South Roundup : Tennessee Struggles Past Wake Forest, 31-29

Tony Robinson scrambled for one touchdown and threw for another Saturday as 16th-ranked Tennessee eked out a 31-29 victory over Wake Forest at Knoxville, Tenn.

“You can’t be too hoggish about the way you win football games in this day and time,” Tennessee Coach Johnny Majors said. “Today there was never any flow and go.”

The Volunteers (2-0-1) compiled 309 yards of offense but gave up 455 yards to Wake Forest.

“We came over here to win. We didn’t come over here to acquit ourselves,” Wake Forest Coach Al Groh said.

“We did not come with an upset in mind. The press would have called it that, but we would have called it playing exactly as we thought we could,” said Groh, whose Atlantic Coast Conference team fell to 3-2.

Robinson hit on 13 of 23 passes for 170 yards for the Southeastern Conference team but was outshone by Wake Forest’s Foy White, who engineered two scoring drives with less than six minutes remaining.

White connected on 24 of 39 passes for 270 yards, including touchdown passes of 4 yards to Clemons, 9 yards to James Brim and 18 yards to Greg Scales.

Running backs Michael Ramseur and Topper Clemons accounted for 203 yards rushing and scored a touchdown apiece.

Tennessee turned to tailbacks Keith Davis for a 22-yard touchdown run and Pete Panuska for a one-yard touchdown plunge. Davis, a redshirt freshman, led Tennessee rushers with 102 yards.

Volunteer kicker Carlos Reveiz converted four extra-point attempts and made his only field-goal try, a 52-yarder.

Miami 27, East Carolina 15--Vinny Testaverde threw for 385 yards and three touchdowns to lift Miami (Fla.) to a comeback victory at Greenville, N.C.

Testaverde hit on touchdown pass plays of 88, 71 and 17 yards to help Miami improve to 3-1. He completed 23 of 34 attempts but was intercepted 6 times.

The Pirates fell to 2-3 with their third straight loss.

East Carolina took a brief 15-14 lead on a 44-yard field goal by Jeff Heath with 7:03 left in the third quarter.

But Testaverde put Miami in front for good when he hit flanker Mike Irvin with a 17-yard touchdown pass. Miami, however, failed to make a two-point conversion and came away with a 20-15 lead with 2:46 left in the third period.

Testaverde then hit wide receiver Brian Blades on a 71-yard touchdown on the last play of the third quarter. Kicker Greg Cox kicked his 56th conversion without a miss, a school record.

Heath kicked field goals of 44, 41 and 37 yards.

Miami’s defense scored first when defensive tackle Darin McMurray knocked the ball loose from quarterback Ron Jones and ran it 15 yards for a 7-0 lead.

Testaverde teamed with fullback Alonzo Smith on an 88-yard screen pass play that put Miami ahead, 14-3. It was the longest pass play in Miami history, breaking the record of 85 yards from Bernie Kosar to Eddie Brown last year.

Heath kicked his second field goal of the day to cut Miami’s margin to 14-6 in the second quarter. East Carolina fullback Anthony Simpson got the Pirates to within 14-12 on an 11-yard run with 5:31 left in the half.

The crowd of 34,511 was the largest in Ficklen Stadium history, surpassing the mark of 33,767 when the Pirates defeated East Tennessee State on Oct. 29, 1983.

Georgia Tech 31, North Carolina 0--Georgia Tech quarterback John Dewberry scored a touchdown and passed for two more, completing 9 of 14 attempts for 143 yards at Atlanta, while freshman halfback Jerry Mays rushed 17 times for 123 yards and threw for a touchdown.

Dewberry scored on a one-yard sneak in the first quarter and threw touchdown passes of 59 yards to Gary Lee and 13 yards to Tim Manion in the second and third quarters, respectively.

Mays, who ran 58 yards to set up a 19-yard field goal by Thomas Palmer in the first quarter, threw his second touchdown pass of the season, a 26-yarder to Gary Lee in the fourth quarter.

It was the first time the Yellow Jackets shut out an opponent since 1979, the year before Coach Bill Curry took over, and it was the first time Carolina has been blanked in 97 games, going back to a 21-0 loss to Kentucky in the 1976 Peach Bowl.

By beating the Tar Heels for the first time in their last six meetings, the Yellow Jackets improved to 3-1 in their fourth straight Atlantic Coast Conference game. North Carolina, which never got closer than the Georgia Tech 35-yard line, fell to 2-2 overall in its conference opener.

Carolina quarterback Kevin Anthony, the star of last year’s game when the Tar Heels beat the Yellow Jackets, 24-17, was intercepted twice in the first quarter and finished 12 of 26 for 65 yards.

Furman 58, Davidson 7--Wide receiver Chas Fox caught three touchdown passes--two from quarterback Bobby Lamb--to lead Furman to an easy victory at Davidson, N.C.

Lamb hit Fox on scoring tosses of 11 and 45 yards. Fox, with six catches, gained 115 yards.

The victory does not count as a Southern Conference win for Furman (4-1), but the loss counts on the conference record for Davidson, which is 0-5 and 0-3.

Virginia Military 14, The Citadel 14--Kip Allen scored on a quarterback sneak with 56 seconds to play and hit Adrian Williams on a two-point conversion pass to enable The Citadel to salvage a tie in a Southern Conference game at Lexington, Va.

VMI is 0-3-1 overall and 0-0-1 in the conference, while The Citadel is 1-3-1 overall and 0-2-1 in the conference.