The Comeback
Posted on Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018, 3:30 pm
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By Jerry Ratcliffe
Thomas Jones played for 12 years in the NFL after he finished his career at Virginia. He is a member of the 10,000 yards rushing club and is among the top 25 leading rushers in NFL history.
The physical running back from Big Stone Gap will tell you in a flash, that some of the toughest yards he ever gained came on Nov. 28, 1998, when he was part of the biggest comeback in UVa history. That was the last time the Cavaliers beat arch-rival Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
“That game was arguably the best comeback game that I’ve ever been part of my whole career,” Jones said Thanksgiving morning from Los Angeles, where he now lives and works as an actor.
Nearly 20 years later, the game is still known around Charlottesville as “The Comeback.”
The 16th-ranked Cavaliers trailed 20th-ranked Tech, 29-7 at halftime and the outcome looked bleak for the Wahoos. That is until quarterback Aaron Brooks heated up coming out of the locker room at halftime, threw for three second-half touchdowns and 345 yards, staging the jaw-dropping comeback for a 36-32 win that left a stunned Lane Stadium crowd numb.
“I’ll never forget halftime,” Jones said. “Coach (George) Welsh didn’t say anything. Tech’s visiting locker room was like a shed. We could barely fit in there, so we were on top of each other. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
“We kept waiting for Coach to talk, and he finally just said, ‘What do you want me to say?’” Jones remembered.
What could Welsh say? The predicament spoke volumes.
“Coach Welsh let us find it ourselves,” Jones said. “One series at a time. Chip away, chip away.”
So many different Cavaliers on both sides of the ball contributed in the comeback in a complete team win. What it all came down to, though, was Brooks leading the team on the winning 93-yard march, getting the ball back with 3:21 to play.
That’s where the drive started. It ended 80 seconds later in the end zone with Ahmad Hawkins, celebrating on his knees after hauling in a 47-yard TD pass from Brooks, just before he was mobbed by teammates.
Brooks, who went on to become an NFL star, never saw Hawkins’ catch. He was on the turf after releasing the ball, having been smashed by a Hokies pass rusher. He managed to sit up and saw the result, a touchdown hookup with fellow Newport News native Hawkins, a play that immortalized the duo in Virginia football history.
“We were just trying to win the game,” said Brooks, now a member of the New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame after a nine-year NFL career. “We didn’t know it was the greatest comeback in Virginia history.
“I’m glad it came against Virginia Tech,” Brooks said. “When Tech fans see me, they remember that game. For those who notice who I am, they give me props.”
Brooks, Jones, Hawkins, and everyone else associated with that dramatic comeback don’t want to live off that win. It’s time to break that streak. Not only has Tech won every game in Blacksburg since ‘98, but has beaten UVa 14 consecutive seasons.
Friday’s game (3:30 p.m., ABC) provides an opportunity for the Cavaliers to end that haunting, nagging series of losses. UVa is a 4-point favorite over the Hokies, who need to win two more games to keep their 25-year bowl streak alive. Tech has lost four games in a row, and has lost four home games this season.
Hawkins, who lives in Charlottesville and had a 10-year career in the Arena Football League, is also widely recognized for that one memorable catch.
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the highlight of my career,” Hawkins told this writer in a recent interview. “I always tell people that my last play ever at Scott Stadium was picking off [N.C. State quarterback] Philip Rivers (Hawkins, nicknamed “Ball Hawk,” moved to defensive back later in his career), but my greatest play by far was the touchdown catch to beat the Hokies.”
In ‘98, Tech was a member of the Big East. Virginia had been ranked as high as No. 7 nationally, and could have climbed even higher had it not been for a second-half collapse of its own at Georgia Tech earlier in the season. Both UVa and Tech were 8-2 entering the game.
The Hokies bolted to a 17-0 lead that expanded to 29-7 by the break.
While Welsh didn’t say anything at halftime, All-American free safety Anthony Poindexter, who had suffered a season-ending knee injury a few weeks prior vs. N.C. State, didn’t hold back.
“Dex ripped us a new one,” Hawkins said. “He reminded us where we were and who we were playing, and if any team wasn’t going to take us to the woodshed, it was Virginia Tech.”
Brooks gave a lot of credit to then-UVa offensive coordinator Sparky Woods for his halftime adjustments that were key to the comeback. Woods, who is now associate head coach at Richmond, clearly remembers the second-half rally.
“Tech was really committed to stopping the run that game,” Woods said. “We had a hard time running the ball. We couldn’t block that defensive end that was so fast.”
In fact, the Cavaliers attempted 31 running plays that netted only 73 yards, including 18 carries by Jones, who managed to fight for 55 yards.
“Thomas earned every one of them,” Woods chuckled.
Jones concurred.
“Tech was determined to stop the running game,” Jones said. “Me and Antoine (Womack) had been gashing people all year, and Tech wasn’t going to let that happen. It got a little chippy, couple of scuffles, a hard-hitting, intense game. [Tech] was relentless, pushing you after the play, talking trash.”
Brooks began to heat up early, coming out of the locker room, and connected on a 24-yard TD pass to wide out Kevin Coffey. The comeback caught fire when linebacker Byron Thweatt picked off a Hokies pass and returned it 53 yards for a pick six, cutting Tech’s lead to 29-21.
Frank Beamer’s team added a field goal early in the fourth quarter, a 46-yarder by future NFL kicker Shayne Graham, but Brooks was on fire. He found Jones in the end zone on an 18-yard scoring strike, and Brooks added on a two-point conversion run to cut the lead to 32-29.
The TD throw to Jones was huge and kept the comeback alive. If Tech was going to go “all in” in stopping Jones on the ground, then Brooks figured why not use him through the air.
“It was a wheel route out of the backfield,” Jones recalled. “Brooks threw it off his back foot, a hot read. It was me versus a linebacker. We had run it all week in practice, to isolate me on a linebacker.
“We were on the short side of the field, so there wasn’t a lot of room, but I got [the linebacker] to bite just enough.”
Once Jones got the separation he needed, he looked back toward Brooks and was stunned by the glare of the sun.
“All I could see was the sun, right there in my face,” Jones said. “The linebacker was trying to grab my left arm to get a little leverage, but I looked up and saw a spot in the sky, saw something coming at me, like it was a UFO or something. I had to track it.
“Instinctively, it was coming so fast, I just dove and caught it on my fingertips, like one of those diving catches you make in your backyard,” Jones said. “I cradled it, got up, and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I caught it.’ If you watch the game film, it was noticeable that I was surprised. Aaron was falling back, so I don’t know how he put it on the money like that.”
Hawkins loved that play.
“Everybody was selling out for each other,” Hawkins said. “For a running back like Jones to make a diving catch like that, it showed we were going to make a play any way we could.”
Virginia’s defense, which featured guys like Wali Rainer and Patrick Kerney, and Thweatt, stiffened and knocked Tech out of field-goal range on the next possession. The Hokies punted and Virginia got the ball back at its own 7-yard line with 3:21 to play.
“They took away our three-step passing game, so everything had to be a down-the-field pass,” Woods remembered.
Woods said he’ll never forget how Welsh and defensive coordinator Rick Lantz kept telling the players to keep fighting, to not give up hope.
“We just kept pecking at it because it was the one way we had a chance,” Woods said. “It really came down to the pass from Aaron to Ahmad. I think Aaron just put it where we could catch it and Tech couldn’t.”
With the Hokies keying on the run and stopping Jones, Woods gave Brooks the option to call a running play if Tech gave a certain coverage look, or to pass it otherwise.
Brooks’ choice, if he chose to pass, would be a play-action with a formation that provided the most protection (six or seven blockers). The receiver to the near side (Terrence Wilkins) would run a post pattern, while Hawkins, on the wide side, would execute a corner route. Once Brooks saw the coverage and called pass, all he had to do was figure out where Tech’s single safety would line up.
“Tech was bracketing our top receiver (Wilkins), which left me one-one-one with Anthony Midget, and I knew I had the advantage,” Hawkins said. “He was giving me a lot of cushion.”
Brooks faked to his left, swung his hips around and his first look was to Wilkins, who was covered.
“My second option was Ahmad, who made a tremendous move,” Brooks said.
Hawkins said he decided to cut off the route and waited as Brooks threw “a 100 mile an hour fastball.”
“Midget tried to make an interception, but you can’t intercept an Aaron Brooks pass,” Hawkins smiled about his strong-armed teammate. “Midget was a good defensive back but Aaron’s throw was that much better.”
Brooks said Hawkins’ timing was perfect.
“My release and the cut Ahmad made was a match made in heaven,” Brooks chuckled. “The blocking was excellent. I don’t know how Tech left Ahmad one-on-one on the backside corner route. I hit him perfectly in stride.”
An emotional Hawkins knew he had to get to the end zone. He was thinking, “We’re about to beat Tech.”
“I had a smile on my face when I crossed the goal line,” Hawkins remembered. “I got to silence the whole crowd. It was the greatest feeling.”
Jones, like most of his teammates, remembers almost every detail of the day.
“When Ahmad made that catch at the end, it was icing on the cake,” Jones said. “Virginia Tech players were looking at each other like, is this really happening? Nobody in that stadium believed we were going to win. Our little locker room was crazy.”
Brooks never saw the catch.
“When Ahmad scored, I was actually on my back,” Brooks said. “I just sat down and I saw he had scored. I just fell back, didn’t even try to get up and said, ‘Thank you, God.’ I knew that had sealed the deal.”
“It was a great check and throw by Aaron and ol’ Hawkins just kept on running,” Woods said. “He was the best quarterback. I really enjoyed coaching him. He was all about the team. Now, he’s in good company with Archie Manning and Drew Brees in the Saints Hall of Fame.”
The Cavaliers still had to stop Tech with two minutes to go, and Rainer, who made 16 tackles that day, iced the comeback with an interception in the final minute.
“I was saying to the crowd, ‘We’re going to the Peach Bowl … where y’all going?” Hawkins rejoiced.
Virginia went on to lose a 35-33 thriller to 19th-ranked Georgia in the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Eve, unable to hold onto a 21-0 lead.
Tech beat Alabama in the Music City Bowl.
The winning TD catch immortalized Hawkins in the eyes of Virginia fans.
“I wanted to be All-ACC, All-American,” Hawkins said. “But to be immortalized in UVa history for a certain play against our rival was priceless. Every year when we play Tech, I’m asked about it. I love this university so much, I’m so proud to leave my mark.”
Brooks shares that feeling.
“My best throw? By far, in the manner in which it happened,” Brooks said. “I had four TD passes in my first playoff game in New Orleans, and so being a young pup, that was pretty cool. But when I think of that Tech game, all those throws, those passes stood out the most. Especially that last one.”
The last one was everlasting.
Jones and his former Wahoo teammates know that it has been way too long since UVa has won in Blacksburg and are sending their good vibes to Bronco Mendenhall’s team, attempting to end that misfortune.
“It would be huge if we could win Friday,” said Jones, who still closely follows Virginia. “The way the team is playing this year, they have talented players, and a good coaching staff. They’re playing as a team and they have confidence. They could still end up with nine wins.”
Jones and that ‘98 team finished 9-3 and became only the fifth team in school history to win at least nine games.
Only two Virginia teams have managed to win nine games in a season since, both under Al Groh. The 2002 team that beat West Virginia in the Continental Tire Bowl went 9-5, and the 2007 team that lost to Texas Tech in the Gator Bowl, finished 9-4.
It would be quite a season if Mendenhall, only in his third season, can guide the Cavaliers to a win over Tech, breaking the streak, and win a bowl game for a ninth win.
Should UVa pull off the win in Blacksburg on Friday, and end the streak, “The Comeback” of 1998 will still live forever.
