Monday, August 28, 2006

Motivating the SEC

We're down to 4 days until toe meets leather and only 3 days until CFB starts in general. I have planned out some actual articles this week and this is the first them as I build upon my Motivating the ACC post to hopefully run a series here on WTGW? over the next couple of weeks.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Odds and Ends: Light Week Ahead

It’s a somewhat bad week again at work so posting might be kind of light.  On the upside I’m traveling a good bit towards the end of the week and I wrote the Lipton bit while on a plane and have a few different ideas for in-flight\layover time killers.  I’m hoping this means that next week will fulfill all of your wildest fantasies.  

Just a few odds and ends today to get us started:

Fan Day Was Fun

I made it to my first eve GT Fan Day.  Stefanie and I had a good time and she got to talk with James Johnson who played freshman football with her brother in HS.  James actually remembered Greg and asked how he was doing.  Some of our boys are really impressive in person.  Michael Johnson is a man and Taalib Tucker should just walk around saying, “I’m Taalib Tucker! I will smack you in the mouth!”  Some of the guys standing in the injury line seemed to be doing better.  Of course, there is a difference between being well enough to stand around in your jersey and being fit enough to play, but here’s hoping.  Next year we’ll know not to be fashionably late.  The line for Reggie, CJ, and Tashard Choice was over an hour and a half long by the time we got there.  

We took a few pictures and I’ll try to throw them up tomorrow or later today.

More Potential Big Time Recruits Around The Corner?

I tell you what; nobody is more surprised than me with the turnaround in recruiting we’ve experienced this year.  It’s like we replaced Shelley Levene with Ricky Roma out there.  I don’t know who showed up from downtown with the brass balls, but so far it appears to be working as the rumor mill has Josh Nesbitt, Jonathan Dwyer, and Nick Claytor all potentially declaring for the Jackets next Thursday.

Joe Tereshinksi Named UGA’s Starting QB:

I don’t think this is much a surprise to anyone that’s been following the crotch lickers’ summer sessions.  Richt strikes me as the type that will be loyal to his seniors unless given very strong reason not to be.  Although, I don’t think Joe T. is starting by the end of the season.  Western Kentucky will tell a lot about the plans for this team.

12 More Days and Everybody Can Zip Them Up:

We’re in probably the most annoying part of the off-season and that’s the home stretch.  Fans from every school are out there shit talking their opposition for the first game, running down opposing teams, coaches, and players that coming up this season, and generally making asses of themselves.  It’s almost over.  Meaning that everyone can put their johnsons away and let the people that actually have direct impact on the outcome of the games get down to business.




Thursday, August 17, 2006

Odds and Ends: The Homers Club

Sorry for a light couple of days putting anything of substance up, but I haven’t had too much to cover that the other guys at better blogs hadn’t already said. I did have a plan to really help FightinAmish from the always hysterical The House Rock Built, is looking for a bit of advice on rolling in the ATL. Unfortunately, Orson Swindle came in with his big words and his fancy punctuation, and pretty much stepped right on my literary nuts. I recommend that everybody read that article, as it is a fantastic representation of Atlanta and Tech. Plus, he has an open call for adding your two cents to the whole bit.

Congratulations go to Jeff for bringing home the Coulter\Krugman award for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence in the first blogpoll of the year. Actually the award is commendable amounts of homerism within your ballot. Jeff had GT ranked #4 in a ballot that on the whole didn’t even see them make the top 25. Bravo sir!

Nathan has finally given us the last of his mascot reviews with the second half of the SEC. I have to admit that having a live Tiger is about the coolest thing ever. Nathan will probably be back sometime in mid-December to tell us which conference is the overall winner. (I kid, because I love.)

Monday, August 14, 2006

Odds and Ends: We're Still Blogging

Several folks actually linked to the Lipton Article making it about the only thing I’ve ever written that people apparently actually liked. I don’t want to kill the theme too much so I’ll probably put the series under wrap until halfway through the football season. Believe it or not, it’s actually hard to come up with so many overbearing and undeserved statements of praise.

As for a few hits around the blogosphere:

Nathan hits us up two times, two times, with the funny. It’s good to have Nathan back in the blogging swing of things. Otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten the first part of his ratings for the SEC Mascots or a rather Lipton’esque video extolling the virtues of not only a Clemson education, but also Clemson’s mere existence.

Jeff shows us that Calvin Johnson is now a part of the ESPN hype machine by making their list of 2006 X-Men. Since comic books and Georgia Tech go together like peas and carrots, I wholeheartedly approve this endorsement.

PaulWesterDawg, one of my favorite crotch sniffers, hits one a little too close to home as he brings up the great dilemma of 2006: DragonCon or GT vs. ND. I wish I could still link to it, but I’m sure it’s scrolled off the Hive by now; last year some of the Auburn faithful were giving us grief and I went for the pre-emptive strike on a DragonCon joke. Of course the good natured Auburn folks got a laugh out of it, but the one douchebag Auburn fan couldn’t help pushing the bar a little. Most of us ignored him since we figured he was just killing time in his directed reading class anyway. But of course one champ had to take up the banner and defend Tech’s honor. How did he do this you might ask, by standing up and saying; “well I wasn’t even going to go to DragonCon, until I realized I had a friend coming in from out of town that was going. So I’m going with him.”

It was the granddaddy of all “I don’t believe I would have told that Brother John” moments that I have ever witnessed.

Non-GT:

Just a few quick observations about the Falcons game on Friday that I don’t want to spend a whole post on.

  1. VICK STOOD IN THE POCKET! VICK STOOD IN THE POCKET! – That was a rough impression of me on Friday night when Vick took the 2-yard dump to Warrick Dunn instead of running up the middle for 6 yards and a potential ruptured spleen up.

  2. The run defense was, uh how shall I put this . . . atrocious. For all of the talk about working on the run defense, Clock Killin Corey Dillon looked pretty damn good against the defense. And as much as he’s my boy and all Keith Brooking looked slow out there.

  3. I think we have a field goal kicker.

  4. The offense looked good for the most part and I was impressed with Shockley at the end of the game. Of course Randall had a good game too, so it’s probably still a tie on the field. The obvious love that a 3rd string QB got from the barking fans in oil stained overalls probably pushes him ahead from a pure marketing standpoint.

  5. It’s the first preseason game so I am reserving judgment until we have a few more of them.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Football is starting!

Obviously my first love is GT sports, but another team near and dear to my heart opens up their “season” tonight against the New England Patriots.  Obviously I’m talking about the Falcons; who will attempt to improve on last year’s non-winning\non-losing season.  It’s hard to tell anything from the first pre-season game, but there are some things that I’ll be watching while the first team is out on the field:

Vick’s Passing – It’s already been confirmed in the AJC that Michael will get two series in the game.  I’m hoping we move the ball enough to get a decent mix of plays in there and see how his passing looks . . .

Receiver Quality – Alge is going to sit this game, so going along with Vick’s hopefully improved passing will be seeing how Roddy White and Michael Jenkins perform as primary receivers.  The loss of Brian Finneran for the year definitely hurts and we need these two to step-up.

Run Defense – As the face of the franchise Vick took a lot of heat last year, but the Falcons lost a ton of games because we couldn’t stop the other team from scoring in the final minutes.  It actually felt a lot like that ’99 Tech team that scored on almost every possession, but couldn’t stop my grandmother (dead for three years at this point) from blasting through the line for 8-9 yards.

New Secondary – We have almost a completely new look in the secondary.  Definitely a worthwhile change as last year’s secondary wasn’t worth the price of lead to take them out in the street and shoot them.  With Webster ahead of schedule for his annual injury we’ll get to see 2nd round rookie pick Jimmy Williams play with the 1st team defense.  Since he can actually lay the wood on folks, I’m anticipating him having the starting job by the end of the year.

Shockley trying to make the team – I tend to forego college rivalries once a guy is out of school, unless I absolutely could not stand him in college.  I liked Shockely at UGA and I’m rooting for him over Randall to take that 3rd QB slot.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Inside the Tech Man's Studio

The other week Dan Radakovich graced Matt Chernoff and Chuck Smith with his presence on Monsters of the Mid-day. Matt asked some tough, but fair questions that I felt Dan did an excellent job with addressing. Predictably The Hive felt that Chernoff did not lob near enough Tech worshipping softball questions to Mr. Radakovich and the inevitable whining about support from our “flagship” station began.

After a little research, I have decided that I agree with them. For instance, did you know that “flagship” is apparently of German derivation and originally meant, “taint worshipping ass snackery of the highest magnitude?” Obviously for your “flagship” to ask any question not expressly designed to show your utter levels of superiority to any and all things in existence is an outrage of high order that can no longer be tolerated. We as Tech fans have always demanded respect and we should demand no lest from our flagship station.

I’m not one for just griping though. I’m here to offer viable solutions and obviously there is only one man out there capable of providing the stratospheric levels of adoration worthy of carrying on a conversation with even the lowliest bums sleeping in our hallowed halls, much less our Athletic Director and coaches. I am speaking of course of mediocre celebrity teabag master James Lipton. A man capable of spending a full hour making Ashton Kutcher look as if the lack of Oscar on his mantle is one of the great crimes of the 21st century.

We here at What’s The Good Word would like to show you the future of all GT related interviews with our first edition of Inside The Tech Man’s Studio™. For example, Mr. Lipton had a chance to sit down with our own head ball coach himself, Chan Gailey. Coach Gailey was able to withstand almost lethal levels of adulation in his hour with James.




Here are just some of the highlights:

James Lipton (JL): Four consecutive seven win seasons, four consecutive bowl appearances in exotic and distance locations, and the love of the whole world. These achievements describe not a mere mortal man, but a modern day Atlas hoisting the football heavens on his mighty shoulders. I almost dare not speak his name for fear of striking our students deaf, but I shall stride forward resolutely in honor of the excellence that our guest represents. Ladies and gentleman I present to you a man that magnifies the worthlessness of your very existence, Georgia Tech head coach Chan Gailey.

Coach Chan Gailey (CCG): Gee golly shucks.

JL: I fear that I have wet myself in excitement. But let us continue nonetheless. You sir are delight made flesh, pleasure personified, and in my amateur opinion the cure of all the world’s ills. How does Chan Gailey wake in the morning and prepare to unleash his grandeur upon the world?

CCG: Shucks, gee, golly. I just want the boys to go out and do good. When I was running the Cowboys into the ground . . . I mean taking the team to consecutive play-off appearances with only three future Hall of Fame players on my roster, I never thought someone would use words quite as pretty as yours in describing my life.

JL: HA HA! I have been rendered sterile by your grace and humility. Tell me Chan, if I may use your first name, is it true that Georgia Tech is the source of all good things in the universe?

. . .

JL: We will now move to our quick questions as given by the students. What is your favorite play?

CCG: Run up the middle and then throw the ball out of bounds on two consecutive plays.

JL: Genius! What is your greatest success?

CCG: Averaging a roughly 20 hour drive to all of my bowl games.

JL: I am erect at the thought of your greatness. We thank you for joining us here and warming our tepid existence. I look forward to the days of bowing at your statues and praying to whatever direction it is that you are standing at the time.

Odds and Ends: I'm Finally Off of a Fucking Plane!

Hah ha, you probably thought that I would update and then just disappear again. Well it was close to the truth, but I have been out of the office on the road most of the last two weeks. However I took some travel time to work on at least one new article for the site that should go up later today. Before we get to that, here are a few items passing around the Tech world of note:

Jeff is moving on up – In just a few short weeks, Jeff from In Dodd We Trust has been invited to leave the world of open free blogs here at blogspot and join the Sports Blog Nation. His new site is called Ramblin Racket and looks pretty damn nice. So congrats to Jeff and his success there. You should be reading the writings of anyone that ever said “there is no poon like Zentradi poon.”

ND Gameday shirts – A regular Hiver known has gtpsufan (who my wife also knows offline) has with some friends setup a t-shirt for the ND game. I personally think they are fucking hysterical. That of course means the socks and sandals crowd that comprises many of the vocal Hivers is upset about it. I think the next shirt should involve some dead baby jokes so we can show them what truly tasteless (yet hysterical humor) really is. Order you can order them in the thread, but you only have until tomorrow at 3 PM to get your order in.
Injuries already piling up – I’m honestly starting to really question our strength and conditioning programs. Every year we seem to have a lot of key personnel that gets banged up early or even suffering season ending injuries. Maybe I only notice more from Tech because I have my finger closer to the pulse, but I think if we look back over the years of practice starting up we seem to continue having this problem.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Save ESDBS!

The greatest sports blog on the entire intraweb is danger of being put down by the man. We must rise up my brothers and save them from machinations of the ever-threatened printocracy within this country.

(Okay the truth is that they have rapidly outgrown their server capacity and are in dire need of an upgrade, but I just wanted to sound like your typical small dicked blogger. I have to admit that it was kind of fun.)

They have setup a donation option on their site and are hoping your small donations will give them enough cookies to pay the billy goats gruff (i.e. their webhost). I am a little strapped for cash right now so I was hoping offer Orson total consciousness on his deathbed, but I didn’t see that option on the donation screen. I guess I’ll have to flip over the couch cushions for what is definitely a good cause.

He could have that going for him. Which is nice!