Tashard Choice delivered 204 yards rushing and a victory for Georgia Tech Saturday afternoon at Miami.

On Monday, he delivered 24 chicken pot pies.

The pies were thank-you gifts for the guys who block for Choice and for the Yellow Jackets’ offensive coaching staff. They were baked by Choice’s mom, Rosa Hamm, and they got rave reviews.

“I ate one and a half already. I finished my brother’s, too, so I’m hurting,” said fullback Mike Cox, whose brother Luke is a scout team fullback. “I’m kind of walking around holding my stomach. It was definitely worth it.”

Choice gave his blockers a similar show of appreciation last season. It’s only coincidence this year’s pies arrived the day Choice and left tackle Andrew Gardner were named ACC players of the week, and two days after Choice turned in the ninth-best rushing day in Tech history. Choice said work on the pies began last week, before Tech’s 17-14 victory and his 37 carries.

The coaches got pies the size you’d get from KFC, Choice said. The players got large ones. The head coach got none.

“They offered me one, but I passed so some others could have more,” said Chan Gailey, who watches what he eats since a 2005 heart attack. “They looked good.”

Good enough to serve both as rewards and as motivation for the people who have helped Choice become the ACC’s leading rusher.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to get another one,” Cox said.

Feeling no pain

Only two players in Tech history have run the ball more times in a game than Choice did on Saturday, but he said he wasn’t that sore on Sunday.

“I just got a little ice,” Choice said. “I didn’t have to get in a cold tub. I wasn’t hurting that bad.”

Gailey has been impressed with Choice’s durability.

“I think it’s mental durability, mental toughness as much as physical,” he said. “There’s some guys that will themselves not to play when they’re nicked up, and there’s some guys that will themselves to play when they’re nicked up. He falls, obviously, in that latter category. That’s why he’s the leader and has the production that he has and the durability that he has.”

Proceeding with caution

If Tech looked unsure what it was doing in its last drive before halftime, that’s because it was unsure.

The Yellow Jackets got the ball on their 17 and started conservatively, trying not to do anything stupid on their end of the field and not to return Miami the ball in good field position with a lot of time on the clock.

When Tech got a first down at the 48, the strategy changed only partly. Tech still huddled, and 20 seconds ran off before Taylor Bennett took the snap with 47 seconds left. Two incompletions and a run for no gain made it fourth-and-10, and it appeared the half would end there unless Miami called time to force Tech to punt.

Then Tech called timeout.

“We were going to let the clock run out, and then I called timeout to see what we wanted to do,” Gailey said. “I should have let it run out.”

Fortunately for Gailey and the Jackets, the snap was good, the punt wasn’t blocked and the half expired with Miami taking a knee inside its 10-yard line.

Injury report

Center Kevin Tuminello wore a protective boot over his injured ankle and did not practice Tuesday but is expected to practice today and play against Army, Gailey said.

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By MIKE KNOBLER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution