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1990 Georgia Tech football

1990 Georgia Tech Football: College Football’s Great Cinderella Story

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Georgia Tech football was in desolation when Bobby Ross arrived in 1987, with only two bowl appearances in the last seventeen years. Even after a seven-win season in 1989, there was little inkling that the 1990 Georgia Tech football was about to become one of college football’s great stories.

The talent in the lineup didn’t overwhelm, either then or in retrospect. William Bell was the leading rusher, with nearly 900 yards. The players most regarded in the NFL were linebacker Calvin Tiggle and offensive guard Jim Lavin and neither went higher than the seventh round in the draft. The best player was defensive back Ken Swilling, a first-team All-American. He also went in the seventh round of the NFL draft. 

What they did do was play excellent team defense, ranking 10th in the nation and points allowed. And quarterback Shawn Jones could make big plays, averaging 8.2 yards-per-attempt. The offense ranked 17th nationally in scoring.

Georgia Tech quietly climbed the ladder through the end of October. They didn’t crack the polls until October 6 and were ranked #16 at the end of the month. They had a 21-19 win over a good Clemson team and beat then-25th-ranked South Carolina. But the Yellow Jackets also tied North Carolina..

It was a good season that seemed a logical building block on 1989. Then they went to Virginia on November 3.

The Cavaliers were ranked #1 in the country with an explosive wide receiver in Herman Moore. Virginia moved the ball up and down the field, gaining 519 yards of total offense while Moore caught nine balls for 234 yards. The Cavs had two-TD leads on two different occasions.

Georgia Tech persisted and as the clock neared the two-minute mark, had seized a 38-35 lead. Virginia drove to the one-yard line. An illegal motion penalty set them back and Tiggle, who finished the game with 18 tackles, broke up a pass in the end zone. The Cavs, in the pre-overtime era of college football, settled for a tying field goal.

The Yellow Jackers would be seen as moral victors with a tie, but they were going for it and this story could never have reached its magical ending with a second tie for the season. Bell picked up 13 yards and fortuitously covered his own fumble. Jones fired a 15-yard pass to Greg Lester. And with five seconds left, a 37-yard field goal by Scott Sisson completed the 41-38 upset.

Georgia Tech moved to #7 in the polls and closed the year with wins over Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and Georgia. None of the wins were noteworthy—Virginia Tech wasn’t yet a winning program and Georgia had a bad year. But in the chaos that was 1990 college football, the wins moved the Yellow Jackets to #2 on the polls for New Year’s Day.

The ACC champs were contractually bound to the Citrus Bowl (today’s Capital One Bowl) and they played #19 Nebraska. It wasn’t an ideal setting to stake a national championship claim, especially with Georgia Tech’s 10-0-1 record leaving them as the nation’s last undefeated team. But at least it provided the Yellow Jackets with a common opponent and frame of reference for comparison to top-ranked Colorado, who was 9-1-1.

Georgia Tech wasted no time staking its claim. They opened the game with a 70-yard touchdown drive. The defense set the tone in the first quarter, holding Nebraska to 34 yards and the lead was extended to 21-0 before anyone could settle in. The final was 45-21.

Colorado needed to lose to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. When Irish punt returner Raghib Ismail returned a punt for a touchdown in the closing minute, it appeared that would happen. But a clipping penalty—a call that controversial, close and correct—negated the score and the Buffs survived 10-9.

Dropping a #1 team in the polls after a major bowl win seemed unthinkable and the AP writers vote stayed with Colorado. but Georgia Tech managed to prevail in the UPI coaches’ poll by a single point They went into the history books with a share of the national championship.

It still has to be said though, that the 1990 Georgia Tech football team should not have had to share the title, never needed to sweat out the Orange Bowl and never needed Ismail’s return—nullified though it was, it’s not unfair to assume to it caused at least one voter to flip and provide the Yellow Jackets a margin of victory with the coaches.

Georgia Tech was a full game better than Colorado in the standings. While the Buffaloes had played a better schedule, the Yellow Jackets had matched what Colorado achieved in November by dominating Nebraska. Colorado also narrowly escaped lowly Missouri, needing a controversial “fifth down” to do it.

Voters don’t have to be bound by W-L record when teams have played different schedules, but I also believe the 11-0-1 team should get every benefit of the doubt over the 10-1-1 team. Colorado’s case is not strong enough to overturn that benefit and Georgia Tech should have been the undisputed national champions in 1990,

A Split Championship Ends A Crazy & Chaotic 1990 College Football Season

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The 1990 college football season started with defending national champion Miami being upset by BYU and its soon-to-be Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Ty Detmer. That should have told us we were headed for a year that would be on the bizarre side. The BYU-Miami game unleashed a year of upsets and upheaval not seen since the seminal year of 1981.

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Notre Dame moved to the top of the polls with an exciting 28-24 win over Michigan, but the Irish were upset in October by what was then a lowly Stanford team—in South Bend, no less. The Wolverines made it to the top of the polls—while it’s not unusual for a one-loss team to find its way back to the top, it’s certainly unusual for the ascendancy to take place by October. Michigan couldn’t cash in though, and lost to Michigan State.

The up-and-down year continued, and just like happened with the 1981 Clemson Tigers, it was an ACC team quietly moving its way up through the wreckage. Virginia got the top of the polls behind quarterback Shawn Moore. They needed only to defeat Georgia Tech at home.

Georgia Tech was coached by Bobby Ross, who had previously turned Maryland into an ACC power and would take the San Diego Chargers to their first (and thus far only) Super Bowl four years down the line. Ross’ Yellow Jackets had one tie, but no one had beaten them. And befitting this crazy year, Tech upset Virginia 41-38, setting off another round of chaos.

Notre Dame climbed back to #1, but blew a fourth-quarter lead at home against Penn State and lost 24-21. In this completely messed up year, the Colorado Buffaloes made their way to the top. Colorado had not only lost a game, but tied one as well, and had a disputed victory over Missouri that came about only because they were accidentally given a fifth down on their game-winning drive. In spite of this, they were the team that reached the end of the regular season ranked #1 in the country.

For the second year in a row Colorado had to play Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. Georgia Tech was #2 and had gave pollsters something to think about, with a 45-21 thrashing of Nebraska in the Citrus Bowl in the early portion of New Year’s Day. Georgia Tech might have a tie, but they were the nation’s only undefeated team.

Even so, when the Buffs clinging to a 10-9 lead late in the fourth quarter of that night’s Orange Bowl, it looked like Tech was out of luck.

Then Colorado decided to risk punting the ball to Notre Dame’s explosive return man Raghib Ismail. “The Rocket”, as he was known, took the ball on his own eight-yard-line and took it to the house, with 43 seconds left to play. Except for the fact that a clip was called and the touchdown came back. Colorado’s defense held and the game ended 10-9.

As it turned out, Ismail’s nullified heroics still mattered. While Colorado won the writers’ poll, Georgia Tech, by a single point, scraped out a share of the national title in the coaches’ poll. Is it too much to assume that one vote might have swung based on the called-back Notre Dame play? Especially given that the call was seen in some quarters as being ticky-tack?(I was rooting for Notre Dame, but felt that while the call was close, it was probably a clip and given the speed of Ismail, had to be flagged, even at that point in the game).

Either way, a strange finish and a split national title seemed an appropriate way to end a chaotic 1990 college football season.

1990 Sports: NFL Upsets & College Football Chaos

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The San Francisco 49ers looked destined to win a third straight Super Bowl, an unprecedented achievement. Or, rather than destined, the Niners looked too good to be stopped. The New York Giants got in the way.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
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Bill Parcells took his Giants’ team west for the 1990 NFC Championship Game and in a dramatic finish, got a 15-13 win without scoring a touchdown and winning on a last-second field goal. The three-peat bid was denied and still waits for the first team to pull off the feat.
Parcells’ team then matched up with the Buffalo Bills, who had an explosive offense and even the bad weather in their home city hadn’t stopped the Bills from dropping 95 points in two playoff wins. Buffalo was favored by more than a touchdown. Once again, New York pulled a rabbit out of their hat, this time watching an opponent miss a last-play field goal attempt to win or lose.
Read more about the 1990 New York Giants
College football didn’t have a heavy favorite the way the NFL did with the 49ers, but the collegiate year was even more chaotic. Teams got multiple chances at being #1 and a crazy New Year’s Night ended up with a disputed penalty call and a split national championship.
The ending might have been bizarre, but the ride was great, and the college football season was marked by the last installment of the great Notre Dame-Miami rivalry, with both schools involved in the national title discussion all year long. Their final game was a good one and the aftermath showed that the bad blood between the fan bases wasn’t going away just because the games were
That final Notre Dame-Miami game took place on the last night of the World Series. In a year where the NFL season was marked by consecutive big upsets and where the college landscape went into complete upheaval, can you blame baseball for wanting to get in on the upset fun? The Oakland A’s came into the 1990 World Series a heavy favorite to win a repeat title, and indeed the Fall Classic ended up in a sweep…only it was the Cincinnati Reds who won in four straight.
Read more about the 1990 college football season
Read more about the last Notre Dame-Miami rivalry battle
Read more about the 1990 World Series
The Edmonton Oilers had traded Wayne Gretzky after a Stanley Cup run in 1988 and a coaching change followed the 1989 season. The Oilers still had a lot of the same cast from the team that won four Cups in six years, but the changes were significant. Edmonton’s remaining players, starting with team leader Mark Messier, showed what they were made of when they won Cup—the fifth for the dynasty, but the first without Wayne.
In the NBA, the Detroit Pistons were another team with something to prove, but for different reasons. The Pistons, like the Oilers were a recent champion—in this case, the defending NBA champ. But Detroit wasn’t seen in the same light as their predecessors, Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers or Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics. Nor are the “Bad Boy Pistons” seen in the same light as their successor, Michael Jordan’s Bulls.
But the Pistons did show they weren’t a flash in the pan, not when they eliminated Chicago for the second straight year and not when they won a second straight NBA title by winning three straight road games in Portland.
Read more about the 1990 Edmonton Oilers
Read more about the 1990 Detroit Pistons
The NCAA Tournament had some great moments along the way—notably the East Regional, where UConn first won a Sweet 16 game on a last-second shot and then lost the regional final when the same was done to them. It was a heady finish to UConn’s first year as a serious contender for a national title.
But there was no drama in the championship game, only the celebration of greatness. UNLV won the first national title for head coach Jerry Tarkanian and did it by destroying Duke, 103-73.
Read more about 1990 UNLV basketball
Read more about 1990 UConn & The East Regional Drama
A footnote to the year that was 1990 sports was that two Rustbelt cities saw their teams make a big impact, and that was the Buffalo Bills reaching the Super Bowl and the Pittsburgh Pirates reaching the National League Championship Series. It looked like both teams were here to stay for a while as contenders, and that’s exactly what happened.
But unfortunately, neither would get the past level reached in 1990, as the Bills would continue to win AFC Championships (a record four straight), yet continue to lose in the Super Bowl. And the Pirates reached three consecutive NLCS’, and lost all three, each one more painful than the one that became before it.