damarius Bilbo era at Tech. It may be one of the most fateful decisions he ever has to make.

   If Suggs can get himself straightened out, Tech still has a quality group of receivers (bolstered by the return of Nate Curry) who can make up a lot of the offense that was lost when Hollings suffered his knee injury. And while nobody can really replace someone with the talent of a Tony Hollings, there are some alternatives Gailey can turn to at running back. Ace Eziemefe scored a touchdown against BYU and showed some flashes of power running the ball between the tackles. Michael Sampson, another freshman, has some speed to the outside. The two of them may be able to replace some of the offensive firepower that was lost with Tony’s departure. Last week at this time, a lot of Tech fans were despairing the loss of Greg Gathers for the rest of the season at defensive end, but Eric Henderson came in and didn’t too badly at DE – he had a couple of sacks and batted down a pass against BYU, as I recall. Maybe the two freshmen at running back can have a similar impact.

   I know, I know – there are a lot of postulations and what-ifs in my thinking. It could well be that everyone goes down in flames at UNC and the season really does become a lost cause. But let’s at least wait and see what happens before abandoning all hope.

1. For all of the gloom and doom I’m hearing from the Tech fans, the team does happen to have a 3-1 record. The defense is playing well. Young players like Eric Henderson and Travis Parker are showing signs that they can provide a pass rush along the defensive line. Tony Hargrove will be a monster at DE if he can learn to control his emotions. Defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta is doing a better job each week of putting his defenders in the places they need to be. The veteran receivers like Watkins and Glover can still go after the ball. This year’s freshman class was considered a complete bust by some Tech fans, and yet players like Lekeldrick Bridges and Ace Eziemefe are already playing and making a contribution. There are reasons to be optimistic.

   Are there areas that need improvement? Of course. But I still think the strengths of this team outweigh the weaknesses, at this point. Again, let’s see how things turn out in Chapel Hill this weekend.

1. That’s an intriguing question. I can think of three players in the last 30 years who won the Heisman Trophy at least partly because of their performance on special teams. There was Nebraska’s Johnny Rodgers in 1972, Notre Dame’s Tim Brown in 1987, and Michigan’s Desmond Howard in 1991. They piled up some good numbers playing wide receiver, but they made an impression on the Heisman voters by running back a lot of punts and kickoffs for touchdowns.

   Could the same thing happen for Kelley Rhino? Not really. There are a couple of factors that work against him. Number one, he’s not a starter on defense or offense. Number two, while he gains a lot of yards on punt returns because of his reluctance to fair catch, he doesn’t have the speed to break off a touchdown on a return. Lots of yards and no scores equals no Heisman. But I like your question – and I hope Kelley gets some kind of recognition at the end of the season because of his special teams play.

1. This colorful football nomenclature dates back to a turbulent time in American history, the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. Sen. Joe McCarthy, as some of our older readers will recall, was a Wisconsin Republican who was obsessed with the notion that communists had infiltrated not only the federal government but every aspect of American life. The University of Wisconsin in those days had a fullback named Alan "The Horse" Ameche who gained a lot of yards and scored a lot of touchdowns for the Badgers (he later became an all-pro running back for the Baltimore Colts). Ameche, as it happened, scored most of his touchdowns by running inside left tackle when the ball was inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. McCarthy made note of Ameche’s tendency to go to the "left" and accused the young man of being a communist dupe. McCarthy also declared that the area of the field from which Ameche was scoring his touchdowns should be called "the Red Zone," and so it has been to this very day.