Ga. Tech wondering what happened

SAN FRANCISCO — Georgia Tech coach Chan Gailey, who once coached the Dallas Cowboys into the playoffs, was either in shock or still totally mystified by the pounding his Georgia Tech team had just endured when he entered the interview room Thursday afternoon.

His 10th-best-in-the-nation defense that had held No. 3-ranked Miami to 10 points and 230 total yards a month earlier, had just given up 38 points and 550 yards to a team from the Mountain West Conference, for crying out loud.

The 38-10 whipping by Utah was the worst bowl loss in history for a program that bragged about having the best bowl record of any school in the country coming into the game.

"It hurts," said Gailey. "I'll be honest with you, it hurts me, it hurts everybody. We were hoping to take this ball game and use it as another step for us, but we didn't get it done. We didn't deserve to win."

The Yellow Jackets came into the game as 8.5-point favorites, with a better record than Utah, and much more impressive victories, including road wins at Auburn and Miami, the latter in late November when the Hurricanes were ranked No. 3 in the nation.

Instead, the Utes took the fight to the Yellow Jackets right from the start, throwing a 22-yard pass completion on the first play of the game and driving for a score barely two-and-a-half minutes into the game.

"They didn't do anything fancy or unusual that we haven't worked on," said Gailey. "But when you play them, you have to get ready for a ton of stuff. Sometimes they get you and they got us good."

The lead quickly reached 20-0, but the Yellow Jackets cut the lead to 20-10 at halftime. Gailey felt his team would win if it was able to score on its first drive of the second half, but the Ute defense held the Yellow Jackets to three-and-out on their first series.

Georgia Tech was still within 23-10 going into the fourth quarter, but Utah's defense held and then tacked on two more scores to win going away.

"Even when they got that field goal, I thought we were going to win the ball game, 24-23," Gailey said.

The biggest problem the Yellow Jackets had was trying to contain Utah's passing game. The 381 yards they gave up was the most all season and they never did seem to figure out what Utah was doing.

"They got into positions where they were getting their wide receivers on linebackers and they were able to make plays," said Georgia Tech linebacker Gerris Wilkinson. "They were doing a lot of slant passes and we weren't able to cut the receivers off."