1990 Georgia Tech: The winning split

Coach Bobby Ross, hired by Tech in 1987, had won five of his first 25 games. His boss, athletic director Homer Rice, had feared for Ross’ job security when the Jackets opened ’89 with three losses, but a 6-4 finish lowered the temperature of his hot seat.

In subsequent offseason workouts, safety Ken Swilling chatted up an unbeaten season to his teammates, who did not dissuade him from taking the chutzpah public. Swilling repeated his bold statement to the media, which earned him a summons from Ross.

“You can’t be saying that,” Ross told him. “It’s gonna be on everyone’s board.”

“I thought, ‘That’s OK,’ ” Swilling said recently in a series of phone interviews with some of the season’s principals.

Recalled Ross, “I would prefer not to put anything on someone’s bulletin board, but I liked his confidence.”

Great expectations

It was evident early on that Tech had an abundance of measurables — speed at all positions, talent at most. And it had the amorphous quality that, in football-speak, is known as team chemistry.

“We had high expectations,” said Rice, a football coach before he became athletic director. “We never thought about a national title but did think we had a chance to win the Atlantic Coast Conference.”

This was the pre-Miami, pre-Florida State version of the ACC, and it was held in low regard in some football circles.

“We were so not respected,” Swilling remembered. “They’d say, ‘Yeah, yeah, they’re winning, but they’re playing in the ACC.’ We were kind of like Boise State today.”

Colorado, by comparison, was taking on a murderers’ row. A member of the Big Eight, since inflated to the Big 12, it stepped out of the league to take on Illinois, Tennessee, Stanford, Texas and Washington, much to the dismay of its coach, Bill McCartney.

“Nobody asked me,” he said recently. “Truthfully, I didn’t have anything to do with scheduling.”

The Buffaloes opened 1-1-1, sending them south in the AP poll after starting at No. 5. Meantime, Georgia Tech gutted past Clemson, then ranked No. 8 by AP, 21-19 in its fourth game and was still nursing bruises when it tied North Carolina 13-13 the following week.

Swilling, who was shelved for the Tar Heels game with an injury, said, “It felt like we lost. I never felt so bad on a plane ride home.”

Ross did not share his grief, noting that the goal of an ACC title remained vivid.

Two games later, the Jackets traveled for its only other game against a ranked foe. But it was a No. 1 team. Outlasting Virginia 41-38 in Charlottesville propelled the Jackets into the top 10 and championship discussion.

Colorado also began winning weekly, but not indisputably.

It benefitted from an infamous faux pas by game officials, who lost track of downs against Missouri and awarded the Buffaloes a fifth down before their decisive touchdown with two seconds left.

Some voters applied their own asterisk to the outcome, more so among coaches with the UPI, who ultimately moved Tech closer to Colorado than the AP did.

“Like I said after our North Carolina game,” recalled Rice, “if they’d have given us a fifth down, we would have won.”

Tech eventually hit its target of an ACC title squarely in the bull’s-eye. Ross insisted that he did not broaden the scope of his goals.

“Quite honestly, I never really thought about” the national championship, he said. “We still had Georgia. They’re always a dogfight, literally.”

Tech disposed of the Bulldogs 40-23, climbed to No. 2 in both polls behind the Buffaloes and was paired with Nebraska in the Florida Citrus Bowl, which would arm voters with a statistical gauge. The Cornhuskers had lost to Big Eight brethren Colorado 27-12.

The Orange Bowl

Early New Year’s Day, Tech manhandled Nebraska 45-21. Instead of flying home promptly, the Jackets repaired to their hotel and joined the rest of bowl-dazed America that evening by watching the Orange Bowl : Colorado versus Notre Dame.

With time running short and Notre Dame trailing 10-9, Swilling said to himself, “Man, Rocket has got to take one back.”

That would be All-America receiver-return man Raghib “Rocket” Ismail, who heeded Swilling’s wish, hauling a punt 91 yards for an apparent touchdown. The Tech family erupted.

Given the celebration, it took a while for many of the Jackets to notice a penalty flag on the field. The Fighting Irish were called for clipping, negating the touchdown and preserving the Buffaloes’ skinny margin.

“Cheapest penalty call I’ve ever seen,” said Swilling.

Ross missed the excitement, having caught a private plane after Tech’s game to tend to his gravely ill mother in Virginia.

Arriving at the front door of her home, Ross was met by his father, who said, “Notre Dame lost.” The coach, whose mind was focused during the trip on his mother’s health, thought, “Well, that’s probably going to ruin that.”

Rice, on the other hand, was gearing up for a championship acceptance speech. “I didn’t think there was any question about” Tech topping both polls, he said.

Swilling proved closest to the mark. “I knew AP wouldn’t give us that respect,” he said, but thought the coaches in UPI “might do us justice.”

Tightest of finishes

The next morning, the AP released its final rankings, with Colorado a clear-cut first. Seven voters listed Tech fourth or fifth.

As UPI college sports editor Jeff Shain tallied the coaches’ votes sent by telephone and fax machine throughout the day, he thought Tech could slip ahead.

“The coaches had greater respect [than the media voters] for having a zero in the loss column,” said Shain, noting that Tech had less ground to make up than in the AP poll.

Assembling ballots from coaches could be a chore. Some, consumed with their own teams, take voting responsibilities less seriously than others.

John Mackovic of Illinois relied on an assistant coach to compile his list, according to “Focused On The Top,” an account of Tech’s 1990 season written by Jack Wilkinson.

One coach at a school in the southwest moved Tech to No. 1 when its sports publicist reminded him the Yellow Jackets were undefeated, the book reported.

With all ballots but three submitted, the teams were tied. The next two came in, splitting Colorado and Tech on top. The final submission broke the tie in favor of Tech. The vote total, based on a points scale: 847-846.

Out west, the Buffaloes had just returned from their bowl game when McCartney learned of the UPI result. He assumed the informer was joking, then shook his head in disbelief.

Twenty years later, he said, “It’s OK to share it. We would have been heartbroken had we not won [either].”

“As a high academic institution,” he continued, “[Tech] deserves all the props they got. I would never begrudge them of anything. You always respect what they accomplished.”

Had the current system been in place, the two teams would have converged at the BCS championship game. That would have suited Tech’s men in charge.

“I’m still a playoff guy,” says Ross, long retired. “I’d like to see it settled on the field.”

Great minds do not always think alike. The media and coaches disagreed on their champions in ’91 and ’97. In 2003, LSU wound up No. 1 in the BCS, which relied on two polls plus computer formulas, though USC was honored by the AP.

When the 1990 Yellow Jackets are feted on Nov. 13 at the home game against Miami, there will be no reference to the split decision that year, according to team publicist Dean Buchan. No carefully worded phrase in response to Colorado’s “consensus” champion.

Just don’t mention split around Ken Swilling.

“We’re the champions,” he said. “We didn’t need five downs to beat anybody.”