27 NOV 04: COUNTED OUT
What a weird ending the Georgia-Georgia Tech game had tonight. You'd think between those two teams, the Tech quarterback would know how to count to four....
Georgia edged Georgia Tech 19-13, when G.T. quarterback Reggie Ball threw the ball far out of play under pressure on fourth down. Ball thought it was third down. And to hear Georgia Tech's announcers on radio after the game, you thought any mention of it would bring an F.C.C. fine.
It was more than 20 minutes after the final whistle before the Georgia Tech radio network explained Reggie Ball's boner. A post-game chat between the Atlanta studio and Jeff Van Note in Athens never brought it up! Maybe they were trying the
old theory that if you ignore something, it'll go away.
Georgia Tech play-by-play man Wes Durham didn't even bring up the Reggie Ball blunder during his on-air interview with Coach Chan Gailey. Instead, they talked about alternating quarterbacks in the second half - something Gailey knows well, from his struggling years coaching the Dallas Cowboys.
Not until the segment after the Chan Gailey interview did Wes Durham explain what happened. Gailey said Reggie Ball went by the Sanford Stadium scoreboard, which showed third down instead of fourth. Now THAT'S a sneaky scam - a home team that's slow with something other than the clock.
(You may have seen Reggie Ball on the field in the final seconds, talking to an official and holding up two fingers. Sorry, Reggie - in college football, they don't give you do-overs.)
On the other side of the dial, Larry Munson was his usual self. With the score 16-13, first the Georgia Bulldogs were in "deep trouble." Then Munson declared it "deep, deep trouble." One more Tech field goal, and Munson might have called on a coal mine rescue team from Pennsylvania.
Georgia ends the regular season 9-2. Georgia Tech winds up 6-5, and perhaps heading back to that bowl game in Boise, Idaho. What a week that could be - dining on all the baked potatoes you can eat.
Earlier in the day, LaGrange High School advanced to the AAA high school finals by stopping Martin Luther King High 38-0. This game was so lopsided that I almost expected Coretta Scott King to take the field and call it an injustice.
Instant Message to the Georgia High School Association: Shame on you. Did you HAVE to put a big ad for Dodge in the center of the field at the Georgia Dome, for semifinal weekend? Certainly you aren't as desperate for money as the Canadian
Football League....
COMING SUNDAY: Something's wrong with an old flame.... and a pair of complaints from a famous name....
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