Photo by: Frank Fortune - Georgia Southern Athletics
Throwback Thursday – Georgia Southern’s “The Catch” Caps a Comeback for 1985 National Championship
10/31/2013 11:25:00 PM | Football
First meeting between Eagles and Paladins was one for the ages
Throwback Thursday – Georgia Southern's "The Catch" Caps a Comeback for 1985 National Championship
If you weren't in the Tacoma Dome on December 21, 1985, you knew EXACTLY where you were when you heard the play-by-play call of "The Catch."
There was plenty that happened before "The Catch," and plenty that mattered, but everyone remembers quarterback Tracy Ham's pass to Frankie Johnson for Georgia Southern's game-winning touchdown or has seen that historic highlight.
For many Eagle fans, that play was THE defining moment of the program. In only its second year of NCAA Division I-AA competition, Georgia Southern was not only in the playoffs, but that bullet of a touchdown pass had just finalized a record-setting comeback to win Georgia Southern its first national championship.
After an improbable run through the playoffs to that point, the Eagles found themselves down 21-6 at the halftime of the title game, with only two field goals to show for the effort. Furman, one of the best teams in the country and notorious for being able to shut down the triple option, had done just that through the first 30 minutes of the contest. Dick Sheridan's well-prepared Paladins appeared to be cruising to a championship.
"Coach (Erk) Russell had such a presence about him," remembered Fred Stokes, a junior offensive lineman on the 1985 team. "He had a knack for knowing what buttons to press and for making us feel like we could run through a brick wall. And that's exactly what he did at halftime."
After consulting with his coaches in a sideroom, Coach Russell detailed out the game plan for the second half. His Eagles responded with thundering approval in the locker room. Exiting to the field, the Eagles were bound and determined to employ that same blue-collar effort that had gotten them to Tacoma.
"We weren't even supposed to be there," said Georgia Southern offensive lineman Ronald Warnock. "From that perspective, we had very little pressure."
Some pressure, though, comes from within.
"Frankie Johnson was my roommate for that game," Stokes said. "I remember the night before he kept saying, 'I have got to get in the game, I want to get in the game' and I let him know that he would have his time."
One tale goes as far to say that a fan approached Frankie to tell him of a dream he had about him catching the winning pass in the title game. At halftime, though, that dream seemed more like fantasy when Johnson didn't even have a single catch. All that would change as Russell and Coach Paul Johnson, the Georgia Southern's offensive coordinator, would adjust the Eagles' attack in the second half and wanted Ham to air it out.
Running the triple option, Ham didn't loft many passes, so few knew how good he was at throwing the ball or how good the Eagle receivers were catching it. Russell and Johnson turned Ham loose. He would throw 18 completions for 316 yards and four touchdowns in the second half. The final pass, of course, a 13-yard completion thrown with only 14 seconds left in the game, would make history.
Johnson would finish as the game's leading receiver with seven catches, all coming in the second half. His sixth catch was likely equally as important, but not as famous, as he and Ham overcame an Eagles' holding penalty call and 1st and 20 with a 53-yard gain to start the last drive. At the Furman 29, though, the possession looked as though it would end. Ham gained four yards to the 25 before being sacked for a loss of five with less than a minute to play and an incomplete pass would set up an ominous fourth-and-11 with Georgia Southern trailing 42-38.
Tony Belser's catch before "The Catch" made "The Catch" possible. Belser hauled in a 17-yarder from Ham and gave the Eagles four more shots at the endzone. They would only need three, but even then, they didn't make it look easy. Furman brought on the pressure and Ham's first pass overshot the endzone and Ham threw the second into the stands. As noted by the ESPN broadcasters, the Eagles were out of timeouts and with 21 seconds left, nearly out of time.
A post-pattern into triple coverage, into the remarkably sure hands of a freshman, quickly changed the course of Georgia Southern Football history.
"Even being down like we were, we never thought about the possibility of losing," Warnock said. "We talked about what we needed to do to win – stop them on defense, put some points on the board and air it out to do that because they had been stopping the option game."
In tune with what the three technique was doing all the way back to the safety while listening to what his coaches were telling him, Ham was just "in the moment."
"It was really about what we were trying to get accomplished," Ham said. "It was a defining moment for me, and in all our lives as student-athletes. Furman was a good football team, a seasoned football team, and they made more plays than us early. What we were able to do on offense to get the win was large in part because our defense stopped them four times in a row in that second half."
Ham finished the game with more than 500 yards of offense, adding 113 yards on the ground to his 419 through the air. Johnson, with two of his three total touchdowns that year coming in this championship game, cemented his legacy with "The Catch."
"We weren't surprised, we were not the greatest as individuals, there were so many teams that had better talent than we did," Warnock said. "We were just a bunch of young guys, who loved the game of football. As a team, we won a national championship, and it involved everybody."
Information culled from numerous sources, including "Just One More Time – The Miracle of Georgia Southern Football" by Mark McClellan and Jim Halley, conversations with Tracy Ham, Fred Stokes, and Ronald Warnock, and the broadcast of the 1985 NCAA Div. I-AA Championship Game.
If you weren't in the Tacoma Dome on December 21, 1985, you knew EXACTLY where you were when you heard the play-by-play call of "The Catch."
There was plenty that happened before "The Catch," and plenty that mattered, but everyone remembers quarterback Tracy Ham's pass to Frankie Johnson for Georgia Southern's game-winning touchdown or has seen that historic highlight.
For many Eagle fans, that play was THE defining moment of the program. In only its second year of NCAA Division I-AA competition, Georgia Southern was not only in the playoffs, but that bullet of a touchdown pass had just finalized a record-setting comeback to win Georgia Southern its first national championship.
After an improbable run through the playoffs to that point, the Eagles found themselves down 21-6 at the halftime of the title game, with only two field goals to show for the effort. Furman, one of the best teams in the country and notorious for being able to shut down the triple option, had done just that through the first 30 minutes of the contest. Dick Sheridan's well-prepared Paladins appeared to be cruising to a championship.
"Coach (Erk) Russell had such a presence about him," remembered Fred Stokes, a junior offensive lineman on the 1985 team. "He had a knack for knowing what buttons to press and for making us feel like we could run through a brick wall. And that's exactly what he did at halftime."
After consulting with his coaches in a sideroom, Coach Russell detailed out the game plan for the second half. His Eagles responded with thundering approval in the locker room. Exiting to the field, the Eagles were bound and determined to employ that same blue-collar effort that had gotten them to Tacoma.
"We weren't even supposed to be there," said Georgia Southern offensive lineman Ronald Warnock. "From that perspective, we had very little pressure."
Some pressure, though, comes from within.
"Frankie Johnson was my roommate for that game," Stokes said. "I remember the night before he kept saying, 'I have got to get in the game, I want to get in the game' and I let him know that he would have his time."
One tale goes as far to say that a fan approached Frankie to tell him of a dream he had about him catching the winning pass in the title game. At halftime, though, that dream seemed more like fantasy when Johnson didn't even have a single catch. All that would change as Russell and Coach Paul Johnson, the Georgia Southern's offensive coordinator, would adjust the Eagles' attack in the second half and wanted Ham to air it out.
Running the triple option, Ham didn't loft many passes, so few knew how good he was at throwing the ball or how good the Eagle receivers were catching it. Russell and Johnson turned Ham loose. He would throw 18 completions for 316 yards and four touchdowns in the second half. The final pass, of course, a 13-yard completion thrown with only 14 seconds left in the game, would make history.
Johnson would finish as the game's leading receiver with seven catches, all coming in the second half. His sixth catch was likely equally as important, but not as famous, as he and Ham overcame an Eagles' holding penalty call and 1st and 20 with a 53-yard gain to start the last drive. At the Furman 29, though, the possession looked as though it would end. Ham gained four yards to the 25 before being sacked for a loss of five with less than a minute to play and an incomplete pass would set up an ominous fourth-and-11 with Georgia Southern trailing 42-38.
Tony Belser's catch before "The Catch" made "The Catch" possible. Belser hauled in a 17-yarder from Ham and gave the Eagles four more shots at the endzone. They would only need three, but even then, they didn't make it look easy. Furman brought on the pressure and Ham's first pass overshot the endzone and Ham threw the second into the stands. As noted by the ESPN broadcasters, the Eagles were out of timeouts and with 21 seconds left, nearly out of time.
A post-pattern into triple coverage, into the remarkably sure hands of a freshman, quickly changed the course of Georgia Southern Football history.
"Even being down like we were, we never thought about the possibility of losing," Warnock said. "We talked about what we needed to do to win – stop them on defense, put some points on the board and air it out to do that because they had been stopping the option game."
In tune with what the three technique was doing all the way back to the safety while listening to what his coaches were telling him, Ham was just "in the moment."
"It was really about what we were trying to get accomplished," Ham said. "It was a defining moment for me, and in all our lives as student-athletes. Furman was a good football team, a seasoned football team, and they made more plays than us early. What we were able to do on offense to get the win was large in part because our defense stopped them four times in a row in that second half."
Ham finished the game with more than 500 yards of offense, adding 113 yards on the ground to his 419 through the air. Johnson, with two of his three total touchdowns that year coming in this championship game, cemented his legacy with "The Catch."
"We weren't surprised, we were not the greatest as individuals, there were so many teams that had better talent than we did," Warnock said. "We were just a bunch of young guys, who loved the game of football. As a team, we won a national championship, and it involved everybody."
Information culled from numerous sources, including "Just One More Time – The Miracle of Georgia Southern Football" by Mark McClellan and Jim Halley, conversations with Tracy Ham, Fred Stokes, and Ronald Warnock, and the broadcast of the 1985 NCAA Div. I-AA Championship Game.
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