In Dodd We Trust - A Georgia Tech Sports Blog

In Dodd We Trust is Movin'!

2006-08-09T20:45:00.000-04:00

Readers! In Dodd We Trust has moved to Sports Blog Nation, and is now Ramblin' Racket! I ask y'all to update any links or blogrolls to the new address.

My new site logo, made by real a professional artist. That's right, professionals do stuff for me now.

You can expect the same type of content over there as you found here--it's basically the same blog, just with a new home. I hope all of you follow us over there and continue to participate in our discussion of all things Tech... well, maybe not all things... really just football. Whatever.

Procrastinating is FUN!

2006-08-09T15:03:00.000-04:00

We all get bored sitting at work, at home, in class, wherever. Inevitably, our minds wander to that great American game, Football. But alas, you've read all the blogs, you've posted to all the message boards, read all the articles, and talked at the water cooler until all that water made you have to pee...really bad. With the thought of actually doing some work looming over your head and no way out, I give you:

World Stadiums!

The biggest and best waste of time for sports enthusiasts. The premise is simple, it lists every stadium in the world capable of holding at least a couple thousand people, and has a picture of every one that holds over 10,000. You can see future stadiums, past stadiums, and what sports are played in these stadiums. Its a useless trivia buff's best friend in the whole wide world. So go ahead, finish off the rest of your day looking at pictures of D1-AA Stadiums and Soccer stadiums in Morroco.

Here are two excellent stadiums:

Stade de Omdurman in Sudan - a 14,000 seater that makes your town's HS football stadium look like the Taj Mahal.

And then, yes it even does have those big HS Stadiums. Here is Bazemore-Hyder Stadium in Valdosta, GA.

At any rate, you get the idea...run with it.

A Newbie's Guide to Tailgating Areas at GT

2006-08-09T11:10:00.000-04:00

This post is intended to offer advice to new students, new alumni, or visiting fans who don't know where to go for tailgating. Tech has a fairly big campus with fairly little usuable 'gating space, and even less parking. If you've tailgated at Tech for years, this guide will tell you nothing. In fact, you may say "Those are lame spots! EVERYone knows the ONLY place to 'gate is [insert your spot]!!!"

Consult this map I made, and I will offer brief explanations of each area. By no means is this map comprehensive, and I don't know the whole situation on all these areas. This post was made with some help from the folks at the Hive. Feel free to post info you have in the comments, and I will update this guide as I get more/better information.

The Varsity (orange on the map): I highly recommend tailgating at the Varsity lot for beginners. For one thing, you can experience a Tech tradition by getting an FO, Yankee dog, and strings, and also you're damn close to the stadium. (Warning: I don't know the whole parking situation, i.e. how much you'd pay to park in the lot or deck there.)

W01 (light blue): There is good RV parking along Tech Parkway, and I don't believe you pay to park there.

W02 (purple): Student Center Parking Deck & Lot. Lots of room, lots of people. I usually see a few visitor tailgates here.

IC Field (green): AKA the F'in Awesome Lot; home sweet home for IDWT. Tech no longer lets people park on the grass here, so you'll need to park a little ways away. Lots of room on the field, and fairly family friendly (except for the random cursing, smashing of liquor bottles, and throwing of lawn darts by my buddies).

W21 (red): Lot behind the Physics building. I usually see a few visitor tailgates here; good, spacious lot. Near the center of campus and the campanile, where GameDay will be for Notre Dame.

Yellow Jacket Park (yellow): I have never tailgated here and know NOTHING about tailgating here; I just imagine it would be a good place because it's a huge grass field. GameDay will be near the campanile according to D-Rad, so they may actually be here.

W24 (blue): Small but good lot. Fairly far from the stadium, so not good if you have elderly, pregnant, etc. 'gaters.

W25/26/27: Similar to W24 but bigger. Friendly to visitor tailgates. Again, far from Bobby Dodd Stadium.

E65: Lot behind Alexander Memorial Coliseum. It seems about half of the Hive tailgates here. Lots of RVs, lots of alumni. Maybe not super-friendly to "enemy" tailgates.

There you have it folks, a brief summary. Again, feel free to give feedback if I'm wrong on something or if there's a glaring omission. See y'all in September!

Wednesday Morning Rundown

2006-08-09T08:55:00.000-04:00

Few lil' GT Quick hits:

Via Wreck Ramblin', Al Ciraldo is in consideration for the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in Macon. The late Ciraldo was the voice of Georgia Tech football and basketball from 1954-1993 [edit:fixed the year]. He was a huge assett to the Yellow Jacket community, and if he doesn't make the HoF now, he definitely will later. Credit Ciraldo with the phrase "When Toe Meets Leather." If any of you want to make a GT blog, toemeetsleather.blogspot.com would be a fine choice.

D-Rad has spoken to Georgia Southern's AD about a football game in the future. No projected date, just an idea, but I'm all for it. Really, playing a good AA opponent is kind of a no-win situation, because if you don't blow them out, "you should have," and if you lose, that's just terrible. But I am definitely stoked about that. Although be sure to double-bag it when the Statesboro kids come to town.

AJC profile of D-lineman Vance Walker. He's put on 10 pounds and worked on his speed.

Practice notes from the Macon Telegraph.

Later today: profile of good tailgating spots on/around campus.

Georgia Tech - National Title "Contender"

2006-08-08T16:34:00.000-04:00

Stewart Mandel of SportsIllustrated.com lists 16 national title contenders, including Georgia Tech. Mandel explains this is not a "Top 16," but rather that these teams, "at least on paper, possess many of the right ingredients -- a veteran quarterback, experienced offensive and defensive lines, proven playmakers, a favorable schedule -- to put together a championship run, provided some other key areas fall into place." He goes on to say "All the teams on our list of contenders have the basic foundation to go 13-0 yet could just as easily wind up 7-6."

At first I was surprised to find Georgia Tech on this list, but given their full description (especially that last sentence I quoted), I agree entirely.

Super-Preliminary Preseason BlogPoll Ballot

2006-08-08T11:56:00.000-04:00

First off, two notes: (1) This was done with minimal research, off mainly gut feeling and the consultation of the AP poll and a couple other folks' BlogPoll ballots.
(2) This was done by the BlogPoll guidelines, which say we're ranking who would beat whom. That was the main criterion here, I looked at a team, the teams above it, and the teams below it. Who would win?

This resulted in certain things you won't see on (m)any other ballots, i.e. GT in the top ten. Blatant homerism, wishful thinking? Oh yeah. But still, since I think Tech will beat Notre Dame, the Jackets should be ranked higher than the Irish. On with the crappy ballot.

1. Ohio State University
2. Auburn University
3. West Virginia University
4. University of Southern California
5. University of Texas
6. University of Florida
7. Georgia Institute of Technology
8. University of Lousville
9. University of Iowa
10. University of Georgia
11. University of Notre Dame
12. University of Oregon
13. Boston College
14. University of California, Berkeley
15. University of Michigan
16. University of Arkansas
17. University of Miami
18. Florida State University
19. Texas Christian University
20. University of California, Los Angeles
21. Pennsylvania State University
22. Louisiana State University
23. Clemson University
24. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
25. University of Utah

Others considered: Oklahoma, Navy, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Texas Tech, Arizona State, Fresno State

Doubtless this will change before submission, and doubtless fans of many teams (in the strange event that they visit this website) will be like "WTF? No way!" at their "low" rank or absence from the list. Tell me where I f'ed up, though. On thing, though. There's no way Georgia Tech is leaving my top ten during the preseason.

Tuesday Morning Rundown

2006-08-08T09:26:00.000-04:00

Usually I don't like it when news outlets Costasize, but lately the AJC has run a lot of good player profiles: Travis Chambers, Wayne Riles, Jahi Word-Daniels, Tashard Choice.

This jackass won an Emmy for ruining the Olympics.

Wreck Ramblin' point us to a sweet but kinda concerning article on CJ: Calvin claims he knows "every position," so he'll be lining up all over the place. But like Goldtimer said, shouldn't he have kept that quiet? Although it really makes the imagination run wild; where are we gonna line him up? QB, RB, TE?

Brief practice report. The full report is on the Hiver Insider message board, but I'm too broke for that crap.

Georgia Tech on CFN's Top 100 Greatest College Football Finishes: #94 (2000: GT 31 Clemson 28), #36 (1990: GT 41, UVa 38).

I saw this several other places, notably GSB and CFR, but Clay Travis at Sportsline wrote a nice eulogy for Jefferson Pilot Sports, and their god-awful football telecasts.

I truly hope many of you will compete for the Andy French Cup, brought to you by Notre Dame blog The House That Rock Built. The rules are simple: Get wasted, dial (312) 239-0841, and leave a drunken rant about any college coach, player, president, etc. This is no-holds-barred, so feel free to insult as inappropriately as possible.

Coming later today: my preliminary BlogPoll ballot. The BlogPoll is a college football rankings poll, much like the Coach's and AP polls, but it's filled out by college football bloggers like me. You know what teams the voters root for, and you can read their ballots, so any regional bias or blatant homerism is there to see.

ESPN U Cram Session - GT Aug 8th (Tuesday)

2006-08-07T10:16:00.000-04:00

ESPNU is showing last years games from GT's football and baseball teams all day August 8th. I was watching The U and noticed they were doing Miami today, and so I looked it up and lo and behold GT is coming up tomorow.

Coming Soon: ESPN XXX,
ASU Cheerleader Porn all day.

The Schedule is:
5:30 am - GT/Auburn FB
9:00 am - GT/CoC BB
3:00 pm - GT/UNC FB

Pretty lame overall but Its GT on TV so you can't really complain.

Stop Pickin' on Vandy!

2006-08-05T02:57:00.000-04:00

Just about any time you read a mention of Vanderbilt football, whether on a blog or in a newspaper article or in some other medium, the program is demeaned. And I ask folks to chill. Just a bit.

Obviously, Vanderbilt is a (if not the) bottom-feeder of the Southeastern Conference. They've not won a conference title in many decades, and their Varsity athletics are now organized by the same group that handles intramurals. However, I encourage fans to give Vandy a break.

Vanderbilt plays in the SEC, arguably the most competitive conference in major college football. And they suck in it. So why should fans/journalists give them slack? Because they've never stopped. Vanderbilt University has clearly been out of SEC Championship contention for many years. If they chose, they could bolt to some "lesser" conference, and (assuming the same personnell) compete for a conference title much more often.

But Vanderbilt respects the tradition of its conference, which it helped found. (Okay, Tech does not, whatever. GT helped found the SEC but later bolted. This is not the point of the post, so I ask that it not be a major thread in the comments section.) Rather than head for greener pastures, Vandy runs with their long-time crew, and unfortunately loses a lot.

I do not suggest, and do not think, that Vanderbilt is satisfied with their current role. Doubtless, the school hopes (and hopefully expects) to compete for a conference title as soon as possible. But in the mean time, I implore journa-/bloga-lists to not be too hard on Vanderbilt. At times it seems like they get less respect than worse, but not perennially-faced, teams (since the worse teams are faced less often, so there's not the familiarity to their suckiness).

Vandy does not have to be your whipping boy, but they accept it. And for that, I commend their attitude.

(Notes: (1) Most of these comments could apply to Dule within the ACC. (2) This post does not consider sports other than football. I do not consider this inappropriate, since football is clearly the most loved/influential sport at colleges.)

Yoga Program Okay & Other Info

2006-08-04T08:51:00.000-04:00

As reported by Paul Westerdawg in a post called "More Tech Cheating?", LSU self-reported a "Level 2" (i.e., won't result in sanctions) NCAA violation for a summer yoga program. As previously mentioned at IDWT, Tech was doing a yoga program over the summer. The AJC reports today that we are not in violation of NCAA rules. Why is our program okay and LSU's not? According to Tech's compliance director:

"The ACC told us what we were doing is OK," Parker said. "Since we're doing yoga that's open to all student-athletes, it's OK — it's not special to the football team. Plus, it was initiated through our sports medicine staff, and it's non-mandatory."

Gotta show respect to dudes with the last name Parker.

The AJC has some photos from Thursday's prakiss. Both K-Mike and Phillip Wheeler are rockin the visors on their helmets.

Reggie's got a chip on his shoulder, and he's out to prove the nay-sayers wrong this season... Just like last season. (HT: Wreck Ramblin')

New Student Sendoff Picnics

2006-08-04T00:09:00.000-04:00

It's almost time for school to start back up again, and with that comes the send off picnics that local GT Alumni Clubs have. I would like to take a moment and post the list of picnics that haven't happened yet so that hopefully a few extra people might attend their local event. The Boston Club, which I am currently a member of, is having their picnic the 13th. I haven't been to one before, but I hope it will be a good chance to meet other area Yellow Jackets as well as hopefully drop some knowledge on the new crop of students. If you have the chance, go to yours, if it has gone by, try to go next year. Here is the list of upcoming picnics:

August

5 - Birmingham Club Student Send Off Picnic
5 - Orange County Club Student Send Off Picnic
5 - NE Tennessee Club Student Send Off Picnic
5 - North TX/Dallas Club Student Send Off Picnic
5 - Miami Club Student Send Off Picnic
5 - Palm Beach Club Student Send Off Picnic
5 - North Alabama/Huntsville Club Student Send Off Picnic
6 - Midlands/Columbia Club Student Send Off Picnic
6 - Western NC/Asheville Club Student Send Off Picnic
6 - Houston Club Student Send Off Picnic
6 - Coweta/Fayette Club Student Send Off Picnic
6 - Los Angeles Club Student Send Off Picnic
12 - North Metro Club Student Send Off Picnic
12 - West Metro Club Student Send Off Picnic
13 - Marietta Club Student Send Off Picnic with Wes Durham
13 - Gwinnett Club Student Send Off Picnic
13 - Heart of Texas Club Student Send Off Picnic
13 - Boston Club Student Send Off Picnic
13 - Triangle Club Student Send Off Picnic

Help these freshmen get laid, go to a Sendoff Picnic
(PS I dont know these kids)

There are also some other fun events being put on by the Alumni Association including the usual bus trips to Clemson and UGA...perfect for pregaming and staying all nice-n-legal at the same time. Anyways, if you want to check out all of the slated events, just go to the Alumni Calendar. Also, if you are a recent grad, scope out the Young Alumni section of the site.

I brought all this up because it's fun to stay connected to the community more than just showing up at sports events. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled program of talking about football, boozing, and chasing chicks (or dudes).

YouTube Goodness: Joe Hamilton for Heisman

2006-08-04T00:06:00.000-04:00

I'm posting this not as a "Glory Days of Yesteryear" thing, but mainly because it features the last time Tech and Notre Dame squared off: the '99 Gator Bowl.

D-Rad is the Bomb

2006-08-03T22:18:00.000-04:00

GT Athletics Director Dan Radakovich just released Volume 7 of his bi-weekly newsletter The Good Word. I recommend you read it, but I'll highlight the key bits:

Ramblinwreck.com will soon have a "Fan Guide" for gameday, with info on parking, pregame activities, etc. This is a VERY good thing. As of recently, RW.com had almost no info on parking; it just sent you to the GT parking site, which is hard as crap to navigate.
Link to the GTAA Annual Report. Go watch D-Rad's video intro.
Radio coverage is what it is. ISP has tried to find a higher-power FM station, but no avail yet. All ACC football and basketball games are on XM, but they feature the home announcers, so no Wes Durham for road games. Still a very good thing, though. Also, night games are simulcast on WREK, with Wes and the usual ISP sports crew.

I've gotta say, I'm mad stoked about D-Rad as the new AD, and I am continually impressed with his performance and attitude. He interacts directly with the fans through the Good Word and via email. He appears on TV and talks to the press. And one thing that I like is that he looks at GT athletics as a business, and discusses it as such. Sports are our product, and we have customers, not "just" fans.

Radakovich sees that we need to create a good experience overall, as well as field competitive teams. The AA has stuggled for years to develop a solid "sidewalk" fanbase, and hopefully Radakovich can get some wheels turning on that. (Yes, Atlanta is hindered by being a pro sports town, and by the fact that many Atlantans are transplants with existing college allegiances, but those are excuses. BDS should sell out hella more often.)

I didn't have a particular opinion during the AD search, because I knew little about the candidates. With the power of hindsight, though, I certainly think the search committee found the right man for the job. Not a lot to base it on yet, but I don't imagine D-Rad ever being seen as a bad choice.

386 Rundown

2006-08-03T14:43:00.000-04:00

If you "get" the post title, then you're a nerd, GT alum or not. (In my own defense, yes I'm kind of a nerd, but I wouldn't have noticed today's "event" if not for a Slashdot post.)

The EDSBS crew will (tentatively) be tailgating for the GT/Notre Dame game. Although we at IDWT celebrate this, McKinley and I will doubtless own their tailgate by following our own 'gating advice. Unless they also follow our advice and one-up it, in which case their 'gate will own us worse than their blog owns ours.

Deadspin offers Four Tidbits on the ACC, including one about the GT/Clemson rivalry.

In a little pre-ACC/Big 10 Challenge ACC/Big 10 action, Tech basketball will face off against Purdue in the EA Sports Maui Invitational.

Some turkey over at the VPI student newspaper has a crappy ACC preview up. I insult his article partly out of spite, I admit, because he insults GT in it, but I really actually thought it was poor overall. Much better info available on many a college blog. And (since my focus is on Tech*), I have a particular problem with his prediction of GT going 6-6. First off, our team is overall much more mature than in 2005. The only area that's truly gotten "younger" is the secondary. Going downhill from last year is pretty doubtful. Secondly, even if you want to predict a mediocre season from Tech, Gailey has given no reason to expect anything but 7 wins (CGE).

*I have no problem saying "Tech" referring to GT in the context of the ACC, since "Virginia Tech" is a "Polytechnical Institute", whereas Tech is an "Institute of Technology." GT is Tech and VPI is Polytech.

Tailgating Flag Pole

2006-08-02T16:22:00.000-04:00

In a continuing series of "build your own" GT football things, I present to you, the do it yourself tailgate flag pole. Any hardcore fan knows that you're not SHIT unless your 'gate has this. Its important to let everyone know where you are, that America rocks, Georgia Tech (or whatever team you like) demands respect, and what your favorite beer is. The problem is, they are fairly expensive and/or sucky. This being the case, I took it upon myself to design a -fairly- decent pole you can build and use at your tailgate for 30 bucks and only an hour or so of building. The weakest part of this flag pole, I believe, will be the joints. I didnt build one yet, but I designed it up and think it should work pretty good.

Lets get started...

A flag pole needs to be high so that it catches the wind, and makes it easier to see from a distance. Therefore your flagpole should be a good 20 ft. high. For this, you can buy two 1/2" conduit pipes at Home Depot for $2.00 each. I tested them for flexibility, and have to say they seemed nice and sturdy, even when you link two together.

Portability is a major issue when it comes to designing a usable flag pole. Commercial poles are telescoping, which is nice, but not necessary. It's up to you, but I would cut the two pipes into at least two 5 foot sections (four sections total), depending upon how large the trunk of your car is. To connect the pipes sections together, I searched around, and decided that what you see below would be the easiest way to put up and take down the pole. I still don't like it though, and would welcome suggestions on alternatives. As you can see, a five pack was $1.75.

Anchoring the pole into the ground is another consideration. The method you choose will depend on where you use your new flag pole. If you are in a parking lot with just a car, I think lashing it to a rearview mirror with a bungee cord that has plastic hooks would work just fine. If you have a tent, lash it to that. If you are on soft ground, staking it to the ground with some rope and some make-shift stakes would be the best bet. Attach the rope by drilling two holes in the pipe about halfway up and all the way through. Two 30 ft. pieces of rope and put each halfway through. Now you have four 15 ft sections of rope. Remeber to drill one hole higher than the other to avoid weakening the pipe. The stakes are makeshift merchandise display hooks you can buy.

"Did somebody say STAKE?"

If you drill your holes at say 11 ft. this will ensure the top half of your flagpole stays put. As an added assurance that the bottom won't fall, get a solid metal rod, and shove that halfway into the ground, putting the flag pole over it.

Attaching the flag or flags: Buy two screw eye hooks and put one almost at the top of the highest pole by drilling a hole and then bolting it on, and attach the second one closer to the ground at about four feet high. (Be smart about this, and drill your hole so that it wont interfere with your stake ropes) This is how you will lower and raise your flags. To attach the flags to the pole get yourself a piece of rope that is at least 20-25 ft long.

Take that length of rope, and tie a snap hook on about 1 ft from the end. You will use this to hold the top of your flag. Figure out how long your flag is and tie the second snap hook this distance away from the first snap hook on the long end of the rope. If you plan to fly a second flag below the top flag, just get more snap hooks and do the same thing.

Putting it together at the tailgate:

First you'll want to put together your lengths of tube, making sure the two eye hooks are lined up. The ropes for the stakes can already be strung through and the stakes attached to the ropes. Tie the flag rope to the top screw eye first, then pull it fairly taught and tie it to the bottom screw eye. If you are using it, push the foundation rod into the ground, and slip the flag pole over it. Now just push the stakes into the ground and, as usual, enjoy liberally.

The final cost based on the prices I saw today was:
Pole - $4
Pipe couplers - $1.75
Rope - $5.50
Eyehooks - $4(aprox)
Snap hook - $8 if you have two flags
Stakes - $2.50
Foudation rod - $3.50

Total maximum cost: $29

I hope to have one of these up for the ND game, and if I do, I will take pics and post them on the blog.

You can get an American flag at Home depot for 10 dollars (I'm sure just about anywhere else as well). And GT flags can be found at tailgater's alley I presume, or on the web by searching for em. They cost about 30-35 dollars. I was doing some searching, and you can get all kinds of other cool flags as well including beer brands, beer mug flags, jolly rodgers, ect.

Please feel free to improve upon the design or ask questions if you have no idea wtf I was talking about in my directions.

Wednesday Morning Rundown

2006-08-02T09:17:00.000-04:00

First off, the links I ~~stole~~ got from Wreck Ramblin'.

SouthernCollegeSports.com has a pretty good ACC preview. Their project record for Tech is 8-4 (6-2 ACC, 2nd in Coastal). What's interesting is they have no "projected losses" for GT, only projected wins and toss-ups. Toss-ups include ND, VT, Clemson, UM, UGA.
You can now buy tix to the 2006 Dr. Pepper ACC Championship Game. $80 lower level, $60 upper level, $20 for a parking pass.

I don't usually use sponsor names when referencing bowl/championship games, but I like DP.

The Heisman Pundit did a little review of the oddsmakers' lines for the Heisman. This tidbit made me laugh out loud (unfortunately):

Reggie Ball (Georgia Tech) 75/1
Good Lord, he should not be anywhere near this list.

Rivals offers a breakdown of the ACC, with projected standings (GT #3 Coastal, Miami over FSU in the champ game. These guys are really making some amazing claims there) and such categories as Best O. Coordinator, Impact Newcomer, etc. CJ is listed as the best offensive player.

Mr. A at Pitch Right, a sweet Navy blog, has an interesting "analysis" of D1A teams, compared by home state. (I put analysis in quotes because, as someone whose college major was like half statistical analysis, this was simply not. Although he directly admits, "I abhor the mathematics community.")

The Sunday Morning Quarterback promotes some book/magazine thing he wrote for, which he describes as "a wonky contribution to the towering typhoon of Notre Dame hype set to crescendo over the coming month in anticipation of ND's inevitably underwhelming, eke-it-out victory at Georgia Tech on Sept. 2." I will doubtless not buy this piece of crap, but it's cool to see a CFB blogger getting enough respect that a legiti-mate publication would include their stuff.

Georgia Tech is still a top producer of minority engineers (specifically, in this case, #1 in African-American Masters recipients). Although I'm a paleface, I take a good bit of pride in GT's commitment to minority education. We're always among the top producers of hispanic and black engineers (women, too), and when you consider that engineering schools tend to be bastions of whiteness, as do schools from the Old South, it's a pretty cool thing to have a lot of minority students.

Eye of the Tiger

2006-08-01T22:24:00.000-04:00

The 2006 Football Wallpapers are out, assumedly just versions of the posters as usual. Looks like we're trying to show Notre Dame's Tommy Z he's not the only boxer. (Not that I think that's a good idea, based on his match at MSG.) HT: jdubjacket on the Hive

I like the golden gloves on CJ.

"Jamie's Mailbag" on scout.com talks about Tech recruiting and our chance to be a surprise team of the ACC.

The Macon Telegraph discusses Tech's strong recruiting class. HT: Goldtimer

Brief overview of 2006 Tech football from a gambling site, Eye On Gambling.

This would suck like wo. A bunch of GT freshman this fall will be living 3 to a dorm room... and those are NOT big rooms.

Tuesday Morning Rundown

2006-08-01T09:22:00.000-04:00

As usual, GoldTimer is your go-to guy for GT linkage, and he brings us these gems:

Just College Football has a poll about the hottest week one game. GT/ND is ahead with 50% of the vote.
Preseason practice begins Thursday at Rose Bowl Field. Full schedule on the link. Open to the public for two weeks. (I doubt you're officially "allowed to," but they don't do anything if you bring a small cooler of beer. Coach Tenuta actually gave us props for bringing booze.)
Someone actually picked Georgia Tech to win the Coastal Division! Now, I of course believe we will since I wear my white & gold glasses constantly, but I didn't expect any publications to make this prediction. Here is the News & Observer's detailed predictions for GT (losses to ND, Miami, and Clemson).

There's been an interesting discussion lately at the Dawg blawgs about Georgia Tech vs. Notre Dame; I recommend you read all the following links. I tend to disagree with the convictions of Bulldogs, but I've got nothing but respect for the quality of blogging that comes from UGA... but then, they have a journalism school, whereas I'm thankful I can even write English after graduating from Tech. (The Institute will leave you fluent in equations but hardly literate in prose.)

First, Paul Westerdawg said that as a Dawg fan, you must root for Notre Dame.
Kyle King Countered that Georgia folk should root for Tech, as it would "hurt the Golden Domers without helping the Ramblin' Wreck."
Paul offered a... rebuttal, I guess.
tKK then offered an EXTENSIVE discussion of why it's okay for a Georgia man to occasionally root for the Jackets.
Finally, the King brought back an old post about why the Irish must be destroyed.

Now, there's an urgent matter in the blogosphere. EveryDayShouldBeSaturday, one of the premier college football blogs out there, threatens to be eating by the Nothing. And much like Bastian leading Atreyu on his quest through Fantasia, YOU have the power to save EDSBS.

Luck Dragon Optional

Okay, what that really means is that EDSBS gets a wicked lot of hits every day, and they need to get a dedicated server, which requires money. If you can donate 10 or 20 bucks, it will help keep the site alive.

IDWT Exclusive Info!

2006-07-31T09:20:00.000-04:00

Once again, InDoddWeTrust has scooped all the major publications to bring hot info to YOU, dear reader.

A member of the IDWT i-Team* went straight to the source** to get an exclusive*** prediction for this coming football season. According to our team insider, Georgia Tech is going to beat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish by a score of 38-17, by throwing to Calvin "about 50 times."
*My Dad
**Happened to run into a player at the airport
***Available to anyone who runs into this player in Buckhead

A member of the IDWT i-Team, circa 1932.

Yes, brothers and sisters, this is info you will not find anywhere else! Keep coming back and let us prove "In Dodd You Can Trust™!"

Sunday Evening News Bytes

2006-07-30T22:53:00.000-04:00

Couple quick hits to cap off the week.

If you have Comcast, tune in Wednesday night as SportsNite begins their ACC previews with Georgia Tech. Show airs at 6 & 11PM.

Pete Fiutak at CFN interviews Calvin Johnson. Nothing particularly "new" here, but worth the read.

Here Come The BOOM!

2006-07-29T17:37:00.000-04:00

TML. Five weeks.

Go 'Dores!

2006-07-29T16:50:00.000-04:00

This demanded my, and your, immediate attention. The M Zone, courtesy of Bruins Nation, brings us this snapshot of Vanderbilt's ultra-classy Kappa Alpha Thetas.

The best thing about girls at Vandy is that they're rich so they can afford blow.

I guess I'll throw out a "my bad" for not road tripping to Nashvegas for the GT game in 2003.

Preseason Depth Chart

2006-07-28T19:39:00.000-04:00

Posted over at the Hive: Preseason Depth Chart.

Only thing particularly unexpected is Jahi Word-Daniels at #2 cornerback.

GT News Bits: Blue Jerseys and Replay

2006-07-28T18:58:00.000-04:00

Okay, our pull at the GTAA is now entirely undeniable. Word on the Hive is, GT will be wearing blue jerseys against Notre Dame on September 2nd. Now, some website somewhere recently said that Tech should "play a game in some 1990 National Champions-style Navy Blue jerseys."

Shawn Jones. He's a BAMF.

The AJC has some quotes from ACC coaches about the new coach's challenge. The way the new rule works, the coach has to take a time out then tell an official he's challenging the play (i.e., no flag to throw). One of the interesting wrinkles here is that a coach can wait as long as possible before calling a TO so he can wait and see if the replay official has decided to review on his own.

IDWT Question of the Day

2006-07-28T09:50:00.000-04:00

One of the great things about kicking off the college football season against a cupcake is you can sandbag without overly risking a loss. Your boys get some in-game experience but you don't need to use trick plays or even fancy plays. This year, the Jackets have no such luxury.

Any new starters will have a trial by fire before getting to play any Samfords... or even any Dukes or UNCs. so, the Question of the Day is, How much do we put on the table versus Notre Dame?

Obviously we want to win this game. Beating a highly ranked team (especially one getting constantly fellated by ESPN) puts Tech straight onto the national radar, and also the momentum following a big victory would be huge. But how bad do we want to win the game? How much so we want to show our ACC opponents? Do we use all the wrinkles to our offense? Assumedly, there will be some changes after Pat Nix takes over, even if we're running the same general system.

How much trickeration do we employ? Does Reggie bolt to the slot and Choice throw the ball? Do we give CJ the ball on a reverse? Do we run the oopty oop?

Coach Kilmer was angry and jealous when Mox invented the best. play. ever.

Will we need trickeration? Notre Dame's secondary is a weakness, and maybe all we'll need are slants to CJ. But even if our base offensive plan is effective, should we employ some fancy shit just to look good and get the crowd into it?

I have no clue on this, just trying to spark some discussion... Okay, I admit it, I made a long post with the sole purpose of mentioning the oopty oop.

Pocket Roster Mania

2006-07-27T17:15:00.000-04:00

Today is a grand day for Georgia Tech football fans. No longer will you ask "who just made that play? I didn't see his name, it was 37 though." A new era starts today, folks. You will experience the rush of knowing that it was Joe Gaston, a 5'11" 195lb. safety. You will know this because you have your trusty...

2006
Georgia Tech

Pocket Roster

Presented By:
In Dodd We Trust

To make your very own roster, all you need to do is download this PDF and follow a few simple steps.

Find a piece of cardstock, as this will give your roster durability and a nice gold color. Plain white paper will do, however, if you somehow can't raid the supplies closet at work.
Now, print page one only.
Then, flip the paper over, and print page two only. If you are a fancy pants know-it-all, feel free to just print on both sides at once.
Find some scissors, or since you'll be doing this some afternoon while at work, go full out and use the paper cutting board.
Now just fold your roster into thirds and enjoy liberally.

Sadly, I cannot claim invention of the pocket roster. That honor goes to Jeff. I think this roster has his "just print it out on a sheet of paper and fold it up" method beat on looks, usability, and just plain hardcoreness. You aren't a real fan unless you have one of these rosters. Now go, make your roster.

Requiem for a Conference Affiliation

2006-07-27T13:44:00.000-04:00

First off, welcome to McKinley, my freshman year roommate and buddy ever since. He's posted an elite tailgating guide for young alumni. You'll notice his posts have a pretty different "tone" than mine; hopefully the diversity will improve IDWT.

Kyle King had a small mention of GT in a recent post, the gist of which was "Tech considers UGA its sole main rival, rather than one of many." This is admittedly true, and got me thinking.

Although obviously one big rival is better than none (and not all teams have any), Georgia Tech used to have several heated rivalries, which have mostly died out. When/Why? Because in 1963 Georgia Tech left the Southeastern Conference, and because in 1978 the Institute affiliated with the Atlantic Coast Conference.

(And now I'll digress a moment to explain why Georgia Tech left the SEC, because most of the crap on the Internet about it is just that: crap. The highly condensed version is, Bobby Dodd removed us from the conference because (1) he thought we could be a successfuk independent, like Notre Dame, and (2) because the SEC had imposed scholarship limitations. Most coaches didn't care about the scholly limits, but Dodd refused to remove injured or out-of-eligibility players from scholarship, as he insisted the boys continue their education (he never graduated from the University of Tennessee, and wanted to see his players graduate). A few years later Tech tried to rejoin the SEC but Bear Bryant was unwilling to convince the Bama president to vote in favor of Tech. After this rebuff, Tech joined the ACC.)

Within the SEC, Tech had any number of rivals. We hated Auburn, they hated us. We hated Bama, they hated us (we're even in their fight song). Tennessee. Georgia (obviously). Vandy and Florida were good series. And the schools further west (e.g. Ole Miss, LSU) hated us because we never wanted to play there. In fact, Tech has never played in Oxford, MS (but will for the first time in 2011. Grove 'gating, here I come!)

After leaving the Southeastern Conference, which Georgia Tech helped found, Tech kept up the series with many schools for a good while. As an independent, Tech could pick and choose a full season's worth of games, typically heavy with SEC teams.

After joining the ACC however, playing a full conference slate along with several SEC games each year was impossible, especially if Tech wanted to ever schedule a cupcake or a good cross-sectional matchup.

Therefore, our old rivalries had to die. Why haven't we developed any strong ACC rivals? There are several reasons, in my opinion.

History. Although Tech had played most ACC teams before joining the conference, there wasn't enough history. Familiarity breeds contempt, and the programs were simply unfamiliar.
Also, with most of Georgia Tech's old SEC rivals, there were cool stories about them; i.e. the Auburn students greasing the tracks in 1892 so that Tech's players had to walk back to town. With new opponents, there's just no cool old stuff.
Proximity. SEC schools were (and still are) much closer to Tech, on average, than ACC schools. The closer an away game, the more fans will go, the better the gameday atmosphere will be.
Attitude. The ACC was a basketball conference. Still is to an extent, and the fans of many ACC schools don't care much about football. Overall, the conference's fans lack the passion for the Great Southern Game which you see from SEC fans. Without fans getting rowdy, rivalries tend not to grow.
Quality of Football. Fans tend to hate their opponents more when they're successful; no one wants to piss on a perennial underdog. And the ACC has not seen nearly the historic success of the SEC. The only teams to have won a national championship while in the ACC are Maryland in 1953, Clemson in '81, Georgia Tech in '90, and Florida State in '93 and '99. I have no clue how many SEC members won titles, but I know it's damn high.

Even based on these criteria, you'd think that Clemson would be a big-time rival. Honestly, I don't know why it's not a bigger rival in the eyes of fans. Certainly playing the Tigers is always big for the team itself, and those ball games tend to run pretty close. I feel that if we or Clemson got on a hot streak (i.e. several years of ACC championship contention, with an actual championship or two in there), the series might blow up a bit in the eyes of fans. One problem is that Tiger fans put about as much effort into hating USC as Tech fans put into hating Georgia.

So, in conclusion, I think it's a shame we had to lose a bunch of good rivals. I'm not upset we're not in the SEC, but I would like to see our school develop some passion in its ACC rivalries so that football season can be all the more exciting.

A Gameday Guide for New Alumni

2006-07-26T23:40:00.000-04:00

For my first post, I would like to start with absolute frivolity. Jeff has decided that I am worthy enough to post, so I figured Id start with a topic near and dear to my heart.

The first football game you attend after graduating is certainly different than all the rest. You aren't a student, but you still don't really feel like one of those old alumni either. What's a boy to do? Below I cover the basics. From gettin laid to gettin drunk, and advice on staying classy in between.

Firstly, you're probably asking yourself: "I've been putting in a lot of hours at my dogshit job far away from my friends and family. I havent gotten laid in a while, and geez, I'd really like to. Is it creepy if I try for college girls?"

I am here to tell you, young lad, the answer is emphatically NO. You must realize that you have two aces up your sleeve that you may not even have recognized.

First off, you are in town for the weekend, so if a girl hooks up with you, there won't be any fallout from her being afraid of you stalking her, seeing you all the time at bars, and rumors circulating between common friends. You are freed from the very factors that routinely cause potential intercourse to turn into a botched handjob. Live the dream on me kids. Make sure all the girls know you graduated and are only in town for the weekend.

To a lesser extent, you being graduated and her in college is akin to the often seen "highschool-girl college-guy hes so mature" circumstance. It's important that if you plan to play this card, you're going to have to make up bullshit about golfing with the CEO, and flying all over the country. Skip any chitchat about the grueling thankless work you did at the Red Roof Airport North in Cincinatti two weeks ago. You want her to wish it was happening to her. Then, my young friend, you are wanted by association. That hotel bar you went to every night for a week suddenly becomes the VIP section of a hip nightclub.

Id like you also to realize that trying for hot young alumni will be futile, at best, since these girls aren't looking for you, but the dudes five years older making three times what you make. Sorry, that's just the way it is. Be happy to know that in time, however, you will partake in this bounty.

No Strings Attached. HT: SouthernFriedFootball

Now that you know you're going to get laid, you can move one step higher on the heirarchy of gameday needs, and plan your tailgating.

Let me put this in plain English right now. Even though you don't make much money now, you are still more rich than you will be after you get married, have a kid, own a house, and have worry about alll that other financial bullshit. Right now you should be able to pony up the money for a decent keg. Don't be dicking around with Bud Light, what's the point. Get your favorite beer, its only an extra thirty bucks. Trust me on this, and don't chintz out on the beer. Same goes for liqour, dont get Olde Crowe if you normally do, get Makers Mark.

INDWT Recommends a keg of 420

It is important, now that you are alumni, to start tailgating on your own. You don't live at home with your parents, so you shouldn't be tailgating with them, or bumming off other people's tailgates, any longer. Like I said, buy your capital equipment (tents, grills, chairs) NOW while you have extra dough to piss away on frivilous shit. Get stuff that will last you ten years. This way, a $200 grill works out to about 4-5 dollars a game including the gas.

Weber Genesis B: Three Burners, American Made.

Game time comportment.

Presuming you tailgated properly, you should be well lubricated by gametime. However you must realize that you do not get a free pass at cursing at refs and spilling mixed drinks all over the girl in front of you anymore. You are a member of society, and that behavior is no longer acceptable. Observation of this rule will allow you to enjoy mingling with the older alums, which is important for when you get laid off next summer due to budget cuts in your department, as well as the drunken sorority girls stumbling around in their stilettos(HT: AJC/EDSBS).

Post game entertainment and socializing.

Since you are new alumni you'd sure like to know, what to do after the game. "Would I look like a douche if I went to one of the college bars?" If you are in a town like Athens, this isn't an issue because they are ALL college bars. In Atlanta, this a little different story. I will argue that you aren't a douche on game days. A random Thursday, and yeah, that's pushing it some. Like the section title implies, this is time to socialize and just kick back. As most people will still have many friends who are still students, you will necessarily be going to college bars in order to see everyone. Keep in mind, this ruling is only valid for young (first or second year out) alumni.

If you stick to my guide, that first game back after graduation should be one of the best games of your life.

Wednesday Morning News Bytes

2006-07-26T09:09:00.000-04:00

38 days, folks. Wallpaper posted on the Hive.

Lotta things goin' on, let's get to it.

I found other articles on these topics, but a writeup by Jerry Ratcliffefrom the Charlottesville, VA Daily Progress provides excellent commentary.

The ACC Champion is now guaranteed a slot in the Orange Bowl (unless they go to the BCS title game), much like the SEC Champ in the Sugar Bowl and Pac-10/Big 10 champs in the Rose Bowl. Previously, the Orange Bowl could choose from the Big East and ACC champs. The Big East champ still goes to the BCS, but it's indeterminate which bowl game. (Other coverage; also discusses bowl order rearrangement.)
ACC commish John Swofford also spent time talking up Jacksonville. The ACC has until December to excercise a two-more-year option for the game in Jax, and it sounds like that's where it's going.
Ratcliffe describes all this as moves by the ACC to claim Florida as its own, and steal the state's focus on the SEC & the Gators.
The ACC and the Atlanta Sports Council are considering adding a bowl game. By hosting the Sugar Bowl to much success, the ATL proved to itself and to the conferences that it could be a two-bowl town.

The ACC will change up the Labor Day teams starting in '07. Since Miami joined the league, FSU and Miami have played on Labor Day, but after this year the ACC will place a different game in that slot. (My call? They started doing this so that the conference's "marquee teams" could regain rankings throughout the season, and also be set up for a rematch in the championship game. Since that isn't happening, what with there being 10 other teams in the league, they decided to scrap the plan.)

ACC Coaches comment on replay, specifically the new coach's challenge.

Following the effects of hurricanes (real ones, not Miami) on schedules, the ACC has a new inclement weather policy. Several options:

Play the game on a "similar date," e.g. Friday rather than Saturday.
Same site, different weekend.
Opponent hosts, or a neutral site. Revenue still goes to original host team.

The Sun Belt conference is looking to add a ninth team. Likely Western Kentucky, who already plays in the Sun Belt in most sports and is apparently considering going Division 1-A.

Another article about CJ, in the friggin Washington Post. Funny snippet:

Against Duke last season, Johnson recalled stepping to the line of scrimmage and being greeted by three defensive backs.
"I was kind of laughing to myself when I saw it," he said. "I was like, 'Three people, that leaves somebody wide open.' "

Duke Coach Ted Roof said he couldn't remember employing the triple-team, but added, "I wish we could put 12 on him."

Interesting to some, boring to others: historical piece about the advent of the forward pass.

Finally, the Daily Press admonishes the ACC for its crappy out-of-conference scheduling for '06. I think this guy entirely disgredards any home game; he oddly doesn't mention ND @ GT this year, yet emphasizes that 3 ACC teams play in South Bend next year. He also tried to discuss the quality of future ACC schedules, but nothing as in-depth as the coverage here.

Personal Dilemma

2006-07-26T08:26:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I got an invitation in the mail; my cousin's wife is throwing him a surprise 30th birthday party!--but it starts 30 minutes after the kickoff vs. Troy (1:30 kickoff, 2:00 party on Sep. 16th). I don't blame her for the scheduling "gaffe." The date of his birthday is uncontrollable, unlike, say, a wedding. Also, they're from New England, where college football isn't exactly the social lifeblood it is in the South.

But, this game is not televised. But, this game's attendance will already likely be weak, and I want as many seats filled as possible. But, I paid a pretty penny for my season tickets (which still seems weird immediately following years of free student attendance). But, this is one of only six opportunities for me to enjoy a home tailgate with all my bro's.

But, on the other hand, they came to my post-graduation party, which was nice. But, they're family. But, it's his 30th birthday.

Now, if I missed the party I think my cousin would understand, as we've had long discussions about my obsession with college football. And I could send a nice gift with my regrets, and he'd know I wanted to be there. But this is damn frustrating.

Expect your GT news bytes later today.

Cocky Johnson

2006-07-24T21:44:00.000-04:00

Insert water, receive TD.

Stewart Mandel from SI has a little Q&A with Calvin Johnson from the ACC Media Days. Can any defender stop him? Calvin says "Maybe if you told the guy I was running a go-route, and he stood about 40 yards downfield, then maybe he could stop me." That's some cocky stuff.

Be sure to read the comments section on Mandel's post. This Domer fan named Eli pointed out that, "Georgia Tech (including Johnson)has no chance against Notre Dame. Charlie Weis has had so long to prepare the team...he is not going to let us down. Go Irish!" I was confident about the game before, but now I'm really worried about the game. I did not realize just how long Chuck Weiss and the Irish had to prepare! I mean, the Yellow Jackets have been sitting around doing jack shit as far as preparation! WHO KNEW you were supposed to prepare as a team?! Dude, that is crazy shit. Georgia Tech truly does have no chance. Thanks for the heads up, Eli. (I'd like to point out, by the way, if you look at the E-man's blogger profile, his nonexistent blog's address is... read this... littlepinkgloves.blogspot.com... wow, you're a hardcore dude, dude.)

According to the ACC media, though, Johnson should be cocky (haha, get it? Johnson, cocky?). He received 50 out of 65 votes for ACC Player of the Year. And, per Columbia, SC's WLXT-TV, CJ is the first Junior since FSU's Charlie Ward in '92 to be named preseason MVP, and he is the first Jacket since Joe Hamilton in '99 to be so honored.

On the AJC's ACC blog, Calvin says he still plans to get a Tech degree, with the implication of doing so now rather than coming back in later years. He admits that he'll be re-evaluating at season's end, but hopefully he'll be one of those special/crazy/actually-somehow-academically-oriented-even-though-incredibly-gifted-athletically players who sticks around for a senior season despite high draft prospects.

I've invited my buddies Gabe and McKinley to post here, so there may be some new blood on IDWT as we approach & enter the season. Now the already stellar coverage you've come to expect may blow up into uncontrollable proportions of piss-poor "journalism."

Go Jackets!

Couple Positive Predictions for 2006 Season

2006-07-24T16:39:00.000-04:00

CFN, who tends to rate GT higher than most sites, predicts Georgia Tech will go 9-3 (6-2 ACC), and tie for 2nd in the Coastal Division with VaTech. They predict Miami over FSU in the Championship game.

Bruce Ciskie, Duluth, MN radio guy and blogger extraordinaire, predicts no specific record, but places Tech at #2 in the Coastal, behind Miami and ahead of VT. His final statement on Tech seems pretty dead-on:

It’s on Reggie Ball. If he improves, the offense will do better than the meager 18.5 points per game average of a year ago, and Tech will find themselves knocking on a Gator Bowl invite. Without improvement from Ball, Tech will be back in Orlando or some other bowl outpost before Christmas.

He also predicts Clemson to win the Atlantic Division, which you may know would hurt our (admittedly slim) chances at a national title.

ACC Media Days

2006-07-24T10:07:00.001-04:00

First, one bit of non-media day news. D.J. Donley, a big-time Wide Receiver from Charlton County, committed to the Yellow Jackets on Sunday. Our twelth commit, this makes by far Chan's biggest pre-season class (previous high of five preseason commits).

The ACC Media Days event started Sunday and goes through Tuesday, here's some linkage to news coverage:

Rivals asks "Who's Left?," that is, what big talent remains following the NFL draft, in which 51 ACC players were selected. Calvin Johnson is the only GT player mentioned.

They say that the non-FSU/UM/VT team with the best chance at the ACC is Clemson, "which arguably features the conference's best combination of talent and experience." I feel that Tech would have the best chance, if Reggie performed well. This should have been the #1 need on my "How can Georgia Tech win a championship in 2006?" post, but a Wake fan was kind enough to point out that I missed it.
Also related to the number of draft picks, The Pensacola New Journal argues that the ACC must be included in a "best conference" conversation, based on talent.
The Charleston Post & Courier describes the ACC race to top the Florida schools. Although they are clearly less impervious than they once were, FSU has still won 12 titles/co-titles since joining the ACC in 1992.
Several articles about Calvin "Turns Water Into Touchdowns" Johnson.
Fayetteville online: CJ says his advantage is his big, soft hands. Duke Corner John Talley says Johnson's size makes him great.
Rivals.com: Calvin played baseball as a young'n, before discovering football.
Charlotte Observer: Joe Anoai says God made a masterpiece in CJ. (Several other non-GT notes & quotes, too.)
Charlotte Observer: Article about Clemson's Chansi Stuckey, Stuckey describes CJ as the best ACC receiver not at Clemson.
AJC: Calvin is noted for his humbleness, as we've seen in the past.
Joe Anoai describes himself as "the Reggie Bush of" his youth league football team, where he played tailback.
Players still have no idea which ACC division they play for, Coastal or Atlantic.
The ACC should announce a new conference order on Tuesday, per ESPN. Likely order:
#1: BCS (Champ. Game winner)
#2: Peach Bowl, Atlanta (Chick-Fil-A will not be happy when they see an ESPN article not using their name for the bowl game)
#3: Gator Bowl, Jacksonville
#4: Champs Sports Bowl, Orlando
#5: Music City Bowl, Nashville
#6: Meineke Car Care Bowl, Charlotte
#7: Emerald Bowl, San Francisco
#8: MPC Computers Bowl, Boise

According to the article, the championship game loser can't fall below the Music City Bowl, and games may select "lower" ACC picks only if their record is 1 below the "best" available team, i.e. a game may select a 4-4 team over a 5-3, but not a 3-5 over a 5-3. This is how Tech and BC got hosed last year, with 3-5 UVa and NC State getting chosen before us.

"Oh, Yes, Sir. Bit me right in the butt-tocks."

2006-07-21T16:47:00.000-04:00

Miami Hurricanes backup safety Wille Cooper has been SHOT IN THE ASS. I don't even need to make jokes about this, it's as funny as it needs to be.

How can Georgia Tech win a championship in 2006?

2006-07-20T21:26:00.000-04:00

What needs to happen to get another glass football in Atlanta?
Photo from The New Georgia Encyclopedia

Tonight I pose the question, what would it take for the Yellow Jackets to win a championship in 2006? That is, beyond the obvious “Win the BCS Title game/ACC Championship game,” what things need to occur this season for Georgia Tech to make a title run? Whenever I refer to a record, it refers to that record or better.

1) A #2 receiver steps up
Without a legitimate target opposite Calvin Johnson, The Jackets will not win enough games for a championship. Chris Dunlap, Xavier McGuire, and James Johnson all have the ability to be “the” guy, and a solid set of four receivers lined up could really spread out the defense and allow solid option play (if Nix uses it much), and also get CJ open.

2) Tashard Choice picks up where PJ left off
As it says on YellowBlazer’s front page, Coach Gailey said Choice will “Make us forget all about P.J.” I think Tashard is poised for a breakout year. He was Adrian Peterson’s #2, and that’s nothing you can hate on a guy for. Rahaun Grant will offer a good change of pace with his shiftiness, and Jamaal Evans should get his share of carries, but the torch is Tashard’s to carry.

3) Go 11-1 (National Championship)
This speaks for itself. A two-loss team will not end up in the BCS title game, barring one of the weirdest seasons ever.

4) Beat Notre Dame (NC)
If Georgia Tech beats Notre Dame, the team is immediately on the national radar. Following a win over the Irish, I would predict a ranking of ~18-20 if most already-ranked teams win. If several lose, I could see as high as ~11-13.

Without a win over ND, I don’t see a shot at the national championship. Even while running the table from there out, only thoroughly decisive wins throughout the season would result in top two-level national prestige. And Georgia Tech has not been known for decisive wins lately (although much of this is from the high quality of the opponents).

5) Finish September 4-1 (NC) or 1-1 ACC (ACC)
If the Jackets lose one (and only one) game in September and win the ACC, they’ve got a shot at a BCS title game bid, assuming that there are not two undefeated BCS teams. Early-season losses can be made up if you run the table from there out. (However, I still feel, as said in (1) that without a win over the Irish, the Jackets are out of the NC hunt.)

As far as an ACC championship, if GT loses to both UVA and UNC, it’s doubtful that they’ll be able to win the division and go to the ACC championship game.

6) Beat every North Carolina School (NC or ACC)
Chances are good that if Tech loses an ACC game, it will be to Miami, Virginia Tech, or Clemson. The chances of losing only once ACC game and it being to UNC, NC State or Duke are pretty low. The chances of losing one to a N. Carolina school and no one else at all are even slimmer.

7) No inexplicable losses (NC or ACC)
This is pretty much a way to rephrase number 6, but I feel it’s worth saying.

8) Clemson does not win the Atlantic Division (NC)
Having two wins over the same team would hurt our strength of schedule, and I think keep us out of the BCS Title Game.

9) Beat Georgia (NC or ACC)
An end-of-season loss basically disqualifies any team from a national championship game berth. Why do I say we need to beat Georgia to win the ACC? We would need the momentum. Whatever team wins the Atlantic Division, chances are they will have a bit of the big Mo’.

10) The ACC has a strong year (NC)
If there aren’t any one-loss teams in the ACC, it’s doubtful the ACC Champion will have enough street cred to go to the Title Game. And even if we got shafted out of the Title Game but ran the table, I don’t expect the same love-fest than Southern Cal got in ’03. Without season-long hype (which is actually slightly possible following a whooping of ND), the AP voters will not rank Tech above the BCS champ.

Those are my contentions. Where am I right or wrong? Are these too superficial/obvious to mean anything? Post your thoughts in the comments section.

CFN "Fantasy Rankings"

2006-07-20T11:58:00.000-04:00

Collegefootballnews.com is running a cool little feature on projected position rankings for each conference, based on "fantasy football and statistical projections." Positions scored as follows:

Passing:
- 3 points per TD pass.
- 1 point per every 50 yards passing.
- 1 point per every two-point-conversion pass.

Rushing: (keep in mind this applies to QBs too)
- 6 points per TD
- 3 points per every 50 yards rushing
- 2 points per every two-point-conversion

Receiving: (keep in mind this applies to RBs too)
- 6 points per TD
- 3 points per every 50 yards receiving
- 2 points per every two-point-conversion

Kicking:
- 1 point per extra point, 3 points per field goal

Here's how GT did in the ACC list:

QBs, #3 Reggie Ball behing Drew Weatherford (FSU) and Kyle Wright (Miami)
List of 10.

RBs, #4 Tashard Choice & #14 Rashaun Grant
Only Virginia Tech and BC also had two players on the list of 15.

Receivers, #2 Calvin Johnson
CJ was our only player on this list of 15 (plus two tight ends). FSU, Miami, VT, and Virginia each had multiple receivers listed.

Kickers, #8 Travis Bell
Maybe he'd have placed higher if he spent a little less time at Moondogs. List of 10.

Top 20 ACC Fantasy Prospects (I'll give the full list.)
1. RB Tyrone Moss, Miami
2. RB Micah Andrews, Wake Forest
3. RB James Davis, Clemson
4. RB Lance Ball, Maryland
5. RB Tashard Choice, Georgia Tech
6. QB Drew Weatherford, Florida State
7. RB Lorenzo Booker, Florida State
8. RB Andre Brown, NC State
9. RB Ronnie McGill, North Carolina
10.QB Kyle Wright, Miami
11. WR Greg Carr, Florida State
12. WR Calvin Johnson, Georgia Tech
13. QB Reggie Ball, Georgia Tech
14. QB Will Proctor, Clemson
15. WR Chansi Stuckey, Clemson
16. RB Jason Snelling, Virginia
17. RB Branden Ore, Virginia Tech
18. QB Matt Ryan, Boston College
19. QB Sean Glennon, Virginia Tech
20. WR Deyon Williams, Virginia

They didn't really explain the justification for this list, but whatever.

Thursday Morning Catch-up

2006-07-20T09:24:00.000-04:00

Let's get you up to date.

Per the GT Sports Blog, The Jackets have ANOTHER 4-star recruit! Jacoby Monroe, from Jacksonville, FL, is a 6-2, 280 lb defensive tackle who squats 850 yet rcan run a 4.6 40. That kind of speed can be very disruptive against opposing QBs. I'm no expert, but I could see a guy like this moving to defensive end.

According to that article from jacksonville.com, Monroe had a disciplinary issue that had him in an alternative school. I see this as more a positive than a liability, because it sounds like the young man came back to school re-focused; hopefully he learned his lesson.

Another big note from the article; we out-recruited FSU, Miami, AND Florida for this guy. Getting a star recruit from Florida over ALL the big FL schools is no small feat. Our recruiting is just stellar right now.
Duke's HC Ted Roof, former Tech linebacker, has suspended starting quarterback Zack Asack for the season. This was in response to (assumedly academic) plagiarism. Props to Coach Roof for not tolerating academic misconduct by his players. I know we ACC fans have a reputation of being very haughty about academic prestige, but I dig the fact that Duke apparently isn't a sweep-it-under-the-rug/let-athletes-get-away-with-crap kinda place... But then, in a non-Duke lacrosse, non-Auburn scandal atmosphere, maybe it would've been swept under the rug.
Speaking of the Auburn scandal, Carter Strickland from the AJC writes about the aftermath of whistle-blowing. Linda Bensel-Meyers, Tennessee's recent whistle-blower, apparently had her life pretty much ruined, as well as her families'. The tutor at Minnesota who admitted to writing hundreds of papers for players "had no known history of heart problems, [yet] underwent quadruple-bypass surgery. Depression, illness and stress followed [her] until her 2005 death."

I understand fans getting pissed, and maybe writing an angry email, but the way people get treated for acting with integrity is deplorable. Based on the stories of other whistle-blowers, I hope professor Gundlach moves for his own sake. Otherwise I think his existence will just be crappy, regardless of how much he may like the town. Or, hopefully Auburn's fans won't be jerks... but I wouldn't keep my hopes up.

NCAA07: Xbox 360 vs. PS2/Xbox Comparison

2006-07-19T11:21:00.000-04:00

First, one quick hit: Tech has sold out of season tix. Although it seems a lot of these were purchased by assorted folks after just ND or Miami tickets, hopefully someone will be using the rest of their tickets, and hopefully they'll root for the Jackets. (HT: Wreck Ramblin')

I've been spending some time trying to find out the differences between the PS2 and 360 versions of NCAA07. I got a 360 the other day mainly for '07, and then started seeing reports that it was crappy compared to the previous-gen systems. So, I did some research, and it seems the bottom-line is NCAA on 360 is just football and a bare-bones Dynasty mode (which does include recruiting), but is very pretty and has some improvements to the gameplay. PS2/Xbox has more modes and more bells & whistles. Thankfully for me, I don't really care about all the extra crap, so I can get the prettier game and be happy. All I ever do is play games w/ my buddies and run a Dynasty.

Here's a synopsis of the specific differences I've learned. The Xbox 360 has:

Better man-to-man pass defense.
WRs with good hands.
Better blocking on screens and draws.
Minimal ESPN "integration."
No pre- and post-game on-field stuff, i.e. players warming up or celebrating. Also no in-game shots of the cheerleaders, mascot, band.
No spring game or spring drills.
No "Campus Legend" (formerly Race for the Heisman) Mode.
One camera angle (!?)
Amazing-looking stadiums.
Realistic (and apparently, immersive) crowd.
Lots of new animations.
Expanded playbooks, but NOT the team-specific ones in the current-gen games. (seems very odd, how hard is it to port the dang playbooks?)
New play-calling interface (used it on the demo from Xbox Live; very nice).
No discipline system in the dynasties.

Two blogs where I got most of this info: The Blog for the Sports Gamer and Dubious Quality.

Offseason Survival Material

2006-07-18T09:49:00.000-04:00

Well, I bought an Xbox 360 on Friday, specifically for the purpose of playing the next-gen version of NCAA Football 07--which comes out today and will get me through the off-season without killing myself, but unfortunately I can't afford the game till my next paycheck. NOOOOO!

Calvin Johnson is the #1 WR in NCAA07, with a 98 overall rating.
(Image courtesy IGN)

Thankfully, there's another great offseason distraction: the blogosphere! (and Fight Night Round 3 on my 360.) There's a lot of strong discussion going on right now, and I encourage y'all to read up.

Everyone's favorite bulldog (oxymoron alert!!! haha I am on top of my game!) Kyle King discusses the value of a defensive battle, in response to a strange contention by CFR that low-scoring (e.g. 6-3) games result in a loss for BOTH teams. (Read the rest of that CFR piece, though; it's good.)

Speaking of CFR, he and Peter from Burnt Orange Nation have a point-counterpoint about preseason rankings; specifically, they discuss whether they should try to predict post-season ranks, or identify the "best," i.e. most talented, teams. Peter makes the foolish statement about UGA "by the time they beat Georgia Tech," which I really do think is questionable this year. The last two years the Jackets have played the 'Dawgs awful close (13-19 & 7-14), especially considering the Bulldogs were clearly the more talented team. Much like the rest of the season, I think a win (or loss) over the Bulldogs falls to whether Reggie has turned the corner.

Also, not in the b'sphere, but scout.com has their GT preview up. They predict and 8-4 finish (6-2 ACC)

Finally, I'd like to thank people who actually read my blog. I'm not big on pat-myself-on-the-back stuff, but I feel like this is becoming a legitimate resource for Tech fans, and also a reasonable contribution to the blogosphere. I've been getting around 50-60 hits a day (which is I'm sure laughable to big blogs), and getting linked by a couple of the more legit blogs I know. So, to anyone helping make this blog a success, thanks!

Post-Weekend Catch-Up

2006-07-17T12:38:00.000-04:00

A LOT happened this weekend, mainly on the recruiting front. I'll catch you up on that this afternoon. Here's some other snippets:

GT's football team is doing yoga. Why is this news-worthy? Cause it's with DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE, BABY!

No longer content to drop the Diamond Cutter on nWo members,

DDP must now teach yoga... like, non-pansy yoga.

Atlanta's #1 college football writer, Tony Barnhart, has 10 questions for the upcoming season. He mentions Tech a few times, and it's hard to say how much is "please the readers" homer-ism. He comments "Notre Dame will be fortunate to win at Georgia Tech on Sept. 2," and mentions Calvin Johnsons in a Heisman discussion. I agree with him that CJ "is as good as any of" the Heisman front-runners, but disagree with the follow-up "He just needs to get more touches." It is nearly impossible for a pure wide receiver to win the Heisman. I doubt Reggie could get CJ the ball enough to get him high in the Heisman voting.

Barnhart also took some time out to sit down with College Gameday co-host Lee Corso, to get a few predictions for the season. He reveals Gameday will be 2 hours (up from 90 min.), and claims the Jackets have a good chance to beat Notre Dame if they:

"Spend the summer figuring out how to get Calvin Johnson the ball in the Notre Dame secondary. He is the best wide receiver in college football — period.
Keep leaning on Jon Tenuta, who is one of the best defensive coordinators I've ever seen. I don't know what they are paying him, but it ain't enough."

Terence Moore has a column about the '78 Notre Dame game at Historic Grant Field, and the ugly fish- and liquor-bottle throwing--that was really quite deplorable--by the Tech fans. I had a brief comment exchange about it on the Georgia Sports Blog.

Former Tech wide receiver standout Kerry Watkins is experiencing solid success in the CFL.

Naughty, Naughty Tigers!

2006-07-14T16:13:00.000-04:00

An artist's depiction of Prof. Petee's students

So, apparently some professor at Auburn was all like, "Them athulete boyas don' need to be hurtin they brains wif schoolwork!" so he gave them A's and B's for "classes" that he "taught."

Other bloggers have done real good write-ups on it, so I'll just link you to them:
Georgia Sports Blog
College Football Resource
Also, here's the original write-up, from the New York Times.

"OMG It's Almost the Weekend!!" News

2006-07-14T12:46:00.000-04:00

Not a lot of Tech news today, but I feel like a quick update.

Realfootball365.com is giving some props to Georgia Tech, in an article discussing the Fighting Irish and their tough quest for a national title.

Larry Smith, a young QB from Alabama, attended GT's football camp recently and sounds pretty impressed. It looks like academics are big for this guy, 'cause he's also visiting Vandy and Purdue. I don't know anything about his quality as a player, but apparently Pat Nix was impressed.

ESPN has their 2007(!) Bracketology goin'. These a-holes say Tech will have a #10 seed in the San Antonio regional. I say F that! Everybody knows we're going to be seeded #7 in the St. Louis regional. Sometimes I wonder where ESPN gets these blockheads. (HT: BON)

Bill Curry, after not landing the Tech AD job, is now teaching at Baylor. No, not that Baylor, silly; The Baylor School in Chattanooga! (Choo choo!) Curry will be "teaching leadership," whatever that means, to high school kids.

An old rival of Tech's is (again) discussing bringing back football. Mercer's new president comes from the interim presidency at Baylor, and since they're such a football power (hahahahaha), this has again raised the idea of bringing back the football program. Before WWI, and then briefly before WWII, GT played Mercer with some frequency. In fact, Tech's first game was in Macon against Mercer.

One comment on the article, though. The writer says, "I hope the football question remains a sideshow," so as not to distract from "Dr. Underwood's intentions of raising Mercer's academic standing to 'national university' from 'regional university.'" I disagree that football would hurt these efforts, so long as academic programs receive strong attention. Nearly all "national" universities I can think of have football programs, and even a D-III program would work to greatly increase a university's name recognition. Regardless of Emory's pride in not have football, featuring America's most popular sport does not hurt an institution's academic reputation (just ask Harvard, Stanford, and Yale).

Thursday News Bytes

2006-07-13T17:24:00.000-04:00

Short timeline:
Monday, 7/10/2006: InDoddWeTrust says Tech should wear some retro unis.
Thursday, 7/13/2006: The GTAA announces Tech will wear some retro unis.
Now, I suggested a '90s-style uni but they went with '70s, but there is no denying, I gots some MAD pull up in the athletic office. I just hope the "gold" jerseys don't look bad. Dudes on the Hive used to always say the old jerseys were mustard-colored. It'll be sweet to see GT wearing white hats, though. I don't know if that's even been done in my lifetime.

I posted earlier today about GT's need for a good new cheer.

Winkeljohn from the AJC interviews Coach Chan Gailey about giving up play-calling. This is the first time in Coach Gailey's career that his OC will call plays, and it sounds like CCG has no clue what it will be like if/when bad things happen 'cause of Nix.

Not related to football, but the University System of Georgia is restructing, and most university presidents will no longer report directly to the Chancellor. Clough, Michael Adams, and the presidents of GSU and MCG will now be the only presidents directly under Chancellor Erroll Davis. Previously, the heads of each 4- and 2-year public institution in GA reported to him. Sounds like a good, streamlining move.

According to Pat Dye, Memphis State, South Carolina, Florida State, Tulane, Georgia Tech, Navy, Southern Miss, and East Carolina (all then independent) considered starting a conference in the late '70s. (The article does not go in-depth into that possibility.)

Dudes on the SomethingAwful forums have totally gone off with Zidane headbutt animated GIFs. There's a lot of pages, but most of them have some funny stuff Here's a sampling of the hilarity.

We Need a Better Cheer

2006-07-13T15:50:00.000-04:00

I just started reading Warren St. John's book on fandom, Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, and it is such a good coolege football book, I may have to add it to my Books For the Tech Man series--Vol.1, Vol. 2--even though it's specifically about a team other than GT.

Something in the book reminded me of an old complaint of mine. St. John, when meeting, writing, agreeing with, or saying goobye to other Bama fans, uses the expression "Roll Tide." The term is almost as versatile as "Hooah" in the Army. A few schools have similar things, although usually less versatile than "Roll Tide." Auburn's got "War Eagle," Texas Tech fans have "Wreck 'em Tech" with the little pistol firing hand motion, and there's others.

Then, even schools without something so simple, most have a cheer that's ubiquitous and fun; Ole Miss's "Hotty Toddy," Clemson fans do their spelling thing, The Noles have the Chop, Dawg fans like to bark in public etc., etc. Where am I going with this? Georgia Tech doesn't really have anything.

Most fans will point out, "Sure we have something! The Good Word!*" But what bothers me is that the Good Word isn't even about Georgia Tech. I would like to express my love and devotion for the Jackets in a unique way (i.e., "Go Jackets" doesn't cut it) without having to bring up UGA or anyone else. Mind you, I like the Good Word, and think it's a fun thing, but it shouldn't be our ONLY thing.

*For anyone who doesn't know what the Good Word is: If one Tech fan asks another, "What's the Good Word?" the correct response is "To Hell with Georgia!" This is typically repeated three times, followed by "How 'bout them 'Dawgs?" "Piss on 'em!" (Photo by Chris Gooley)

It may be a bit unfair for me to complain about this, because I have no solution. I wasn't made to come up with clever or catchy phrases and cheers. Just saying "Ramblin Wreck" doesn't have any ring to it, and honestly, I have no idea how you can really start a new cheer/phrase in this day and age; it would take a lot of grassroots "campaigning," I guess.

ACC Future Schedules, Part II

2006-07-12T10:23:00.000-04:00

Miami
The Canes may have the most big-name games upcoming of all ACC teams,but that's no surprise. Miami plays several in-state games including away-home with UF in 2008/2013, FIU in '07, UCF home-away-home from '08-'10, and USF home-away in '12/'13 (presumably home again in '14).

Pretty much everything else is a respectable intersectional matchup. The smallest name is North Texas in 08, then there's Marshall home-away-home, Oklahoma away-home, Texas A&M home-away, Ohio State away-home, Kansas State home-away.

The U has games scheduled with schools from C-USA, the Big East, the Sun Belt, SEC, Big 10, and Big XII. That's every east coast conference, the definitive midwest conference, and the definitive central US conference. Every BCS conference but the Pac-10 is represented. This kind of national exposure is good not only for Miami but for the whole conference.

NC State
The Wolfpack has one of the least impressive future schedules in the ACC. There's a possibility this will improve soon, or that these websites have very incomplete data.

As of right now, State's best matchups in the future are Tennessee away-home in '08/'12, Louisville in '07, Pitt in '09/'13, Cinci in '10/'11, and UConn in 2007 and 2012. The only other games listed are the Citadel, William & Mary, and East Carolina in '07/'10/'13/'16. Other than Tennessee from the SEC and ECU from C-USA, the only I-A conference NC State is playing is the Big East. Although I give the Big East its due, that's poor scheduling in my opinion.

North Carolina
Between now and 2011, UNC will have played Rutgers four times. This isn't poor scheduling; the Tarheels and Knights were scheduled to play in '06/'08, but as a result of the Big East/ACC lawsuit, were required to play another series before 2012 (why they couldn't have these teams play different ACC/BE opponents, I have no clue).

NC has several small-time regional matches coming up, including two games w/ James Madison, one against the Citadel, four w/ East Carolina, one with William & Mary, and what should be an exciting home-away against USC in 2007/'10. Other exciting series are home-away series with Colorado in '08/'09, and Tennessee in '11/'12.

Virginia
One of the most interesting intersectional ACC matchups is UVA/Wyoming, in Charlottesville in 2006 and Laramie in '07. Virginia plays at Notre Dame in 2008 with apparently no home game in return. Other matchups are UConn home-away, Pitt, ECU, @MTSU, Richmond twice and William & Mary twice.

Virginia Tech
The Hokies' schedule is quite robust, with opponents from C-USA, the SEC, MAC, Big East, Big XII, and several from the Big 10. In 2007, VT plays East Carolina in Charlotte, at LSU, and hosts Ohio University and William & Mary.

Single-game opponents in the coming years include Bowling Green, Furman, Temple, Central Mich, Western Mich, and Appalachian State. Upcoming series include Nebraska, ECU, Syracuse, Marshall, Pittsburgh, Ohio State, Illinois, and Wisconsin. It seems VT is trying to get a lot of exposure in the midwest; guess they need a solid recruiting push. All those Big 10 matchups are exciting.

Wake Forest
The Demon Deacons have a respectable future schedule, with some pretty big name series. The Deacs play Nebraska, '07; Stanford, '09/'10; Ole Miss, '06/'08; Baylor, '08/'09; Navy, '07-'10, and round thngs out with games against Army, UConn, Northern Illinois, Tulane, Air Force, and Syracuse.

Recap
The Atlantic Coast Conference teams are, as a whole, doing some pretty damn good scheduling. Here's the breakdown of matchups by 1-A conference, with a few caveats. These numbers: start in 2007; exclude annual matchups (e.g., GT/UGA, Maryland/WVU, etc.); and are not consistent from team to team (i.e. some of the games referred to are as much as ten years away, while some teams list no games past 2008).

Big East: 32 games
SEC: 27
Ind*: 24
C-USA: 19
Big XII: 17
Sun Belt: 12
MAC: 12
Big 10: 11
Pac 10: 6
MWC: 6
WAC: 1
* Breakdown: Notre Dame 7, Navy 7, Army 6, Temple 1

This breakdown is better than I expected; I anticipated more Sun Belt/MAC games and fewer Big 10 and Big 12 games. The enormous Big East number is unsurprising, because many games are a result of the lawsuit, and the number of SEC games is natural because of both geographic co-location and historic rivalries.

Some of the few things I'd like to see changed are a few more neutral site games, just because they can be a fun change of pace, and a slight increase in the number of Pac-10 & WAC games played. The expenses for long-distance matchups are understandably high, but I'd think the expenditure should come back to you in recruiting exposure.

Update on Future Schedules

2006-07-11T20:47:00.000-04:00

Noticed something interesting; two of the best sites for cfb future schedules, College Football Palace and NationalChamps.net have info that doesn't quite jive for GT. According to CFB Palace, we've scheduled a home-away-home series with MTSU for 2010-'12, and according to NationalChamps, we play Vandy away then home in '09 and '13. Additionally, NC lists 3 games with Louisville, but CFBP only lists two.

Here is the composite future schedule from both sites (excluding the annual UGA game), but I can't confirm that all of this is accurate:

2007:
Army
Samford
at Notre Dame
2008:
Louisville
Jacksonville State
at Army
2009:
Jacksonville State
at Louisville
at Vanderbilt
2010:
Ole Miss
Middle Tennessee State
2011:
at Middle Tennessee State
at Ole Miss
Louisville
2012:
Middle Tennessee State
at Alabama
2013:
Vanderbilt
2014:
Alabama

Quick synopsis of ACC out-of-conference (OOC) future schedules, based only on the info from those sites:

Boston College
The Eagles have very few future opponents fleshed out, with only Notre Dame listed in or past '08. Additionally, BC faces Army, Navy, and UMass in 2007, which may greatly affect their chances of any potential national title run. UMass is an obvious patsy, and Army tends to be very weak. Navy has been okay lately, but if the Midshipmen are on an off-year (a.k.a. "Normal Service Academy performance"), BC might be a bit hosed.

Clemson
Clemson features a pretty robust future schedule with a LOT of one-game series, including LA-Monroe in 2007, in-state (but I-AA) rival Furman and UCF in 2008, MTSU in 2009, Ball State and the Mean Green of North Texas in 2010, and Troy in 2011. For teams that would be willing to schedule a 1-game series, these are pretty marquee matchups. Home-and-home series include Vanderbilt, UGA (no surprise), Pitt, and Ole Miss. Clemson has done a great job of getting diverse "patsies," instead of the same team in consecutive years. (Patsies in quotes because most of those one-game teams is good for an upset here and there.)

Duke
The Blue Devils have a pretty respectable slate in the future, although their "lesser" OOC games aren't yet listed on these sites. Duke has series with Northwestern, Navy, Vandy, Army, a date with UConn, and two truly marquee matchups: at Penn State in 2009 and Bama in 2010 (looks to maybe be a neutral-site game). Also on the horizon, the Devils play a "Nerd Bowl" series against Stanford.

Florida State
As expected, the Criminoles play some strong intersectional games year-in, year-out. 2007 features one of the biggest non-conference games of the year for the southeast, with FSU and Bama facing off in Jacksonville. FSU has series coming up with Colorado, BYU, Oklahoma, Air Force, and (per agreement as part of the ACC expansion case settlement) West Virginia. The only "lesser" teams listed are UAB and Nevada.

Maryland
In addition to the annual WVU/UMD game, the Terps play AT(!) FIU in'07, Rutgers and Cal home-and-away, and host MTSU and Eastern Mich in '09 and '10, respectively.

The rest of the ACC tomorrow!

Football Intro Video; News Bytes

2006-07-11T15:53:00.000-04:00

Get pumped.

Dunno why it cuts off with like 30s left, but oh well.

A few quick links today:

Pete Fiutak from CFN gives us weak props by suggesting the Irish will lose to us.

Phil Steele also chimes in, almost saying we might beat the Irish while explaining that Notre Dame's schedule is simply too tough to rank them #1.

The AJC lists Rivals's top 50 in-state prospects. We have 2 linebacker commits on the list (#s 25 & 42 on the list), and we're on the short lists for two RBs (#7, 36), a "built like Calvin Johnson" WR (#20), and another tall wideout (#31). Also listing Tech is Georgia's #6 prospect, O-Lineman Nick Claytor. Rumors swirled that he was committing soon after calling Coach Gailey over the weekend, but Matt Winkeljohn of the AJC explains Claytor is not committed to anyone yet.

Tech is competing with tOSU and Auburn, among others, for this man-child.

The AJC interviews Sporting News executive editor Bob Hille, and he seemingly mocks the hell out of his own magazine's #1 ranking of the Irish. WTF?

Monday News Jacket

2006-07-10T12:46:00.000-04:00

Calvin "Spider-Man" Johnson is #3 on CFN's Preseason All-America WRs list.

Rivals.com has a poll up for GT's greatest player; vote between Joe Hamilton (QB, 96-99) and Billy Lothridge (QB, 61-63). I went with Hamilton; his straight numbers are more impressive, and the level of athlete he competed with is miles ahead of players in the '60s. Lothridge is certainly also worthy, leading Tech to a better overall win percentage (0.69 vs. 0.64), but Hamilton led a 10-win season, whereas each of Lothridge's seasons had 7 wins. It's a shame Clint Castleberry couldn't be on this list; click the link if you've never heard of him.

Only Tech player ever to have his jersey retired. Probably could've been our greatest player ever if he'd had more years.

There is an official call for new BlogPollers. I'm applying, but IDWT may be way too new. I'll be helped by the fact that there's only 1 GT blogpoller right now, though.

I'm not a big recruiting guy, but Tech's football recruiting is looking its best in years. Although scholly's are capped at 17, and our class won't compare with 5 star-packed groups for really big-time schools, the Jackets have a history of overachieving. so far, the 2007 class consists of
two linebackers, two corners, an O-lineman, a WR, and a QB.

Sports Illustrated is running a feature called "Commisioner for a Day," in which writers for the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, CFB, CBB, Tennis, and Golf give their recommendations to improve the sport. Stewart Mandel gives his college football changes; here I respond to each:

1) Give college football a commissioner
Mandel complains that college football "is in a state of constant chaos, [since everything must] meet the approval of [...] the NCAA, university presidents, conference commissioners, athletic directors, bowl representatives and TV executives." Unfortunately for the sport, academics really do should come first, so everything should have to meet with the approval of university presidents. A commissioner could maybe replace much of the NCAA's role, but conferences would still need at least under-commissioners, and presidents would need veto power.

2. Add a "plus-one" championship game after the BCS bowls:
This is one I'm not too worried about either way. I think the current system is fine, but if they want to add this option, fine by me.

3. Reduce the number of bowl games:
Here Stewart Mandel recommends cutting the list to 15, and the champions of each 1-A conference are guaranteed berths. Each other team must have 8 wins. As I have explained before, I have no major problems with a lot of bowls. Although we're at about the limit that's even mathematically feasible.

4. Install an early signing day:
This would be good for both the sport but the recruits. High school kids are fickle, so many would wait anyhow, but allowing athletes to "really" commit at an earlier date is good, so they can stop dealing with text messages from coaches.

5. Outlaw the hiring of coaches prior to their bowl games:
Absolutely.

6. Delay polls until Oct. 1:
Again, Mandel is dead on. Since nearly every coach and writer seems to base his poll off the previous week's results, maybe a later start will prevent teams getting as hosed from a low early-season ranking.

7. Pick a uniform and stick with it:
I totally disagree with this one. I think unique uni's and throwbacks can be fun, although some teams go overboard... and I really hate those different-colored-sleeve uni's from last year. I wish GT would play a game in some 1990 National Champions-style Navy Blue jerseys. They're not more attractive than the gold ones or anything, but it'd be a sweet homage.

Let's give Shawn Jones some props by dressing like him.

8. No more Tuesday-night games ... or Monday night, or Wednesday night or Friday night:
No way. I love having football on as many nights as possible per week. I don't care if it is LA-Monroe vs. MTSU. I'll see some football, hopefully a couple big plays, and go to sleep happier. And I don't feel that a Tuesday-night game destroys "the sanctity of Saturday" any more than the existence of the International Bowl reduces the prestige of the Rose Bowl.

9. Shorten the length of games:
I agree, but the methods Mandel lists aren't great. "[Restarting] the play-clock as soon as a play is whistled dead rather than waiting for the refs to spot the ball" is a bad idea, since maybe a lot of players and/or refs have to move a long way, say after a long pass. I think the current rules changes will be fine.

10. Prohibit coaches from flip-flopping quarterbacks:
Why? I say make whatever subs you want, whenever you want. Mandel suggests "once you name a starting quarterback, you have to keep him as such for at least four straight games, barring documented injury. Better make the right choice in fall camp, guys." F that. Just because you don't like frequent personnel changes doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed. And it's not like a lot of coaches change starting QBs all the time, and I doubt those that do really want to.

Tailgating Recommendations for September

2006-07-06T15:24:00.000-04:00

Once again, D-Rad drops some knowledge on y'all with The Good Word athletics newsletter. The most important info inside? September kickoff times! Here I have prepared my recommendations for tailgating, so that you can get drunk enough (but not too drunk) and be fully prepared for kickoff without passing out, getting heat stroke, or otherwise ruining your own day.

9/2
Opponent: Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Kickoff Time: 8:00 PM
Tailgating Advice:

First off, this game is in well in the evening, so feel free to sleep in just a little. This game is big-time, though, so if you wait too long you'll find no tailgate spots. I recommend being on-campus by around 2 PM in order to get enough rest, have time to prepare a badass dinner, and ensure yourself room for every thing. Bring a TV and dish if you've got it, to watch games all day. If nothing else, have a good radio handy, or satellite radio if someone's got it.

Drinks! Call me old-fashioned, but I tend to fill my Sippin Seat with Makers for every game. I will, however, offer drink recommendations for those of you who like to theme your tailgate a bit more.

Fill one of these bad boys with bourbon and you're good to go.
They're made by a Tech grad, by the way.

Like I said, drinks! The obvious choice is Irish Carbombs, but DO NOT leave the Bailey's sitting out in the sun. Also, you're going to be 'gating all day, so I recommend something easier to sip on as well. Go with the old Irish Highball. The most important thing is, PACE YOURSELF. You've got 'til 7 PM or so before going to the stadium, so don't go overboard and miss the game... Not that I haven't seen that done with less than 6 to 8 hours of tailgating.

Food! Forget an Irish theme, this is the only Midwest school on the schedule. Bratwurst, baby! Simmer them boys in some beer all afternoon, throw em on the grill around 5:30 or 6, and you're money in the bank, baby. I'm sure anyone from a Big 10 state would scoff at most Southerners' brat efforts, but do what you can.

Don't forget the 'kraut.

9/9
Opponent: Samford Bulldogs
Kickoff Time: 3:30 PM
Tailgating Advice:

Bring sunscreen! Even if you have a sweet tailgating tent, sunblock will do you good come game time. Afternoon kickoff, so if you want a good amount of time to tailgate, plan on getting set up by 11. Noon might do ya, but that might not allow for a solid lunch.

Drinks! Being that we're playing a team from Alabama, I recommend the classic Alabama Slammer.

Food! I plan on going with a Southern classic, such as BBQ or fried chicken. The most important thing is don't go overboard because of the early kick-off.

9/16
Opponent: Troy University Trojans
Kickoff Time: 1:30 PM (seriously)
Tailgating Advice:

Remember what I said about sunblock? And an early kickoff? Yeah, rewind that back and play it a few times. For this tailgate, my recommendations go all the way back to Friday night. Go home from work, take it easy, and get to bed early. If you stay out late, you have no chance of having a good tailgate because you'll be all tuckered out. Why the early kickoff? UVa is on the following Thursday, so D-Rad and Chan want to give the players as much time as possible to rest after the Troy game. So get to bed early so you can get to campus early.

Drinks! Try this one on for size: The Trojan Horse. Big in the UK.

Food! I've got no theme food for this one, but I recommend something as quick as possible, since you're in for a short 'gate unless you get up at like 8 AM. Do something you can prepare the night before, e.g. marinaded steaks or pre-skewered kebabs.

9/21 (Thursday)
Opponent: Virginia Cavaliers
Kickoff Time: 7:30 PM
Tailgating Advice:

Okay, guys, this one is about as tough to handle as a 1:30 kickoff on Saturday. The bottom line is, if you want to tailgate, you will not be at work until five. Personal recommendation? Take a vacation day or call in sick. Also, if you want to get an early start to your tailgate, aim for getting to campus either around 11 AM or 1-2 PM. That way you can avoid heavy rush hour and lunch traffic. I expect to be 'gating by about 2 PM. Take your time and relax, you've got a late kickoff.

Drinks! This is UVa, folks. I'd say wine, but I can not in good conscience actually recommend wine for a tailgate without other stuff to go with it. Cider works well for Virginia, but honestly I got nothing on this one folks. As always, I will drink my bourbon and be happy.

Food! We play Maryland at home this year, so save any seafood plans for them. This might be a good time to make some BBQ. We play UNC and NCSU in Carolina this year, and Virginia barbeque is basically the same as N. Carolina BBQ.

Add any of your own recommendations in the comments, and I'll see y'all in September!

Thursday Updizzles

2006-07-06T13:17:00.000-04:00

Oops! When changing the layout of my site, I accidentally lost all my links. Those'll be replaced soon.

Paul Westerdawg has a very interesting post about NFL talent by state. Georgia clocks in at #4 with 90 players on NFL rosters, and also at #4 per-capita. This doesn't mean all that much for Tech, since we recruit so heavily out-of-state. Good read nonetheless.

Former GT recruit Mason Cloy from Columbia, SC got scared off by the Big City when helping his dad move to ATL, and immediately committed to Clemson. In all fairness, a kid with the name "Mason Cloy" belongs at a place like Clemson.

Bone Crusher is from Atlanta and Never Scared.
Mason Cloy is scared of Atlanta.

Chris Gay at the Augusta Chronicle breaks down the preseason mags' analysis of Augusta-local schools (Clemson, Tech, UGA, USC). Honestly, probably nothing in the article is news to any blogosphere addicts.

Terrence Moore at the AJC has a touching column about Randy Walker's passing. Moore attended Miami University in Ohio along with Tech baseball coach Danny Hall, Illinois's Ron Zook, and several other big-time sports guys. Good to see an AJC sportswriter put together something this quality.

Five Jackets made the All-Academic ACC baseball team, and there was even a non-management major among them! (Steven Blackwood, Biology) Good job, guys.

Scout dot com tells us that GA/FLA will be on CBS. Why is this on a Tech blog? Because they point out that Tech/UGA is usually on CBS when played in Athens, and I hate CBS's college football coverage. Verne Lundquist is probably my least favorite major network cfb broadcaster. Thankfully, I'll be at the game and will not have to watch on CBS.

A Spanish site called noticias.info has an English language analysis of the Ravens running back situation. P.J. Daniels is on their roster, and will compete for playing time with Jamal Lewis, Mike Anderson, Musa Smith, and Cory Ross.

Wednesday Afternoon News Bytes

2006-07-05T18:14:00.000-04:00

After a long relaxing weekend, IDWT is back. Scott covered all the weekend GT news, but here's the highlights:

GT picked up a QB commit for 2007.
Steven Threet is a 6'5"/220 lb senior from MI. 4.0 GPA/27 ACT (comparable to 1220 SAT), sounds like a Goose in the making.

I wouldn't mind a QB out of this mold.

Coach Cremins is back in the game at College of Charleston.
I discussed Gregg Marshall's Cremins-like hire-and-quit scenario last week, and now Bobby's the new coach of the Cougars. Good luck to him.

Now on to the new news!

If you want to hop on the season ticket train, do it soon. There's "a limited number" left. Obviously that's inspecific and there may be plenty of time, but it would stink to miss out. I really want to see a sea of yellow at the games this year. (And I say "yellow"--not "gold"--intentionally. Most "gold" shirts are hideos. Yellow is easier.)

Decent article Re: GT's and UGA's season-openers
"We’re similar in that we’re playing nonconference opponents." - Mark Richt, comparing GT-ND and UGA-W. Kentucky. I hope that this was in response to a question like "Are there any similarities between these games?" because otherwise, I don't see any reason to compare those matchups.

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer discusses Pat Nix taking over "real" O-coordinator duties, and contrasts that with Mark Richt, who continues to run his offense as a head coach.

Finally, a begrudging hat tip to paulwesterdawg about this Albany Herald article comparing Tech to Jan Brady (i.e. Jan:Marcia :: GT:UGA). I dislike the comparison, but there's a couple decent points in there. Oh, and I'd like to point out that Mr. David "I'm a bigtime journalist for a third-string newspaper" Hale misspelled "Marsha" Brady's name.

I Don't Care for the Brazilian Soccer Team, But This is Cool

2006-06-30T11:42:00.000-04:00

I sold out. My self-imposed moratorium on mentioning the World Cup is being broken, albeit indirectly... if not for directly mentioning it two seconds ago.

What's your Brazilian name, so you can pretend you play for the team? Mine's:

My buddy Chris Philbeck made himself in FIFA on PS2 with the name Christo Feldiño. Thought that was kinda clever.

HT: Sports from a Chick's Perspective

Friday Morning News Bytes

2006-06-30T10:22:00.000-04:00

In case this is my last post before the weekend,
Happy Birthday America! Now everyone go
see Superman Returns. It's sweet.

Welcome back to all four of my readers! Your loyalty shall be rewarded when I hit it big and you can benefit from cronyism. On to the news!

The Tech-Miami Homecoming game is sold out. I have no idea what this means for season tickets, but I need another paycheck before I can afford em. And who decided to schedule homecoming for the Miami game anyhow? wtf?

You can forget yesterday's mention of ~~former~~ Winthrop coach Gregg Marshall coaching at CofC. He immediately decided to stay at Winthrop, where he's had great success. I'm going to Charleston this weekend, maybe I'll try for the head coaching job, if I'm not too busy boozin on the beach and dominating our flag football game Sunday.

I'm a machine that turns water into touchdowns. Or at least I was in 12th grade. Actually I sucked, but I like the picture.

Thankfully, the NCAA is not expanding the roundball tourney to 128 teams.

EDSBS has some nice comments about Northwestern's coach Randy Walker, who passed away last night. I didn't know anything about him, but it sounds like he was a stand-up guy. Never good to have news like this.

Speaking of EDSBS, I thoroughly embarassed myself yesterday and showed my GT-ness. And I got the worst props ever:

Zentraedi poon is the bomb [<-him quoting me]
Perhaps the funniest thing I have ever read on this site.

As animated poon goes, tell me that isn't the bomb.

In a somewhat less embarassing comments thread, Kyle King explained why there's nothing wrong with being unabashedly confident about your team during the preseason. It's guys like Kyle that make me like Bulldog fans, which of course just makes me hate the Bulldogs more, much like the quality of Mark Richt.

More info on Pat Nix at the Peach State Pigskin Preview. Nix didn't pull any punches lauding the ACC, and he talks about how his little offspring had trouble with GT/Auburn, after being trained to root for "Auburn, daddy's team and anyone playing Alabama."

Georgia Tech had five young ladies selected to the All-Academic ACC Softball Team. Impressively, four different majors are represented, including one engineering major, and only one player was a management major.

Books for the Tech Man, Vol. 2 – Southern Fried Football

2006-06-29T23:09:00.000-04:00

Review:
Southern Fried Football is a must-read for any true Southern college football fan, and I imagine a good read for fans from outside the Dirty Dirty. As a young man who is a born and raised Yellow Jacket, but relatively new to being a hardcore CFB fan, I knew a lot about Georgia Tech, but I didn’t get what was the big deal about other teams and knew nothing of their traditions, etc. Southern Fried Football helped me understand what all the fuss is about regarding Ole Miss, Tennessee, Clemson, Grambling, etc.

SFF is a pretty comprehensive volume. After the foreword by Keith “Oh, Doctor” Jackson, Barnhart goes through EVERY thing that makes the Southern game great, and that attaches Southerners to their teams. The book doesn’t just talk about the teams coaches, and players. Whole chapters are devoted to Game Day, Rivalries, and VERY importantly, to “The Voices” of Southern Football, our radio broadcasters.

Readers can really sense Barnhart’s respect for all the programs and people discussed in his book. Although Barnhart is a Bulldog by way of graduation, he gives every program its due.

If you’re a devoted fan of any given team, you may find Barnhart’s coverage of Your Team just a bit lacking, but that’s true of nearly any book giving many brief overviews. Chances are, you’ll learn a lot about other programs, if not about your own.

A little aside: Barnhart released his book just in time. In 2001, Mark Packer, a Charlotte, NC sportscaster, trademarked the term Southern Fried Football, in reference to his annual Southern Fried Football Tour (which is a pretty badass thing).

Recommendation:
First and foremost, I recommend this book to young fans of Southern football. I read this book while enrolled at Georgia Tech, and learned so much about all the other programs we played. I found games a lot more fun when I understood the traditions and history of the schools we faced.

Really, this book is for any college football fan. Southerners will probably enjoy it most, but I would recommend it to fans from elsewhere also. It seems football fans from other regions like to roll their eyes at Southerners proclaiming the greatness of Southern football, but I think this book would help explain things. Hardcore fans are hardcore wherever you go, but it seems the South is the only place where even people who couldn’t care less about football show it a certain reverence. With regards to Southern football, UGA’s Heisman winner Frankie Sinkwich put it best: “I'm from Ohio, but if I'd known what it was like down South, I would have crawled down here on my hands and knees.”

Author:
Tony Barnhart has written for the AJC since 1984, and regularly does sports commentary on both local and national television programs. He is the Georgia regional voting director for both the Heisman Trophy and the John Wooden Award. Barnhart is a graduate of the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia.

Stop the Presses! News Flash!

2006-06-29T15:34:00.000-04:00

Not really a news flash. Just like two minutes after posting updates, I find other ones. Gosh!

An artist's depiction of this year's postseason

The NCAA approved a new bowl game in Houston. That means, unless some game gets cancelled, there will be THIRTY TWO BOWLS next season. Twenty-seven bowls were renewed, then there's the new BCS championship game, this new bowl, the International Bowl (Toronto), the Birmingham Bowl, and the New Mexico Bowl. Over half of all Division 1-A squads will play in the post-season.
I've argued before that adding bowls hurts no one. All it does is pump money into a city's economy, and allows players to be rewarded for their season... I just don't know, though. Sixty-four teams in postseason play? Now, (I could probably figure out the math, but I don't care to) if too many teams have GOOD seasons (i.e. 8-4, 9-3), rather than mediocre (6-6, 7-5), couldn't it be that 64 teams won't have records of .500 or better?

You can forget about Bobby Cremins ending up at College of Charleston. They hired Winthrop HC Gregg Marshall. I hope that, if Bobby really wants to coach again before he's gone, he gets the chance.

In a totally unsurprising move, SI's Stewart Mandel put Chan Gailey on his Bottom 5 coaches list again. I don't entirely agree, but it's not like I mind people giving Gailey flak. Also from Mandel's Mailbag, check out this from his answer to "which Def Leppard songs best personify various 2006 college football teams?"

Two Steps Behind: This is what Notre Dame's cornerbacks will be in their season opener against Georgia Tech's Calvin Johnson if they haven't improved considerably since the Fiesta Bowl.

Any excuse is a good excuse to post a pic of CJ doin his thing

Thursday Post-Lunch Postings

2006-06-29T14:37:00.000-04:00

Well, it's almost Friday which means it's almost the long weekend (unless your office is open Monday, in which case I recommend taking a vaction/sick day). Here's some little updates.

'Preciation goes out to Jacket Dan at What's the Good Word for linking here. Hopefully that means I'm approaching legitimacy.

I abosolutely love this picture; nothing like some Clean Old Fashioned Hate. At first when I saw this picture, I thought, "Man it could suck to be the only Tech kid there." But this quote from the article made me think of it differently:

"Alex Kirk got to be singled out for the Georgia Tech yellow and black proudly worn outside his skin, not for what lived beneath it."

Y'see, he might get ribbed for being "The Tech kid," but that's part of the fun. Nothing but props to Coach Richt for going out to see these kids and help them just be kids, not be cancer patients. I really think Mark Richt is the definition of a Gentleman Coach, and that pisses me off. You always want your rivals to have jackasses for coaches, and chances are I'll have to wait ten or 20 years for UGA to need a new coach, and hopefully get a jackass. Moving on, though.

Matt Winkeljohn (how crazy a last name is that?), new sportswriter at the AJC, has a pretty extensive interview with Patrick Nix, GT's OC. Done yesterday at the Peach State Pigskin Preview at the GA Sports Hall of Fame, they discuss Nix's increased responsibilities, how successes and losses affect his family, and how we have some depth at offense. The Macon Telegraph also has some good quotes from Nix.

Jeff (sweet name) at March Madness All Season discusses teams which should improve next basketball season. He includes Tech in the category "No Postseason to Postseason Contender," along with UGA, VaTech, Kansas State, and DePaul.

Bobby Cremins headlines the 2006 GA Tech Sports Hall of Fame class. Also, this cofcfans.com thread talks about the possibility of Cremins coaching Charleston. They show less respect and/or enthusiasm than I'd expect, but whatever.

Lastly, the Southern Illinoisan has a great article on Rich Yunkus, GT's all-time leading scorer in basketball. What makes this most impressive is his 2,232 points were amassed before there were 3-point shots, and in only three seasons. (Freshman were ineligible then.) Hat Tip: GT Sports Blog

See y'all tomorrow, then it's off to Charleston for the long weekend. Gotta love the beach.

EDSBS Blogpoll Roundtable

2006-06-28T10:16:00.000-04:00

Stranko at Every Day Should Be Saturday posted a blogpoll roundtable, and although I've never participated in the blogpoll, who cares? (Plus, I'ma try to get on there this season.)

Responses:

1. Education. List the region of the country you were born in, what universities you attended and at least one other you would have attended if your alma mater didn’t exist.

Born in Atlanta, raised a Georgia Tech fan, went to Georgia Tech (BSIE 06).

If GT didn’t exist, there’s a good chance I would’ve gone to Florida State. I didn’t do a very comprehensive college search, and they courted me strongly because I was a National Merit scholar. (i.e., they offered to waive my out-of-state status, pay my in state tuition, pay for my housing, pay for my food… basically throw money and babes at me for four years.) There’s also a good chance I’d have gone to UGA. I don’t like to admit that, but if there was no Tech, I wouldn’t hate Georgia, and my parents basically told me “You’re going somewhere in-state unless it’s free elsewhere.”

2. Sports Affiliations. List your top 10 favorite teams in all of sports in decending order. For instance, your alma mater’s football team may be number 1, but perhaps there is a professional team that squeezes in before you get to your alma mater’s lacrosse team.

1 - GT Football
2 - GT Basketball
3 - GT Baseball
4 - Atlanta Braves
5 - Pittsburgh Steelers
6 - University of Texas Football (Been a 'Horns fan for years, want to go to law school there.)
7 - Atlanta Falcons
8 - Atlanta Thrashers
9 - Whoever's playing Georgia
10 - UGA (Contradictory, right? Well, I love hating Georgia but my big UGA fan buddies are wearing me down. (I actually rooted for the Dawgs vs WVU in the Sugar Bowl!) Also, I need to steel myself in case I end up there for law school.)

Clearly, I'm mainly a home town squad kinda guy. Also, even though I'm glad both the Steelers and Horns won last year in football, it sucks because no one believes I was actually already a fan of both teams, since I have no real connection to either. Everybody's all like, "You just say you root for em cause they won." Whack.

3. Movies. List the movie you’ve watched the most, your favorite sports related movie, the movie you secretly love but don’t like to admit it (possibly a chick flick or b film), and the movie you were (or still are) most looking forward to from this summer’s season.

Most watched - Back to the Future. In high school (before BttF was on DVD), I swear I saw at least part of this movie EVERY TIME it was on TV. My buddies saw it as a challenge to find a time I missed it. They'd be like, "So, uh, guess what I saw on TV yesterday," and I'd be all, "Oh, you mean the 7, or the 10 PM airing?" and they'd be like "Dammit!"
Favorite sports movie - Tie: Caddyshack & Bad News Bears.
Secret love - Mean Girls.

Most anticipated summer release - Superman Returns. Saw it last night; it was BAD ASS. And I got a sweet free Superman hat; they were giving out swag because it was a special day-early showing.

4. Music. List your favorite band from middle school, high school, college and today. Also, as with the movies, include the song you secretly love but don’t like to admit. If Nickleback is involved in any of these responses, please give a detailed explanation as to why, god, why.

Middle School - Bush (still like em.)
High School - Pennywise (no idea how I listened to it. I own like 6 of their CDs, and they ALL SOUND EXACTLY THE SAME.)
College/Now - Lucky Boys Confusion (um... college was like a month ago.)
Secret love - Ashlee Simpson - L.O.V.E.

5. Books. Favorite book you’ve finished, worst book you’ve finished and the book you really should read but haven’t gotten around to it.

Favorite - Clean Old Fashioned Hate by Bill Cromartie
Worst (hard question because I have NO problem quitting a bad book) - Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary Wolf
Should read - Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer by Warren St. John

6. Travel. Favorite city you’ve every been to and the one place you still must visit before you shuffle off this mortal coil.

Favorite city - Munich, Germany
Gotta visit - Besides every college town possible on gameday? London.

7. What do you love most about college football in 20 words or less?

The pageantry and uniqueness of every school and fanbase. Regional food at tailgates. And, of course, the co-eds.

Tuesday Afternoon News Bytes

2006-06-27T14:14:00.000-04:00

Two lil' bits of info relevant to GT's upcoming football season, both courtesy of SI:

It seems Brady Quinn, along with some other ND seniors, might could be ineligible because Chuck Weiss suggested they choose agents before the season. Although I'm sure the NCAA will excuse the violations, a la Leinart, in pursuit of $$. (UPDATE! See below)

Brady should do like Leinart did and grow a

beard to turn from Zack Morris into Paul Bunyan

Regarding a lower-profile game, Samford will have a new QB, former Razorbacks 3rd-stringer Alex Mortensen. The Samford game should still be a hands-down win for the Jackets, but maybe having a better QB will give the secondary some good practice.

UPDATE! Okay, so I was led to realize that the whole Brady Quinn thing is retarded and not only unlikely, but damn near impossible. But I still say Brady should grow a Paul Bunyan beard. And does anyone else find themselves hearing Jay saying "Brady Man" Mallrats-style in their head when they heard Quinn's name? No one? Yeah, no surprise.

Calvin Johnson NCAA07 Cover

2006-06-27T07:48:00.000-04:00

Xbox version Xbox 360 Version
HT: westerdawg

Books For the Tech Man, Vol. 1 - Focused On The Top: Georgia Tech's Championship Story

2006-06-26T21:48:00.001-04:00

Review:
For a big Tech football fan, Focused on the Top is a reminder of better, less 7-and-5-ish times. The book does an excellent job of conveying the unbelievable feeling of Georgia Tech's 1990 National Championship season. That is, Jack Wilkinson starts his story with Bill Curry's exodus to Alabama and the tale of Bobby Ross's abysmal first two seasons. Readers get a good sense of the apathy and low expectations surrounding the Yellow Jackets in the late 80's, and are thereby reminded how extraordinary the 1990 season was.

Focused provides a game-by-game description of the 1990 season, and quotes from players and coaches, as well as photos galore, bring you into the book. There's a brief season statistics section at the book's end, following a (deservedly) long final chapter about the Citrus Bowl and championship voting.

Recommendation:
While Focused is well-written, it's definitely not a book for everyone. It tells its tale well, but this book is just a big love-fest, meant for no one but Jacket fans. Hardcore college football fans may enjoy it to a point, but chances are most non-Jackets would become bored with the detail.

I would recommend this book only for Techies who like having miscellaneous memorabilia; that is, buy this book to have it, not "just" to read it. You won't find it in any book stores, but eBay and Amazon always have a few used copies available, and you can get it for $10-20 easily.

Author:
Jack Wilkinson might be called the official Georgia Tech Sports author. In addition to Focused on the Top, the tale of Georgia Tech's 1990 National Championship, Wilkinson co-authored Dodd's Luck in the mid-80's and Kim King's Tales from the Georgia Tech Sideline in 2004. Sadly and ironically, both Dodd and King passed away soon after their books were published.

Coming Soon: Legit, Unique Content!

2006-06-26T15:14:00.000-04:00

Totally, like, one of my faves.

Being that:
(1) I started a college football blog during the dead of the off season,
(2) I wouldn't want to compromise my journalistic [sic] integrity [sic] by doing nothing but linking to other, better blogs, and
(3) I'm not experienced at writing anything interesting,

I've struggled a bit for content here. Coming very soon, though, IDWT will feature reviews of just about every Georgia Tech-related book out there. Most of these will be college football-related (e.g., Clean Old-Fashioned Hate), some will be more about college football in general than just GT (e.g., Saturday Shrines), and some will just be about The Institute (e.g., Engineering the New South). I'm not sure, though, if we'll make it to Hello Buzz.

Required reading in most
ENGL1101 sections

I've got a lot of books about Tech, and I noticed that many of them are not described anywhere online in any detail, so hopefully I can fill a need and maybe turn some folks on to books they wouldn't hear about otherwise. First book review should be up tonight or tomorrow.

Fight! Win! Drink! Get Naked!
-Jeff

Scheduling Notes

2006-06-22T11:15:00.000-04:00

Lately, the Dawg blogs have been talking a lot about scheduling (I'd link to specific articles at Dawgsports, but Kyle King mentions playing Michigan about every 3 days).

I took a perusal of Tech's future schedule over at nationalchamps.net, and whadayaknow?, Tech is now playing Vanderbilt in '09 and '13.

Coach Dan McGugin coached Vandy to a .762 winning percentage.
He will not be leading the Commodores in 2009.

Now, I wouldn't call Vandy a huge marquee matchup, but overall I'm pleased with Georgia Tech's recent OOC scheduling. I'd rather see a DI-A team than Samford or Jacksonville State, but I'm willing to write-off the AA patsy; it's basically a fact of life now that it counts towards bowl eligibility every year.

So, excluding those games, I think we're getting some great schedules. For every UConn there's an Auburn (not that UConn is a joke), and for every Army there's a Notre Dame. And speaking of those teams, we've been doing good at regularly scheduling teams outside the Southeast. Another aspect of our scheduling that I'm stoked about is the respect for our SEC roots. The Jackets just played Vanderbilt and Auburn, and now there's Ole Miss, Bama, and Vandy (again) coming up. Also, Spurrier mentioned scheduling talks with Tech. There's no real history with South Carolina, but it would be fun to play Spurrier again... except, of course, that he vowed never to lose to Georgia Tech after he was passed up for the head coaching job, and he hasn't yet.

Tech's old offensive coordinator, who
thought he could make it as a head coach

Thankfully, it looks like things should only good better (or at least not worsen). D-Rad headed up football scheduling at LSU, and since '02 (he got there in '01), the Bayou Bengals have played 3 regular-season games vs. Pac-10 opponents, 1 vs. the ACC, 1 vs. the Big East, 1 vs. the MAC, 1 vs. the WAC, and 5 vs. the Sun Belt, with only 3 AA games. It would be a lot of fun to get a series with one of those west coast teams.

Awesomest Link Ever

2006-06-21T12:15:00.000-04:00

This has nothing to do with sports, but I feel obligated to link you to Steve Carey's "Saved by the Bell Quote of the Day" site. Possibly the greatest QotD site ever, this site provides so much more. Here's some snippets from an episode synopsis:

I remember when this episode first aired (though the memory is a touch hazy): it was a special Monday night premiere, right after Fresh Prince, the night before I started the 6th Grade. I thought to myself, “There is probably a very good chance that, a few years from now, I will watch this show after school, like 800 times a day, until every line sings from the very core of my heart.” Then me and my hot model girlfriend had a bucket of fried chicken and took my Camero to the Walmart parking lot and did donuts until dawn, with her whispering “you are awesome, you are awesome...” in my ear the whole time! Yep, that is exactly how it went down I think.
Most Implausible Moment
Slater: “I’ve been in 14 different schools in the past 3 years.”
Um, no you haven’t because that is ridiculous. You are a liar.

Also, where did Zack get a remote-controlled, life-size picture of Kelly Kapowski playing volleyball and how many Proofs of Purchase from Fruit Gushers do I need to get one?
What is Wrong With Slater? Watch

It’s nice to see he started out retarded.

Zack: “I’m Zack Morris.”
Slater: “And I’m Roger Rabbit, so what?”

Zack: “You should take [my locker] - it’s right next to the girl’s bathroom.”
Slater: “Unless it’s IN the girl’s bathroom, I’m not interested.”

Wait a second? Unless it’s IN the girl’s bathroom? Ladies and gentleman, I spy a “SLATERISM”!

How Many ACC Students Does it Take to Screw in a Light Bulb?

2006-06-21T11:13:00.000-04:00

First off, note that I didn't write most of these, but I have no idea who did, so I can't give credit.

How many Boston College students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Five. One to change it, one to mix the drinks, and three to find the perfect J. Crew outfit to wear for the occasion.

How many Clemson students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
None. Clemson doesn't have electricity.

How many Duke students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Three. One to change the bulb, and two to crack under the pressure.

How many FSU students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Seven, and each one gets four semester hours of credit.

How many Georgia Tech students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Nine. Eight to study the problem, check the wiring and power supply, and propose alternate designs for a longer life bulb, and one to call a friend a Emory to find out where to buy new bulbs.

How many Maryland students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Five. One to screw it in, and four to convince "youse guys" they are a Southern school and they do it better than "those damn Yankees."

How many Miami students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Twelve. One to remove the old bulb, one to replace it, and ten to pay way more than the bulb is worth.

How many UNC students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Seventy-six. One to change the light bulb, fifty to protest the light bulb's right to not change, and twenty-five to hold a counter-protest

How many NC State students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two. One to screw in the bulb and one to buy the Skoal.

How many UVA students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Three. One to change the bulb, one to hold the keg he's standing on, and another to expound on how Mr. Jefferson discovered electricity

How many Virginia Tech students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
One, but he must be an electrical engineering senior.

How many Wake Forest students does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two. One to mix the martinis and one to call the electrician.

Monday Morning News Bytes

2006-06-19T11:12:00.000-04:00

A dream deferred is a dream denied. The Jackets are out of the CWS, after melting down against Cal State Fullerton in the 8th inning (which followed a meltdown against Clemson in the 8th inning.) Tech will have to wait for its first NCAA national championship. The ACC still has 3 teams (UNC, Miami, Clemson) in the CWS, and GT is unfortunately the only eliminated team so far. UNC beat Clemson yesterday to become the only 2-0 team in the pack.
This guy is going for broke: he plans to attend a game at EVERY Division 1-A home stadium. This is the kind of thing my buddies and I would say “That would be awesome to do,” but we don’t have the gall to go for it. Good luck. (hat tip: BON) He’s coming to Bobby Dodd Stadium for the September 21 Thursday game vs. UVa.
Interesting article at Sportsline about ACC expansion, from a 2-years-into-it perspective. Dennis Dodd (by no means the namesake of this site) talks about how expansion has boosted ACC baseball (with the league bringing 4 out of 8 teams to the CWS), but how that was really not the point of expansion.

Stranko at EDSBS gave me something I never expected: a reason to dig the world cup. I tell my friends the World Cup is perfect for me, because I care about soccer just enough to give a crap once every four years… But, I realized, I really don’t give a crap, because the US losing really doesn’t bring me down at all. I’d be glad to hear that we won, but I know I don’t care about a game if the outcome doesn’t affect my mood at all.

Goin' Over 800 Miles to Play a Team Less Than 150 Miles From Atlanta...

2006-06-14T10:35:00.000-04:00

Image courtesy cwsomaha.com

Before I say anything, Beesball is always a better place for GT baseball news than here. If you’re a Tech fan and don’t know that site, learn it.

The opening game of the 2006 College World Series takes place Friday at 2 PM between Georgia Tech and Clemson. The action will be on GameTracker, if you’ll be stuck at work like me. If you’re at home, it’ll be on ESPN2. If we win, we’ll play at 7PM Sunday on ESPN2, and if we lose, you can catch Tech 2PM Sunday on ESPN.

In the regular season, Tech lost to Clemson 7-6, won 12-3, won 22-4, then in the ACC tourney, lost 3-2, won 8-7, and lost 16-11. Obviously there’s a good chance of a high-scoring game here. Looking at the bracket, I’m stoked but concerned. Opening against Clemson is no fun, but then, neither would opening against Fullerton or UNC… or Rice or Georgia or Oregon State or Miami.

Jawja Tek versiz Notur Daym

2006-06-13T16:10:00.000-04:00

Pete Fiutak at CFN listed GT/Notre Dame as one of the "games that no one is thinking about much now, but will end up being a really big deal." I have been surprised how relatively little mention there's been of GT in all the Notre Dame articles written lately. I'd expect this is a game everyone would be trying to hype up, but then, it'll likely happen pretty good come August.

Issues With Omaha

2006-06-13T15:38:00.000-04:00

The Blatt

The Jackets are headed to Omaha. If you tell that to a college sports fan, they know that means they’re going to the College World Series. Since 1950, the CWS has been held at The Blatt in Omaha. And personally, I don’t like it. It’s nothing against Omaha or Nebraska or the Blatt, but I’d like to be headed somewhere else.

I don’t like sports events being held at the same venue every year. I think events should move from place to place, much like the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and (admitting I wouldn’t even think to mention this in most years) the World Cup.I think a non-changing venue makes sense for certain events, like the Kentucky Derby, Daytona 500, or the Masters. In events like those, a win is part of the pursuit of a greater championship (specifically, a Triple Crown, Nextel Cup, or PGA Tour championship). Also, with racing and golf, the character of the course/track greatly effects the event, I imagine more than a ballpark typically effects a ballgame.

Other exceptions to my issue with “static” venues are contests where the participants agree on the venue. For instance, The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party in Jacksonville—Georgia and Florida specifically agree on the venue. Conference championship games also apply here, although less so; although The Conference may agree on a venue, certain teams may have qualms. That’s too bad, but at least that decision may only effect conference members—not more than a dozen or so.

NCAA Division I, on the other hand, includes 327 schools. Although some probably do not field a baseball team, I doubt all those that do want their championship to ALWAYS be in Omaha.

Redick sucks

2006-06-13T14:47:00.000-04:00

Good job, Maryland student.

I Don’t know if this is worth Fulmer Cup points, since he’s a basketball player, but J. J. Redick was charged with a DUI. Yay Duke.

Redick always struck me as such as d-bag. I know people refer to every good player from opposing teams as d-bags, but I heard directly from Duke students that J. J. was uncool and no one wanted to hang out with him. I see no reason to doubt it.

Friday News Bites

2006-06-02T11:42:00.000-04:00

I went to high school with the hairy dude in front.

First off, congrats to the GT Crew Team, for winning a race at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Regatta (Crew National Championships). The Jackets won their heat, against Yale, Cinci, Navy, and Stanford; Tech also pulled the 2nd best time of all heats combined, behind only Harvard. GT participates in semifinals today. Note that this event is against Varsity teams, and few clubs teams get invited to the regatta. GT already won a club national championship a couple weeks ago.
It looks like Gailey will again be on Stewart Mandel's Worst Coaches rankings.
NCAA Tournament Baseball: Jackets vs. Stetson tonight at Russ Chandler Field, 7PM.
If you haven't yet, you've gotta check out Dan's motivational posters. By far the best one is the Wesleyan College one.

In Defense of Fan Apathy

2006-06-02T09:26:00.000-04:00

Dave at Maize n Brew has a thoughtful piece about the way football players "vanish" after their careers. In it, he laments the cruelty of the abrupt end of football careers, illustrated by the example of Tony Boles, a standout RB for Michigan.

Football players have developed a sort of "throwaway" nature, in the attitudes of fans. There is always some lip service when players experience tragedies, and the crowd always applauds when a hurt player gets up, but their problems are quickly forgotten.

So why is there this lack of "real" caring for players and their problems? First, what high-profile athletes live is not real life. Much like Hollywood actors, athletes make unrealistic amounts of money (after college) for a pretty easy job. Why should a hard-working middle American feel bad that someone else is no longer an entertainer, since that's what pro athletes basically are?

So should we feel more sympathy for college athletes who go down, since they've not had the opportunity to make the big bucks? Absolutely not. That's why they're in college; so that if--or, more often, when--their pro sports careers don't pan out, they will have a degree to help start some other career.

And what's more, people don't have the time or energy to "really" care about players. We all have enough hardship in our lives, we don't need to stack others' on top. Football is supposed to be fun! We buy tickets to see a game, not to get swept into a soap opera.

I don't mean to suggest that athletes deserve no sympathy when faced with struggle or tragedy, just that their role as entertainers does not entitle them to more sympathy/support than others receive. But chances are, they will receive more support. If I break my leg, or my Dad gets shot, or whatever, then my buddies will feel for me. If some athlete has a problem, there will be some level of outpouring from some fan(s) somewhere, in addition to family & friend support.

Maybe I'm too cynical, or maybe I'm bitter that I can't make millions by throwing a ball. But I think athletes have it pretty good. Get your fifteen minutes of fame, experience some glory, and when it's over, you've just got to make a living like everybody else.

NCAA Baseball Tourney

2006-05-29T19:50:00.000-04:00

The AJC has a good article about Tech and Georgia in the NCAA Tourney. The seeding committee did not put us in the same super-regional, and we cannot face the bulldogs until the best-of-three championship series, assuming both teams advance. (See the full bracket here.) As said in the AJC article, it's good for the state of Georgia that the Jackets and Dawgs would not face each other until Omaha. The opportunity to have two teams in the tourney is huge for exposure.

The Atlanta Regional features Tech, Michigan, Stetson, and Vanderbilt. Tech's first game is against Stetson University, champions of the Atlantic Sun Conference. The Hatters look like a team on the rise, overall. They've been to the tourney six times in the last seven years, and they upset GT 5-4 in the first round of the 2003 tournament. In 2006, the Hatters went 2-3 versus ranked teams, and posted an overall record of 38-22. I'm not too worried about Stetson; their two wins over ranked teams (LSU & Florida) came by only one run each.

Michigan (42-19) faces Vanderbilt (36-25) to start out. Michigan won the Big Ten tourney, and the 'Dores lost the SEC championship game to Olé Miss. Both teams look like real threats, but Vandy has a few questionable losses, including Lipscomb (another school in Nashville). Both teams have put up a lot of runs (i.e. 9+) in a lot of games (13 for Michigan and 15 for Vandy), so playing them may require a lot of offense.

The games start Friday at Russ Chandler Stadium.

First Blog Post! GT v. Notre Dame & Old Rivals

2006-05-26T12:22:00.000-04:00

Since this is my first blog post, I'll give a brief intro. In theory, this will be a college football blog. Specifically, a Georgia Tech football blog. I'd say "Tech Sports," but I'm sure everything but football will get such minimal coverage that that would be false advertising. The blog title refers to Bobby Dodd, arguably GT's greatest coach and namesake of the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award.

Even if I weren't a Tech man, I have to believe that I would root heavily for GT against Notre Dame on September 2nd. Why? So I don't have to listen to crap about Notre Dame on SportsCenter/PTI/Around the Horn every day this fall. Granted, just losing to GT wouldn't stop the train. There's a good chance it would take three losses to substantially reduce ND's fall coverage. Even then I'm sure there would be disproportionate coverage of ND over many better-performing teams.

Now, I don't entirely blame ESPN. Notre Dame really is one of those teams everyone kind of follows, and you've gotta cover the teams people want to hear about. People who don't follow college football, and wouldn't be able to tell you whether most teams were DIA/DIAA/DII, etc., "know" Notre Dame. Which is kind of weird to me these days. In a similar, large "sidewalk fan" fanbase situation, you've got Duke bball. But Duke's "fans" come because they're always on TV and win a lot. I assume ND used to be that way, but they don't have the recent success of Duke basketball. So why does Notre Dame still carry a lot of that "random" fanbase? I don't even know.

I am stoked about playing Notre Dame, though. Less because of their current national prominence, but because of the history. During our 14-season stint as an Independent, we played ND 8 times. We played Notre Dame every year from 1922-1929. When Coach Bill Alexander scheduled those games, a lot of folks wondered why he would schedule games he was bound to lose. He said, "They will beat us about nine times out of ten, but in losing we will learn a lot of football. We will gain a lot of prestige nationally. And when we win, it will be a mighty sweet victory." After six straight losses to Notre Dame, Georgia Tech beat them in 1928 13-0 on their way to a 10-0 season an National Championship. In 1997, to commemorate a large renovation of Notre Dame Stadium, the Irish invited Georgia Tech to play the first game of their season.

Those are some of the things I truly love about CFB are history and tradition. I hate that Georgia Tech left the SEC in 1964. Not because I wish we were still in the SEC necessarily, but because it means we have all these "dead" rivalries. It was fun and great to play Auburn in '03 and '05, but it wasn't truly a "rivalry" anymore. Yes, Auburn held the Wreck Tech Pajama Parade, and there was some publicity amongst the fanbases regarding "Hey we used to hate them!" But it was clearly USED TO. There was no hate there anymore, albeit with the notable exceptions of some die-hard fans and some alumni. When we play Bama in '12 and '14, there won't be real hate there. When we play Ole Miss in '10 and '11, there won't be real hate there.

For YEARS Ole Miss resented GT because Bobby Dodd refused to schedule any games in the state of Mississippi. In return, Ole Miss refused to come to Atlanta. As a result, we've played them only once in the regular season (back in the day, teams would often not play all their conference opponents, even though they had no divisions). We didn't even need to PLAY Ole Miss for Ole Miss to hate us. But now all that's gone. It's a shame.

Now, it may seem strange to "miss" hate, but that's what makes rivalries fun, is hatred. I try hard to hate as many opponents as I can. Some I just can't hate. UConn? There's no history at all, and I just don't care. Duke? Just not good enough to hate (in football. I hate Duke bball). But I try to generate a healthy dislike for any teams we play.

Hopefully future blog posts will be more on-subject and less rambly than this one, but maybe that'll be my schtick: the rambly, stream-of-thought college football blog.