1899 Georgia Tech football team

Following the winless 1898 season, Georgia Tech's administration placed a renewed interest in vitalizing the football program and announced its attention to hiring "an up-to-date and thoroughly capable coach" who would be "one of the best in the country and will devote his entire time to training the football team.

Nalley's hiring provoked much excitement with hopes that the season would feature one of Tech's best teams in its history.

[3] Georgia Tech also hired M. P. O'Connor, a former player of Vanderbilt as an assistant professor and physical director.

[4] He was a very passionate coach and was accused of being unsportsmanlike by calling out plays and adjustments to his team during games.

[17] Auburn scored 20 in the first half and 43 in the second in what was called the "Cyclonic Waterloo for the Techs" and "probably the worst defeat that any football team ever received" by one Alabama paper.

Admission to the game was twenty-five cents, which included a return ticket to the fair grounds at the park.

[19] The game was called exciting, hard-fought, and scrappy, but no one that was played in the style of trained college players, equally poorly by both sides.

[5] The ball remained in the Georgia Tech half almost the entire game with Atlanta having long runs of 25 and 30 yards.

The only score of the game occurred on a first-half safety as Atlanta tackled Merritt in Tech's own endzone.

The game was called after ten minutes into the second half due to darkness, with Atlanta winning by a score of 2 to 0.

[8] The game did not start off well for the Techs: in the first minute, Cunningham threw the snap over Merritt's head, and while he was able to recover it, his punt attempt was blocked and returned by Sewanee for a touchdown.

Tech's captain, Wooley, did manage to block a Sewanee punt on their ten-yard line, but the team could not fall onto the ball in time.

Sullivan and Pete Wooley, Tech's captain, also showed great skill and effort.

Georgia Tech's best offensive player was its right halfback, Sullivan, but the team did not threaten to score.

[21][9] Following the game, Georgia Tech President Lyman Hall extended support of Coach Nalley in saying that the school authorities and students are satisfied with the coach and the team: "We are confident they play their very best game, and attribute severe drubbings to the irony of fate," he said.

Georgia Tech scored on a fumbled punt on the 15-yard-line, its first and only points of the year, but it did not threaten the Clemson endzone for the remainder of the game.