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In 1990, Colorado started the season with a 31-31 tie in the Pigskin
Classic against Tennessee. They lost their third game by one point to
Illinois. Their final season record was 10-1-1. Georgia Tech had gone
undefeated with only a tie against North Carolina. Their regular season
record was 10-0-1. The two teams finished the season ranked #1 or #2 in
all of the major polls. Though Colorado's schedule was tougher, one of
their wins was shrouded in controversy. In a now infamous game on
October 6, the Buffaloes mistakenly were allowed five downs to score a
last minute touchdown to beat Missouri 33-31. The 1990 National
Championship came down to New Years Day with Georgia Tech matched up
against Nebraska in the Citrus Bowl and Colorado and Notre Dame playing
a rematch in the Orange Bowl.
The Citrus Bowl was played in Orlando before 72,328. On the game's first
play, a counter to William Bell, Shawn Jones took the snap and turned
for the handoff. And turned the wrong way. Jones managed to gain eight
yards. It was awhile before Jones managed to calm down. Later in the
opening possession, on a play-action pass, Jones dropped to his right
and found himself in trouble and seemingly trapped in the backfield by
Nebraska middle guard Pat Engelbert. But, Jones slipped away, then
headed upfield. He got 46 yards, turning upfield, then angling left down
the sideline. That set up a two-yard touchdown by Stefen Scotton, giving
Tech a 7-0 lead.
"I think that set the tone for the day," said Jones. "Everybody was like
strangers, feeling each other out. After that, we were real aggressive."
Just as Ross, recalling his near-fatal conservatism against Clemson, had
vowed Tech would be.
Tech quickly seized the day defensively, too. George O'Leary had seen
how quiet his defenders were before the game and wondered if somehow,
they weren't ready to play. But then, O'Leary could seldom read his
unit's psyche, so quiet was the defense. This day, though, the Jackets
were primed from the start for a team averaging 330 yards a game on the
ground. Tech knew that Nebraska's offensive line would take its usual
wide splits and run right at the smaller Jackets. "So we just stunted on
'em," said Jerimiah McClary.
After the opening series ended in a Nebraska punt, McClary and Coleman
Rudolph ran off the field and up to O'Leary, shouting, "We can stunt on
them all day! They can't stop us!" O'Leary reminded them it was still a
bit early; surely Nebraska would adjust. "The next three series," said
McClary, "we did the same thing."
Nebraska went nowhere. Early in the second quarter, O'Leary called
upstairs to the coaches' booth and asked, "Have they tightened their
splits?" Yes, he was told, Nebraska had tightened up but Tech was still
getting penetration. "So then he just set us free," said McClary, "and
started stunting and twisting and everything. We just exploded."
Tech's pass rush turned Nebraska's pocket into Grant's Tomb. Mike Grant
could neither pass nor scramble. He misfired on his first four passing
attempts and couldn't elude the pass rush. Just 1:55 remained in the
first quarter before Nebraska managed a first down. Still, it was just
7-0, Tech self-destructing with fumbles by Jones and Bell (although Tech
recovered both) and Scott Sisson's missed field goal attempt after a
45-yard Jones-to-Rodriguez completion.
On Nebraska's first play of the second quarter, though, Coleman Rudolph
recovered a Scott Baldwin fumble at the Husker 22. Two plays later,
Emmett Merchant made a spectacular catch in the back of the end zone for
a 22-yard TD and a 14-0 lead. By now, Tech's confidence was enormous.
Then, the Jackets scored again. After hitting backup split end Brent
Goolsby for 27 yards and Bell for 18 more on a screen, Jones tossed a
2-yard TD to Bell. It was the first of Bell's three touchdowns and gave
Georgia Tech a 21-0 lead that stunned even the Jackets themselves.
It didn't last long. Tom Osborne benched Grant for Tom Haase. He quickly
hit freshman tight end Johnny Mitchell for a 30-yard TD behind a
badly-beaten Ken Swilling. When newly-inserted I-back Derek Brown burst
50 yards to score, Nebraska trailed by just 21-14.
Tech was forced to punt. Scott Aldredge's kick touched three different
Huskers. The ball ricocheted off Nate Turner's right hand, then Tyrone
Hughes's shoulder and finally Tyrone Byrd's left hand before
disappearing under a pileup. Coming out with the ball was Tech's Jay
Martin, who somehow managed to recover and somehow managed to make it to
this day.
During his five-year Tech career, Martin established himself as one of
the fiercest hitters in the secondary. As a freshman, Mike Mooney
recalled watching one Martin tackle that was so ferocious, Mooney
wondered if he had the stomach for such a physical level of play.
Martin's tenacity came naturally; his father, Billy, was an All-America
tight end at Tech in 1963 who later played five years in the NFL.His son
was nearly as talented, but far less fortunate. Jay Martin played a lot
as a freshman in '86, then started at strong safety as a sophomore. But
Martin missed the entire '88 season with a back injury, undergoing
surgery in February of '89 to repair an injured disk. Then, on November
4th, 1989, Martin tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee
against Western Carolina.
As he told Denise Maloof of the Gwinnett Daily News, Martin turned to
Jay Shoop in the ambulance that day en route to Piedmont Hospital and
asked, "To just get it fixed so I could run around in the yard with my
kids someday. I was just tired of always having to rehabilitate."
And yet eight months after his second knee surgery and third major
operation at Tech, Martin was back for spring practice, back from an
injury that usually requires 12 months' rehabilitation. No longer a
starter, though, Martin nearly quit football for good. He felt his heart
was no longer in it. But the game was still inside him. So Martin
returned and contributed heavily. He started at free safety for the
injured Swilling against North Carolina and Duke. He was also a wingback
in Tech's goal-line and short-yardage offenses. Now, against Nebraska,
Martin recovered the fumble that broke the Huskers' momentum and set up
Sisson's 37-yard field goal that gave the Jackets a 24-14 halftime lead
and restored their confidence.
In college football, especially in bowl games, all the action isn't
always on the field. As the first half ended, Ralph Friedgen and the
other Tech assistants in the coaches' box made their way toward the
elevator for the trip down to the locker room. Understand that Friedgen
is always intense during games, even more so when the national
championship is at stake and momentum seems to be slipping away. As
Friedgen headed downstairs, he ran into Citrus Bowl president Chuck Rohe.
"He said, 'Great, great!' " Friedgen recalled. "And I said, 'What do you
mean? They just came back.' Chuck said, “It's great that they came back,
Ralph. You're going to win this game, but the TV ratings are back up!”
Ralph's response: "Screw the ratings!" And off he stormed.
Nebraska threatened again to open the second half. A Husker field goal
attempt, though, was blocked by cornerback Keith Holmes. Shawn Jones
took immediate advantage. On a crucial third-down play, he found Jerry
Gilchrist for 23 yards. After Bell burst 19 yards up the middle, Jones
scored from a yard out for a 31-14 lead.
The Huskers, however, still wouldn't concede. At the close of the third
quarter, Haase hit another tight end, William Washington, for a 21-yard
TD. Washington, too, had slipped behind Swilling and now Nebraska was
back within 31-21.
Georgia Tech then seized control of the fourth quarter, the game, the
season and its destiny. The Jackets drove to another score, this one a
six-yard run by Bell (video). With 9:43
left, it was 38-21.
Precisely two minutes later, it was a done deal, with Nebraska done in
by Bell.
After resting Bell at the start of Tech's next possession, running backs
coach Danny Smith reinserted him. On the first play, Bell reasserted
himself and assured his team of victory. "I don't even know why I went
in," said Bell, who took a handoff, got a great block from Carl Lawson
on a blitzing linebacker, and turned in a run for the ages. Lifting high
his legs, Bell stepped through the hole on the right side and then
noticed a collision was imminent. "I saw the guy coming, so I kind of
lowered my shoulders again to brace myself for the hit," said Bell. "The
guy made great contact but I didn't go down. I was trying to roll off
him, spin off him. But somehow, we both got turned around and we were
back to back. He kept pushing against me, trying to push me back toward
the line of scrimmage. There was someone else behind him who sandwiched
the first guy between us. I kept trying to roll off him and keep going
at the same time because I didn't hear a whistle. "When I saw that I
wasn't making any progress, I just reversed out the other way. The guy
who was pressing up against me fell off and so did the guy who helped me
sandwich him, and then I was shocked. I took a chance by spinning out
because that's usually when the defense is coming over to help. And
usually when you spin out like that, you get met and it looks very
ugly."
To Tech, it looked breathtakingly beautiful. After spinning left out of
that two-man sandwich, Bell angled for the left sideline and raced down
it. His mind raced, too: back to the Duke game, when he'd been caught
from behind and kidded mercilessly ever since. To Nebraska, which had
such a swift defense, especially linebacker Mike Croel. As he neared the
goal line, Bell sensed someone gaining on him. Fearful of being caught
from behind twice in one season, Bell dived into the end zone. Then he
knelt and said a prayer of thanks.
Never mind that he was in the clear, that no Husker could have caught
him. Bell dived anyway, for safety's sake, not style points. The Citrus
Bowl erupted again. Now Tech's triumph was assured. Now, despite the
scoreboard matrix that flashed, "Georgia Tech 1990 National Champions,"
the waiting began.
William Bell finished with 126 yards rushing and three TDs. Defensively,
Tech had held Nebraska to 127 yards rushing, 204 below its average. But
the true MVP of Georgia Tech's 45-21 victory was Shawn Jones. He
completed 16 of 23 passes for 277 yards and two touchdowns. He rushed
for 41 more yards and another TD. He set career highs for passing
yardage and total offense (318 yards). He riddled Nebraska for more
points than any bowl opponent in Husker history.
Culminating one of college football's greatest turnarounds, Bobby Ross'
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets finished unbeaten for the first time since
1952 and win a share of the national championship with Colorado. It was
the sixth bowl loss in eight years for Nebraska. In the Orange Bowl, the
Colorado was up 10-9 over Notre Dame late in the fourth when speedster
Rocket Ismail took a punt and raced 91 yards for an apparent
game-winning TD. Officials, however, called a clip on the play and the
TD was disallowed, giving Colorado the win. The Yellow Jackets finished
11-0-1 with the victory and edged Colorado for the UPI national title,
while the Buffaloes, who had beaten NU, 27-12, in November, claimed the
AP crown
(video).
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