No Excuses, No Regrets by Trent Toone

Author:Trent Toone [Toone, Trent ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Inspirational
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

The San Francisco Showdown

While Utah was overjoyed to be playing in the Emerald Bowl, the Georgia Tech players were doing their best to act interested. A week before the game, Atlanta Journal-Constitution sportswriter Mark Bradley wrote about an incident at a media gathering. Publicist Mike Stamus was interviewing Yellow Jacket players and asked tailback P.J. Daniels what he thought when he learned Tech was bound for the Emerald Bowl, more than 2,000 miles from its campus.

“We got screwed,” Daniels said.

“We won’t use that part,” Stamus said, turning to his cameraman.

In his column a week before the game, Bradley continued, “Is Tech too good for its bowl? Absolutely. You beat two top-10 teams and finish the regular season in the Top 25, and your reward is a 6–5 opponent on a Thursday afternoon in Barry Bonds’ bailiwick? ... The Jackets have become the scourge of the lower-rung bowls. They’ve won their last two postseason games by the aggregate score of 103–24, and they should hang five or six touchdowns on Utah. And they’ll ride the famous trolley and take a tour of Alcatraz and come back with a big trophy and be home well in time to watch the big bowls on TV.”

Other players, like GT quarterback Reggie Ball, saw the situation as an opportunity to play another game. “That’s all I wanted,” Ball said. “Once I knew we had that, I was satisfied.”

Even so, the disgruntled attitudes of the majority of the Yellow Jackets were obvious to the Utah players. “You could just tell they didn’t want to be there,” Eric said. “When we hung around them during the week, you couldn’t see fire in their eyes.”

Despite Georgia Tech’s overall disappointment, many experts picked the Jackets to win big. This motivated the Utes to win. They also wanted to extend the school’s four-game bowl-winning streak to five. “No one’s really giving us a chance to win the ball game,” said senior running back Quinton Ganther. “But, hey, they’ve counted us out all year and we’re here.”

Utah defensive lineman Steve Fifita agreed. “We can redeem ourselves with a win over a quality opponent like this. If we get a win, it proves we’re a good team and we were just going through some growing pains.”

The matchup between MWC defensive player of the year Eric Weddle and all-American wide receiver Calvin Johnson grabbed many of the pregame headlines. By game time, Eric was sick of reporters’ questions and hearing how Johnson was going to have a field day. It was now his personal mission to show the cynics he could shut down Johnson. “I just took the challenge to heart,” Eric said. “You want to play with a chip on your shoulder when you take on the top receivers. No one gave me a chance, not only to shut him down, but to even play good against him. It ate at me.”

Johnson was widely considered one of the top pass-catchers in the nation. He finished the 2005 regular season with 52 catches

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