What's The Good Word?

Countdown to GameDay: Re-motivating the ACC

2007-08-29T16:49:00.000-04:00

Last year's motivating the ACC was one of the more popular pieces that I did. I wish I could say that I carried that momentum into an impressive blogging empire, but mostly it stood as a testament to wasted potential.

As part of my new found committment to killing time at work, I bring you an updated football'esque version of the same concept.

Look it's another random 10

2007-08-24T14:17:00.000-04:00

Since everybody else is doing it and I’m still a horrible idea thief, I present to you the first every Friday Random Ten for hear at WTGW?

Back to You – John Mayer
Here Comes The Sun – The Beatles
Get Out the Map – Indigo Girls
Mr. Roboto – Styx
The Sounds of Science – The Beastie Boys
It’s All Understood – Jack Johnson
Stumptown –Nickel Creek
Ants Marching – Dave Matthews Band
Serenade – Mozart
What You Are – Dave Matthews Band

I share my I-pod with the missus and while we have a good bit of overlapping taste in music, not all of it is. For example you’ll notice that out of 10 random songs on an I-pod containing around 2,000 songs that DMB, John Mayer, and Jack Johnson all made it into the random 10. Let’s just say that’s not completely my doing (though I like Jack Johnson better than the other two.)

Still in keeping with the spirit of the random 10, I listed all of the songs that appeared without edit.

(Other than the Kenny G song that will be fucking deleted when I get home tonight.)

I gotta tell ya . . . I celebrate the guy's entire catalog.

Fuck You Dan Radakovich!

2007-08-24T14:05:00.000-04:00

I could deal with the donations for seats.

I can deal with a new commercial that looks like it came out of a Daft Punk wet dream.

I can deal with staying tight lipped while your head football coach put on his finery and strutted his ass for any NFL team that would wave a dollar in his direction.

But this . . . THIS . . . is an effrontery that I cannot stand. My season tickets came in the mail yesterday and when I flipped those suckers over I now see that instead of my stub being good for a Free Chick-Fil-A sandwich there’s some kind of deal with Papa John’s Pizza . . . none of which is free! By god I got 14 delectable fast food equivalents of the peanut butter and crack sandwich last year and the year before that and you get the goddamn idea.

Clearly this a program headed in the wrong direction.

The secret ingredient is heroin.

(Brought to you by the blog that keeps you abreast of the real issues.)

Two Men Enter . . . One Man Leaves

2007-08-13T18:52:00.000-04:00

Truth be told my eyeballs popped out of my head when I read about this over the weekend. Taylor “Tater” Bennett apparently done hauled off and whupped Darrell Robertson’s ass at the end of the scrimmage. Some folks are worried about chemistry, some are worried about injury, but I, on the other hand, am just ecstatic that the goofy looking white boy that I saw at media day last year with his jersey tucked into his athletic shorts and cell phone clipped to his hip is apparently a misleading badass of the Jeff Speakman variety.

He will either beat your face in or get you a hellaish return on your income taxes.
Pick your fate!

In fact it’s good to see this kind of fire out of the team again and I feel like we should add some more Mad Max’esque features to our practices. Thus in my first post back as a newly dedicated blogger WTGW decrees that the following shall all take place immediately:

1. Phillip Wheeler in fitting in with his new title of the Paul Bunyan of middle linebackers shall hence forth practice and play dressed as The Humongous.

2. As part of our strength and conditioning programs, you Miss a Meal you Face the Wheel.

3. Pint-sized powerhouse and new OC John Bond will roam the sidelines on Chan Gailey’s shoulders speaking in broken English

Who runs offense now?

4. All practices fights will now involve Thunderdome.

2007 Georgia Tech Football it’s FANNN-tastic!

Critty is leaving . . . Hive Reacts Poorly . . .

2007-05-25T13:55:00.000-04:00

Film at 11:00:

I just don't get how people who've never remotely been in a situation like Critty's could pass judgment on him being able to jump for the money. We're not talking Thad (who I still couldn't fault for going) who has a judge for an uncle and a solid middle class upbringing here. We're talking about a kid that had playground friends that got shot and a mother that busted her ass to give him every opportunity to avoid the pitfalls young black men can fall into. Now he's given a chance to not only do what he loves for a loving, but to set himself and his family up for life.

Somehow that makes him selfish, probably because all of his self-esteem isn't tied up in where he went to college.

Look! Something else for me to write about intermittently

2007-05-18T14:12:00.000-04:00

In a potentially wasted effort to get myself writing again, I thought I would add some thoughts on a non-Tech sport that I am following with growing interest and education, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA.) Most people out there still know it only as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and even then they only remember the hardly any rules, no weight class, Royce Gracie demolishes everybody early days of the product. In fact until I started watching The Ultimate Fighter 3 on SpikeTv, even I had no clue how much the whole affair had evolved from spectacle to actual sport. In fact most people only know the UFC, but arguably the best pound for pound fighter in the world fights for the Japanese Pride Fighting Organization (Fedor Emelianenko).

So anyway, I’m hoping to post some more opinions on upcoming UFC\Pride events. TUF 5 episode analysis and maybe a few other tidbits here and there to try and get myself back into the groove of writing regularly without resorting to random internet meme discussions. I’m not much for recruiting so I still won’t post too much there either.

Twice in Two Weeks? It is the Apocalypse

2007-04-20T16:24:00.000-04:00

1. A group of playoff proponents have a questionable theory on how to break out of the bowl system and get a D-1A playoff: Boycott the Rose Bowl. What's your take on the never-ending playoff vs. bowls debate?

Well for one, it bothers me that this debate is viewed as somehow mutually exclusive. That if the NCAA suddenly goes to a system where the best X teams are allowed to play in a tournament format that every other team playing in the Mrs. Winner’s Chicken: Congratulations on Scheduling 3 OOC Cupcakes and Making it to 6-6 Bowl ™ will be left out in the lurch. Basically the whole concept of a mixed bowl\play-off system just creates an environment in which I get to watch more football. Much like more tacos, beer, and porn I just can’t view this as a bad thing.

The other thing that bothers me is everyone griping about these kids having to play the extra games. Last time I checked the NCAA just allowed a 12 game regular season with any team that would be contending for the national title more likely than not playing in a conference title game and then a bowl game. That’s a 14 game schedule with only 9 of the games consisting of actual conference games. That gives 5 games of wiggle room for OOC scheduling and setting up a bracketed tournament. I’m fine with allowing 8 regular season conference games, 2 OOC games, and then using the conference title games plus major bowl games to represent the national title game. In the end the national title teams would probably 15 or 16 games in the regular season. That’s not a huge increase and not really a major impact on these kid’s academics.

So in summary people that are against a college football play-off want the terrorists to win.

(Probably against a college football play-off too.)

2. What change to our football personnel makes you happier this year: Taylor Bennett at quarterback, or John Bond as offensive coordinator?

As much as I did the happy dance when Reggie couldn’t play in the Gator Bowl, I am still much more excited about John Bond. Nix was part of Reggie staying on the field. Nix was part of Reggie never progressing as a QB being his position coach and all. Nix kept calling plays for passes that our QB was incapable of making. Nix was the one that kept forgetting that Tashard Choice was just gouging the opposing defense in both the UGA and Wake Forest games.

Reggie Ball is possibly legitimately the worst 4 year starter at QB in the history of college football, but you have to point some fingers at his position coach for all of those years.

In short Pat Nix should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell.

3. Last weekend, Steve Spurrier spoke out against South Carolina's practice of flying the Confederate flag over the state capitol. Should football coaches get political like that, or just stick to coaching?

I think this pretty much should fall under the actor\musician rules of shut your fucking trap and go back to providing me the entertainment that I pay you for. However, this was purely a recruiting ploy by Spurrier and don’t doubt that for a second. The man is an evil genius after all.

4. There are always rumors at Georgia Tech of expanding our varsity athletics programs. What programs would you like to see added next? One for men, one for women.

Since it was my sport of choice from sixth grade through high school, I would like to see GT add a varsity wrestling program. In truth though the school could never really be that competitive in it since Georgia is not a hot bed of wrestling talent and I just don’t think it resonates much as a sport outside of those who were participants. So if I was going to pick a sport that could be both potentially popular and have some success for the school then I think men’s soccer would do very well at Tech. There is some solid soccer talent in this state and the ACC is a good soccer conference.

Since this post is making me follow Title IX (I knew the 19th Amendment was a mistake), then I guess I will go some distinctly chick sport like Field Hockey or something. God knows we aren’t adding gymnastics since we ain’t competing with UGA in that.

(Women should stay home and make babies!)

5. The matchups were just announced for the 9th annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge in basketball, and GT plays at Indiana (the teams' first meeting since 1969). In the history of the challenge, the ACC has won 48 out of 75 games, and has "won" every year. Is this a tradition you care about, or would you rather see something started with another conference, e.g. an ACC/SEC Challenge or ACC/Big East Challenge?

I think it’s a neat tradition, but I’d like to see the ACC rotate it to a different conference. For instance an ACC\Pac-10 challenge would be great since it could settle a lot of those East Coast Bias arguments and provide some really great basketball while the schools are at it. An ACC\SEC challenge would be great as well, but I agree with Jeff’s point about how it wouldn’t really increase viewer ship for ESPN to broadcast in overlapping fanbases.

6. Lightning Round!! Other Conferences Edition!! (Cue "The Matrix" fight music) Name the first thing that comes to mind:

Big East: Improved greatly in football. Overrated for basketball.

SEC: Red Man

Big Ten: Slow

Pac-10: Hippies

(Pac-10 fans want to think they're good at football, but really they just smoke pot and smell bad.)

Big XII: Texas and 11 other schools in football. Kansas and 11 other schools in basketball.

Sun Belt: I could not name a single school in this conference without a Google search.

The Rivers Run Red . . .

2007-04-05T18:15:00.000-04:00

Because believe it or not, I am actually back with a new post. Jeff over at Ramblin Racket has come up with a brilliant idea for the off season in the form of a Georgia Tech bloggers roundtable. Apparently you don't actually have to still be writing to be considered a blogger and thus I was invited. So without further adiue here are my answers to the first set of questions:

1. (Single obligatory basketball question) What do you make of the ACC's postseason in basketball? Was the conference overrated, or did the teams just get unlucky draws in the tourney?

As a basketball nut I still feel pretty strongly that the ACC was the best top to bottom conference in basketball this year. That mostly had to do with the middle and lower tier teams this season instead of the top tier teams (really team.) The ACC, and as much as I’m loath to admit it the SEC, were really the only two conferences where the conference leaders still needed to worry about the bottom feeders on a nightly basis. Even Miami beat Maryland at the end of the season and they were one of the hottest teams in the country. You can see the same thing in NC State’s performance in the ACC Tournament.

As for the flame out in the NCAA, while the ACC had the best top to bottom conference it was lacking in having the best top of the conference. Each team from the ACC that made the tourney this year had at least one easily exploitable weakness that kept them from truly moving on.

UNC – Relatively young team with a coach that is legendary for shaky big game coaching. You can disagree with that last sentence all you want, but in truth Roy was just smart enough to get out of the way of his national title team.

Virginia Tech – Only had one night in, night out consistent scorer in Dowdle.

Virginia – Stop Singletary or Reynolds and you stopped UVA.

Duke – Their big man should be made to wear a tutu during games and they were the youngest Duke team in like 40 years.

Boston College – No interior game to speak of and a very weak bench after the starting 5.

Georgia Tech – We honestly were like UNC light from my criticisms above. On top of that UNC at least had Bobby Frasor and even Quentin Thomas to go to when Lawson was playing bad or tired. Tech just didn’t have a back-up PG option at all and it showed throughout the season whenever Crit was either in foul trouble or tired.

2. On to football! Where will Georgia Tech be ranked in the preseason polls, and where do you think the Jackets should be ranked?

I suspect we should be in the top 30 and in my opinion smart analysts would have us in the 20-25 range. I honestly believe that the loss of Reggie overcomes the loss of CJ. Yes, I believe that Reggie Ball was a worse player than CJ was a legendary player. Yes, this means that I believe Reggie Ball is in the legendarily bad player camp. It was like watching Ryan Leaf’s pro career, but in college.

3. All due credit to Tech's 2006 squad, but we benefited from Miami and other teams' lackluster seasons. Will the big-reputation programs like FSU and Miami be back in 2007?

FSU should be a very interesting program next year. If Bobby will keep his hands out of Jimbo Fisher’s cookie jar then FSU could be very scary. They always have talent on all sides of the ball, but they have been squandering their offensive talent under some of the most damaging nepotism to ever conceivably take place. The season did end for them on a degree of quarterback controversy and that’s never a good thing for a program. Out of the two of FSU and Miami, I would still pick FSU as the most likely to come back to full strength.

As for Miami, I just believe that the 2008 season is when they will really begin to get back in synch. Too much bad stuff has happened over the last two seasons for them to completely recover and be dominant this season. But like FSU they will have the talent to prove me wrong. Of course they have Nix now to make sure that Kyle Wright is put into some kind of sophomore stasis in his QB development.

4. Our out-of-conference schedule is exciting, with Notre Dame and Georgia bookending the season, and while Army is a cupcake, playing a military academy is kinda cool in my book. Which game are you more stoked about between ND and UGA? Also, what ACC games are you most excited about?

As far as I’m concerned we should pecker slap ND next year. They are replacing most of last year’s team and going up against a QB making his first ever collegiate start. Even if that QB is Jimmy OMFG Clausen. They also replace most of their o-line starters, lose McKnight and Smardlkhstnsdfklue at WR, and Walker at RB.

(He's coming for you Jimmy!)

I’m excited about the concept of the pecker slapping, because beating ND is good for America. However, I just can’t get as fired up about that as I am about the UGA game. Both teams should be better this year than last and we have them at home. We’ve been completely pwned in recent years and I hope we’re do, but I just don’t make guarantees when it comes to the UGA game.

5. Lighting Round! (Cue "Eye of the Tiger") Name the first thing that comes to mind, as fast as you can:

Calvin Johnson: Freak of nature.

Tailgate Food: Pulled pork.

Beesball: Brought to you by Ambien (sorry I just really find college baseball boring)

Taylor Bennett: Throws to the middle.

6. How do you deal with the football offseason? Prayer? Hibernation? Blogging?

I actually cherish about half of the off-season. I am a very emotional fan and going from football to basketball leaves me pretty drained once the seasons are over (good or bad.) So for a few months I enjoy not being worked up over the game and fill the time with reading, videogames, and blogging.

Unfortunately, this really only lasts until about June and then I’ll be completely fired up for football with still far too long to wait for the games to return. At that point, I turn to my trusty friend Internet Pornography to get me through the rest of the summer.

(Me and Neil Diamond deal with loneliness in the same way.)

(Make sure you check out all of the answers over at Ramblin Racket.)

Not Really a Shock

2006-12-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

(I’m honestly not going to tell you guys that this post marks a sudden upswing in the amount of articles on this blog. In fact I don’t know if it will ever be any better than sporadic since I got a promotion at work going into ’07 that will definitely increase my responsibilities. My employer is also looking to hire more sales guys which will also end up with more work for yours truly. So, no more empty promises. There will still be articles on this site occasionally as the mood touches me and if I travel regularly that will increase the articles as well. Thanks. –mgt.)

Some folks will talk about class, some will talk about disappointment, some will say things like “how awful it was to end a career like this,” but I say:

The truth is that I didn’t want Reggie to play in the Gator Bowl and now I got my wish. I’m not going to sit here and lament how it came about. I’m going to enjoy my moment. It’s not like the kid suffered some awful injury (outside obvious brain trauma as a child) or lost a close family member. A senior player on the team decided that class wasn’t that important (although how the coaching staff didn’t know about this is a frightening proposition, even more frightening would be if they did). At this point is anybody even really surprised that even in giving a chunk of the fan base what they wanted, Reggie still found a way to make it disappointing?

I honestly hope it’s a wake up call for the young man, but I’ve yet to see him learn from his mistakes so I honestly don’t believe he will start now.

Weekend Review

2006-12-04T08:08:00.000-05:00

Football: Wake Forest 9 - GT 6
Basketball: Miami 90 - GT 82

Instead of a lengthy post, I have chosen to express my inner anguish through the majesty of song.

The only man that can fully express how pissed I am.

Odds and Ends: I Totally Suck

2006-11-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

Okay, you think you’re going to get back in the blogging habit and then you blink and you haven’t updated the site in 3 weeks. It’s the same old boring excuse (work . . . yadda, yadda), but it really is true. In fact I was supposed to be going to Chicago this afternoon for a sales presentation tomorrow, but the dumbasses we were supposed to meet got the dates confused and double-booked our time with another vendor. It sucks, because I’ve been busting ass on preparing a demo for them, but it’s good because it means that I won’t miss the men’s basketball game versus Georgia State tonight.

So a few other updates:

Blog Roll Updated: I finally switched In Dodd We Trust to Ramblin Racket. I mean it’s only been about 4 months since Jeff moved over to Sportsblog Nation.

I also included the fantastic Clemson blog – Danny Ford is God. They know the value of swear words and childish humor like yours truly, but actually update on a regular basis.

Grandson vs. Grandson: The prize is Lefty’s love!

Men’s Basketball Thoughts: Just a few more thoughts around men’s basketball before tonight’s GSU game. Thus far I’ve been to the Moorehouse exhibition, the Elon game, and the Jackson State game.

Good:

Offense, offense, offense – This team can score in bunches and from several different positions. When you’re starting 5 all score in double figures with a bench player scoring in double figures as well and one or two others threatening, then you definitely have some offensive weapons. This is also without Anthony Morrow at full strength, unfortunately I think this will take some time to happen.

Javaris Crittenton is very good – This was definitely what the team was missing last year, a true point guard with some competitive drive and actual toughness. I meant it when I wished Zam well after last season, but I am so happy that his departure made it easier to have Critty and then Mo Miller next season that I may make a mess at my desk. Critty sees the court well, he handles the ball well, he can drive to the basket and take some punishment (needs to work on finishing still, but he’s only a freshman), and he even goes hard on defense (it needs some work, but nothing time in a system won’t fix). These are all of the things that last year’s team was missing from the 1 spot in order to finish games.

. . . So is Thad Young – I think he’s still working on learning when to take over a game, but right now he’s doing a bit of everything and making differences on the court. As we start moving into ACC play and seeing more man to man defense, I see him stepping it up even more for us.

Peacock vs. Dickey is huge for this team – Starting Zach Peacock over Dickey and telling them that the starting 5 job is open for the season has thus far been huge for this team. Dickey is hustling in the games where it doesn’t really matter and we can at this point only extrapolate that he will keep hustling in the games were it really does matter. Peacock has a crazy motor and is playing very well himself right now. In fact, I feel like he gets pulled for breathers more than substandard play. Dickey, on the other hand, is been coming in and playing efficient basketball with solid scoring and rebounding.

Bad:

Free throws – The team is shooting an abysmal 60.8% from the charity stripe right now. It’s especially disconcerting because they are getting to the line a good bit each game. I don’t know if it’s nerves or what, but we have too many shooters on this team to be shooting that badly. It’s been a problem with Hewitt teams and I don’t know if it’s going to get better, but I can only hope that it does. Otherwise we’re going to see things like last year’s UGA game where they can just keep sending Jeremis to the line and let him clank away free points.

Defense (sort of) – The kids play hard, but it’s obvious the freshman have a lot to learn about communication with one another and keeping it up for a whole game. I imagine it’s hard to stay focused in a game with a 30 point lead, but I’d like to see it happen some more. Maui will really be the first indicator of where this team stands defensively. We have the length and the athleticism to be a problem for anybody in the country, but you can’t fall asleep out there or you will get burned.

Ugly:

Not much falls in the ugly category right now. Although Stefanie is not a big fan of the dance team’s gold spandex pants (though we both agree this about the top to bottom hottest dance team we’ve had in a while). They’re a little too Leslie Hall for her tastes.

Odds and Ends: What Sucky Weekend

2006-10-25T13:40:00.000-04:00

Once again it’s been kind of slow posting around here and for that I apologize. I have some more big articles in the works and hopefully I’ll have them up in the next week or so. I’ll have plenty of time once people get through November as pre-sales work really slows down after Thanksgiving until New Years. With that said, there are a few odds and ends that I can cover.

I Don’t Wanna Talk About It – Last Saturday was an ass whupping pure and simple. You know you got your shit worked when you thing of all of the things your team could have done differently and the end result is still “well it would have been a more competitive game.” And for those talking about getting revenge in the ACCCG, fuck that noise. I don’t wanna see these assholes again until next season. I saw nothing that said the outcome would be any different if played them again at the end of the season. I think I just became a de facto BC and Wake Forest fan.

I Need Backup – I’m still the only Jacket actively posting on I Gotta Rant. Maybe I scared folks off talking about the number of leghumpers over there, but it’s a good board and could use a Jacket presence. The Arcade alone is worth it.

One Tech Team Still Won on Saturday – Of course it was a scrimmage so it was impossible to lose. I made it to Hoopsfest down on campus and watched the scrimmage for the men’s basketball team (tickets got here last week: shiny). As depressing as the football game was there is a lot to be excited about for men’s hoops this season. I quick rundown of what I saw

Thaddeus Young – Folks, he is everything that is advertised. He scores from all over the court, plays defense, rebounds, passes, and is athletic as hell.

I’m really excited to watch all of college basketball this year with the influx of NBA level talent. Especially considering how talented this year’s freshman class was on the whole.

Javaris Crittendon – Ran the offense really well and was definitely looking to push the temp. His outside shot was off, but he drove to the basket with reckless abandon and played really outstanding defense for a freshman player. Banged his ankle up a little bit, but then came back.

Zack Peacock – Obviously you take a step down from the two talents above and Peacock was no exception, but as more traditional college freshman go I was very impressed. First, he looks like he’s about 23 years old. If he grows into his frame even more, he’s going to be a beast. He also knew his role: rebounding and defense. He had one ugly shot and one great shot so consistency will need to develop there.

Brad Sheehan – A better athlete and more skilled than Luke at the same point in his career, but he will have to add muscle and knowledge to compete in the ACC. He is my most likely candidate to receive a red shirt this season.

Alade Aminu – Thicker and more skilled than he was last season. He’s not a Dickey, but he’s not the decrease in skill that he was last year. Other 4’s and 5’s will get sick of chasing this young man down the court during the season.

D’andre Bell – Moved to the back-up PG spot and looked like his handle has improved. From what I saw he’ll be fine at spelling Critty when he needs it, but his minutes should decrease significantly. He can still hit an open jumper out to 3-point range and that should not be discounted.

Lewis Clinch – Had a bad day shooting, but smartly became content to play defense and work the ball around. He still hit some nice shots, but he obviously was having an off day. I would like to have seen him drive to the rim more than he did.

Paco Diaw – Surprisingly improved in my opinion. He’s thicker and improved his handle from the looks of it, but could still be a reds hirt candidate since we’re so deep at combo guard this year.

Muha Faye – He had 14 points, several rebounds, played good defense, and negotiated peace between North and South Korea. All in all, a below average day.

Jeremis Smith – He had a typical Jeremis day. Several nice rebounds in traffic, good defense, and a couple of put backs and that’s all I really want him to do. He took a 3 and barely missed it, but he shouldn’t be shooting rather out than 10 feet with the rest of the players we have this season.

Ra’Sean Dickey – Dickey’s hands looked good, his moves to the basket looked good, his outside shot looked good, and his FT’s looked good. But he’s still one of those players that you feel could have played a little harder than he did once the game is over. I think it’s just his style and attitude, but if he plays like he did on Saturday we’ll be fine in the post all season while wondering if we could have gotten more.

Anthony Morrow – DNP. He looked thicker, but I don’t if that’s weights or the fact that he’s missed workout with the back injury.

Mario West – Mario did his Mario things. Picked a couple of pockets, made life hell on the perimeter for Critty in bringing the ball up and hit a couple of jumpers and dunks. By far the most emotional player on the court and hopefully he fills that Clarence Moore role that we were missing last year.

Matt Causey – He’ll sit this year due to transfer rules and that is a shame, because he would be an excellent back-up for Critty this year. He wasn’t hitting his outside shots, but he had several nice moves to the basket and also likes to run the court. He’ll fit very well into our system.

General Observations – The team is very tall and very athletic top to bottom. I think you’ll see a lot more transition baskets and a very up temp offensive style. Especially when Critty is running the show. It’s obvious that he, Thad and Dickey have a nice rapport between them as the blue team scored several times by taking the ball after a basket and catching the gold team loafing up the court some on defense. I also saw a lot more motion from the boys in the half court sets that will hopefully take some pressure of Hewitt for the poor offensive showings we had the last two years at times.

I was very concerned about FT shooting though as the team was struggling with that on Saturday. I think Dickey was the only person to go 100% and with the athletes we have and their ability to get around the rim these boys need to hit FT to punish the other team for lazy defense. Hopefully it gets better or Saturday wasn’t indicative of the team as a whole, but considering our woes from the charity stripe the last couple of years it was a little disconcerting.

No matter what this team should be fun to watch. There will be growing pains with two freshman in the starting line-up, but they are definitely stars in the making and since they’ll be surrounded by a talented and experienced junior class this could be a very special season in the making.

With that, I bring you your moment of Yellow Jacket Zen:

Odds and Ends: Idle Hands

2006-10-12T15:31:00.000-04:00

Just a few quickies here before I preview the big battle against IDLE we have coming up.

Maryland: Well for 3 and a half quarters it looked like Ike Turner wasn’t a changed man at all. But in the end it really was just Tim Meadows pretending to be Ike Turner. Hopefully this truly is a turning point for the team in getting over letdown games, because we have a big one in 9 days against a Clemson team that’s riding high and fighting for an ACC title shot.

One quick note, but this is the first 5 game win streak of the Chan Gailey era.

Inter-league Message Board: I got an email offering to advertise WTGW from a message board and went to check it out. It’s actually a pretty decent site despite being completely overrun with mutt fans. I’ve linked them in my blog roll over to the right (I Gotta Rant) and am looking for some back up as the only active Jacket poster right now.

Maxwell Pundit:
I should have discussed this before, but excellent Notre Dame blog The Rakes of Mallow is having their own internet voting for the Maxell Award. While he’s way behind Troy Smith, Calvin is currently pretty comfortable in second place after six weeks of voting.

Finally, I leave you with your moment of Yellow Jacket Zen:

2006-10-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

Uh Oh, Dan Figured Out Youtube

A simple combination of two of my favorite things in the world: GT and Adult Swim.

Odds and Ends: Post VT Thoughts

2006-10-02T17:26:00.000-04:00

Once again I leave all of the statistical analysis to other bloggers who are more qualified (read interested). I’ll just throw props to the entire team in what was possibly the best team performance since the 1998 game vs. UVA. We dominated in every facet of the game and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that.

Good

The offense looked good when it was really needed and then looked a little confused to be up so early and so easily. Here’s hoping they don’ panic about scoring 3 touchdowns in a single quarter and keep that momentum rolling.

Calving Johnson has truly become a threat from anywhere on the field instead of just on the jump ball. Anybody that thinks Ted Ginn Jr. is a better receiver than Calvin or Dwayne Jarrett more likely than not rubs one out in the library on occasion. (Hell, Ginn isn’t a better receiver than Rodriguez.)

We lined up and powered the football some. The o-line finally played with some pride and Choice had the game I’ve been waiting for all season. He was dancing around the whole so much in the first 4 games that I thought we should get him a tutu.

I don’t think much else can be said about the defense other than they will cut you.

Whatever in the fuck the coaches are feeding the special teals, it needs to be doubled.

Bad

Reggie still looked like Reggie on the one interception. It was especially egregious, because he missed a WIDE open CJ in order to try and force a jump ball into a triple covered Greg Dunlap. The second INT was Calvin’s fault and there’s no arguing it. I don’t know if he thought the ball wasn’t coming his way, but if he looks for it then it’s a 30 yard completion or at least an incomplete.

I don’t know what it is that we put in the other teams water, but every game this season has seen on benefit from some egregious dropped passes. I don’t know if it’s the whacking we give the QB throughout the game, but I’m still a little concerned about the secondary if some of these get caught. On the plus side, we’re talking the best I’ve seen in years.

Ugly

I’m strongly considering becoming a college ref, because apparently the only requirement is breathing and the guy working the replay booth for Oregon\Oklahoma sounds like he was struggling with that. They completely choked on 3 reviewed calls (2 favoring VT and 1 favoring GT.) Threw an unsportsmanlike conduct flag on a single player TALKING to a huddle of opposing player’s around him and decided that it would just be legal for VT to hold for the last 7 minutes of the game. Frankly if you could bottle bowel cancer and send it as a gift I’d be willing to give it a shot.

Nathan covered it beautifully, but I’m giving an ugly to our fans that can’t be fucking happy at least once in their lives. I swear it shames me that I share a degree with most of these retards.

Odds and Ends:

Schadenfreude – Is the joy I take in the absolute implosion of Ted Roof and Bill O’Brien’s regime at Duke so wrong? I know most of the Hive rides Ted Roof’s black striped jock, but that fucker single handedly cost Joe Hamilton the Heisman trophy. Watching O’Brien call a game was like watching special Olympic basketball. You felt giggly, depressed, and shocked all at the same time. Gailey’s offense is dull as hell, but Billy O defined the word clusterfuck.

Maryland – I know we apparently have a lot of fans talking trash about this Maryland game and on paper we should definitely be making a sandwich with their cheese. But right now I’m still guarded. This game is the equivalent of Ike Turner standing outside on my porch with flowers and a contrite look on his face telling me how changed he is. Do I let him into my house and potentially take another NCSU\Utah or do I make him wait and prove to me that he’s changed? I’m currently cautiously optimistic due to a senior laden team that seems to enjoy sandwiches and the making there of, but Ike’s not coming into the house until Saturday night.

I’m sorry Kevin Nealon.

Odds and Ends: Quick Clips

2006-09-28T10:53:00.000-04:00

Just two click clips that must be shared with everyone.  Enjoy!

Beware the wrath of Orgeron:  Try your damndest not to laugh too loudly at this clip.  The Orgeron can hear you and he’s coming for your soul.

MSU Officially Broke Mike Valenti:  The ever-excellent House Rock Built has a clip of Mile Valenti’s outstanding post Michigan State meltdown rant.  I have only a few times in my life been that close to flipping out and they all involved GT sports events.  So I get his pain, but I will still laugh at it.

Odds and Ends: I'm Not Dead Yet!

2006-09-26T16:09:00.000-04:00

Alright damn it, a three week diet of cupcakes (UVA I’m definitely looking in your direction) and a suddenly huge workload killed my posting streak. Being a Tech grad, I also think the continued use of words and the subsequent putting them together in a sentence thing broke my writing ability for a bit.

That being said, we’ve had some increased traffic on the site and our first real test since the ND game to start the season coming up this Saturday. So I guess I should get myself back into writing at least a little bit. I would even analyze the Falcons game, but since the announcing crew and America got their wish in NO winning the game I’ll just pass.

Moving On Up: Nathan has actually been promoted to paid blogger over on the AOL sports section. He’ll still be updating the Golden Tornado site in a fashion slightly more frequent than I update this site, but he’s putting up smaller information packed blurbs over on AOL as well.

Some other notable bloggers in the same boat are Ian from Sexy Results and Brian from Mgoblog. You should be checking all of those on a regular basis.

Yay, For Puppies: Keep Jeff from Ramblin Racket in your thoughts and prayers. It looks like he might be having his own little baby crotch licker.

True, True: Orson is going to be spending this week trash talking the fine state of Alabama. Of course he misses the paradox in expecting Alabamians to actually be able to read his online bashings.
Although Kenny Irons apparently got 4 credit hours for being logged on to EDSBS last week.

Tech Fans: Behind the Curtain

2006-09-01T00:31:00.000-04:00

(Finally the article that I have been deliberating on since starting this blog. The article that will pull me off of other Tech blog rolls, get me banned from GT message boards, and fill my inbox with poorly punctuated, yet highly mathematic, vitriol. Obviously not all of this true, unless it is.)

While Orson might have prepped our Irish friends for their trip to Atlanta, what he didn’t adequately prepare them for was actually dealing with Tech fans. Considering the amount of time that we will spend together this Saturday, I believe it important for the Domers to understand what it is that makes the average Tech fan tick. How exactly we go about our lives and what is the impetus for how the why and how of our behavior.

I give unto you Tech Fans: Behind the Curtain

I drive . . . I drive . . . I drive a Dodge Stratus! No quote has better summed up the thought process of the average engineer quite like the gem above. The truth is that Tech is a hard school (not as hard as some make it out to be and I’ll touch on that later), but in truth it pretty much prepares most of us for boring non-fulfilling middle manager positions that many lack the social or tactical ability to escape. Go and watch that clip again, and not only because it’s hysterical, the slow build up to anger is quintessential middle-aged engineer. Lucky for the visiting fan there is one universal truth at work here; there is no funnier rage than bitter impotent rage. If you want to see something really special make some comment about how you think your school is better than ours. I would keep a minimum safe distance of about 10 feet. Not really because of potential violence, but the spittle associated with that level of histrionic sputtering and chest thumping can reach some impressive distances.
(Picture:) People are afraid of me!

My boy doesn’t have what you call the social skills. Interacting with the Tech fan socially can be an interesting and educational experience. While we are exceedingly intelligent within chosen vocations, there are certain levels of “social retardation” that are seemingly related to these traits. For instance the portion of the brain that says “don’t wear a short sleeve button down shirt with a tie” is woefully underdeveloped. Unfortunately we seem unable to turn our powerful deductive reasoning skills inward as to why our social lives do not turn out the way we wish for them to be. Deciding instead to surround ourselves with self-fulfilling prophecies and blatant falsehoods. The greatest of these being that while at Tech you had no time for a social life. We like to make it appear that we were regularly placed within a burlap sack and beaten with reeds for our insolence. The truth is that we spent most Saturday nights in our dorms chatting with the ever charming and understanding IvanaHumpalott who more likely than not was a 500-pound Russian refugee named Ivan.

A great philosopher once said, “Rationalizations are more important than sex.” When challenged that nothing is more important than sex he wisely responded, “ever been a week without a rationalization?” As we don’t get laid anyway, trust me when I say that we fill that void with rationalizations. In fact much like the doting mother protecting their child, Tech fans are at their greatest skills in weaving half-truths when lying to themselves. Clearly the other kids are making fun of your completely sweet silk Wolverine tie, because you’re smarter than they and that threatens them. (Uh, not that I know anything about that.)

The Sin of Being Incorrect: Engineers are taught from the earliest stages of their education that there is no greater sin in this world than being wrong. And with good reason as you might have heard of a few rounding mistakes in engineering: The Hindenburg, Challenger, Columbia, Chernobyl, etc. Unfortunately, we’ve allowed this attitude to carry over into the softer sciences like psychology, politics, and football. We then mingle this delightful fear of falsity with the aforementioned handicap in the area of the social graces and create a concoction in which arrogance plied by willful ignorance is mistaken for confidence. Thus be prepared to see otherwise rational people unwilling to give up the silliest stances on subjects all because of the abject fear of being incorrect.

(Picture: Should have carried the one.)

Be Prepared!

So when you combine all of this together you get an interesting hodge-podge of existence. A being possessing a broad range of ability, but sometimes woefully short of application. A creature with an over inflated sense of entitlement, but without the vocabulary to explain why. For instance while Tech Fans might try to convince you that we don’t like Domers, because of historical rivalry, running up the score, fish throwing, etc. The truth is that whenever Notre Dame fans are around we’re no longer the most undeservedly arrogant person in the room.

And if you’re not first, you’re last. So welcome to campus, bitches.

Motivating the SEC

2006-08-28T18:51:00.000-04:00

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.

Odds and Ends: Light Week Ahead

2006-08-21T17:25:00.000-04:00

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.

Odds and Ends: The Homers Club

2006-08-17T15:26:00.000-04:00

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.)

Odds and Ends: We're Still Blogging

2006-08-14T17:51:00.000-04:00

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.

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.

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.

I think we have a field goal kicker.

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.

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

Football is starting!

2006-08-11T13:39:00.000-04:00

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.

Inside the Tech Man's Studio

2006-08-10T17:42:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-08-10T10:58:00.000-04:00

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.

Save ESDBS!

2006-08-01T17:31:00.000-04:00

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!

Odds and Ends

2006-07-27T12:32:00.000-04:00

Slowly we are making our way back into college football season, which means I will have things to actually talk about. I am not and never will be interested in throwing out recruiting news there are other sites better equipped for that. Doesn’t mean that I’m not excited about what we look to have coming in for 2007, but just like the NCAA games the off season moves and stories don’t interest me as much as actual on the field product.

Still, I have been quite remiss in putting any worthwhile content on this site over the summer (beyond my motivating the ACC bit) and could have at least done some round-up type stories. So that’s what I’m doing here and maybe it will get me back in the blogging mood.

I also plan on drastically updating my blog roll with other sites that I have been visiting regularly and bribing my wife with sexual favors to help me with a snazzy re-design to the whole site. I’m also hoping to enter serious contract negotiations with Nathan to provide some more content similar to what I posted over there earlier this summer. It’s also my best bet for making the blogpoll.

To get the ball rolling I have just a little round-up of information and interesting tidbits out there for you:

Great new GT blog:

Jeff is a recent Tech grad and his relatively new site In Dodd We Trust is definitely worth a regular visit. He also writes and punctuates much better than I do.

Bosh makes the cut of 15:

Chris Bosh has made the cut down to 15 players for the USA men’s basketball team. He’s a great fit for international play and continued prominence for him in the NBA game is nothing but a strong recruiting tool for Coach Hewitt and Tech.

Basketball is just around the corner:

As stated before, I love me some football, but basketball is where my heart truly lives. ESPN U’s summer session had some great notes about the ACC in general with some great specifics about GT in there. The nation is getting excited about this coming season for Tech and so am I.

That’s it for a start and I’m hoping to have some more fun posts up in the coming days as well. Stay tuned!

I'm Back with Content and Everything

2006-06-28T12:17:00.000-04:00

The boys at Every Day Should Be Saturday have provided us with a BlogPoll roundtable. Of course, I am not an official member of the BlogPoll yet, but I need to start writing again so that Brian will approve my application for next season allowing Tech to get at least a single #1 vote every week.

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.

I was born in Raleigh, NC, but moved to Columbus, GA when I was 10 years old. I lived there full time until leaving for Tech in ’96 and my mom moved out in ’01 when I graduated. I have a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Tech.

Tech wasn’t actually my first choice for where I would go to college, but finances forced me to stay within the footprint of the Hope Scholarship. Under those rules, I would have gone to UGA (a terrible, cold sweat inducing thought) if GT didn’t exist. If money hadn’t of been an issue, I would have followed in my grandfather’s, father’s, uncle’s, and lord knows who else’s path and gone to UNC.

2. Sports Affiliations. List your top 10 favorite teams in all of sports in descending 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 – Georgia Tech Basketball
#2 – Georgia Tech Football
#3 – Atlanta Falcons
#4 – Atlanta Braves
#5 – Atlanta Thrashers
#6 – Georgia Tech Baseball
#7 – Atlanta Hawks
#8 – Uh . . . hmmm . . . Georgia Tech Volleyball
#9 - . . . . . . . . . Georgia Tech Softball
#10 - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Georgia Tech Women’s Basketball
(Dear god, that gets tough towards the end. I mean I had to resort to women’s sports.)

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 – Wow, this is a really tough call, because I have spent so much time re-watching movies that it’s ridiculous. I would say over the course of my life though that it’s more likely than not The Empire Strikes Back. (Yes, I am living stereotypes.)

Sports Movie – Orson’s answer of Major League was a fine choice, but for me it was slightly edged out by Hoosiers.

Secret Love – I’m going to go over the easy b-flicks, because there is usually something in there that you can find to use as explanation for your enjoyment and still be able to look your friends in the eyes afterwards. Nope, I’m going to man-up and admit that I like Steel Magnolias. A strong southern woman raised me and something about that movie just resonates with me on several levels. Of course I am burning my guy card as soon as I finish this posting. Rules are rules.

Anticipated - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Just another nail in the coffin for the ninja.

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 – I went through a seriously strong metal phase and got hooked on Ministry.

High School – I went from Metal to the forefront of Emo (without the faggy haircut and glasses) and listened to a ton of Weezer.

College and Today – These are the same and probably shall be for always, but I (re)discovered the Beastie Boys in college and I haven’t looked back.

Secret Song – My greatest shame was listening to “Cry Me a River” on the radio and really liking it before learning it was Justin Timberlake.

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 book is another tough call, because I also have trouble ranking truly great books that I’ve read. So I’m cheating and throwing out some names that rank up there:
Favorite Book(s): A Confederacy of Dunces, Ender’s Game, Fight Club, Stranger in a Strangeland, A Storm of Swords, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot That Changed the Art of War, and Snow Crash.

Worst Book: I covered this before and will still keep my answer as Catcher in the Rye until I read it again.

Should Read: There is so much out there that it’s hard to call. I really limited myself to Sci-Fi and Fantasy (yes, stereotypes again) and I’ve been working on expanding my horizons. This list includes Freakonomics, A Book of Five Rings, The Life of Pi and many many more.

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

Favorite City: Even with many of the wonderful European cities that I’ve been to I still love New York City out of all of them. I don’t know if I could ever live there, but it’s truly an awesome place to visit.

Must Visit: Sydney, Australia or Tokyo, Japan, because then I would have been to Australia or Japan.

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

That it is a seamless combination of strategy, athleticism, personality, tradition, and violence.

A Story Worth Reading

2006-06-19T17:11:00.000-04:00

There is a great story on the Hive today with regards to a Tech alumnus and a meeting with Jason Varitek (plus a surprise Red Sox in the end.) Not only is good to see athletes at their best, but it does once again remind us that sports and those that participate are powerful and positive forces in our lives.

Motivating the ACC

2006-05-26T15:40:00.000-04:00

Well it took a chunk of the day, mostly because www.motivationalbuck.com went down on me, but I too have now contributed to masses of motivational posters at there. I took a different tact on it though. Instead of a witty phrase I decided to go with advertisements for the fine institutions contained within the Atlanta Coast Conference.

Enjoy, I go to sit on a beach for the next week and sip cold drinks with umbrellas in them.

And of course a few others that just had to be done.

Why We Watch

2006-05-26T12:47:00.000-04:00

Orson, obviously killing time on a pre-vacation Friday, hits one out of the park with his usual humor, but with a touch of poignancy as well. Must read article for any football fan and GT fans will especially enjoy the video of a certain athletically infeasible junior currently on the team.

It also contains one of the greatest lines I’ve ever read, in reference to Walter Payton. “His segment of the film portrayed him as the diminutive, devastating right hand of an angry Jehovah bent on jacking linebackers in the jaw until the world was free of sin.”

Two updates in a week? Madness!

2006-04-25T09:29:00.000-04:00

I said a while back that there would be new content, but not necessarily here and that has finally come to fruition. Periodically I will be making posts such as that over at Golden Tornado. This way one of the premier Tech blogs out there is never wont for new content since Nathan and I both work real jobs. This also forces me into some responsibility as a writer so that I keep up with getting at least a single new article a week out.

This site will still remain, but I will turn it more into a real blog in that it will be more for swear filled rants and quick notes than what I give to Nathan. So keep checking in on both.

Let It Be Known that Dan is Not Above Petty Fan Behavior

2006-04-20T11:55:00.000-04:00

Normally, I’m not into this kind of stuff. While I wouldn’t piss on the University of Georgia were it on fire, I tend to worry much more about keeping my own house than what the neighbors are doing in theirs. However, the news that Bobby Gaston’s replacement as SEC head of officiating is yet another Tech graduate in Rogers Redding gives me a warm feeling in the cockles of the heart. So let me be the first offer a wholly petty and trite:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

You see? This is what you get when you try to sneak all of those damn mutts on our AD search committee.

Site Update plus a New Meme

2006-03-22T18:25:00.000-05:00

Almost exactly 3 weeks since my last post and I still haven’t written anything of substance. Part of the problem is work, part of the problem is the lack of GT sports to talk about, part of it is that my plan for basketball wrap-up was covered much more effectively by Nathan, and part of it is that I’m very lazy right now. There are a few things in the pipeline though that will bring you more content from me, but not necessarily on this very site. I’ll give you more info as I have it.

But in the vein of having nothing remotely GT related that interests me to talk about, beesball is still too early to really discuss and I want to fucking cut every last person bitching about uniform colors, here is yet another little internet meme for your reading pleasure. The real fun here is that while I have wide range of musical tastes that I enjoy, I do not really consider myself a musical connoisseur.

1. A favorite political track.

”War” by Edwin Starr and I liked it before it appeared in Rush Hour. In fact I love a bunch of the old protest songs from the Vietnam era. “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath came in a very close second on this list.

2. One of those tracks that will make you dance on the dancefloor no matter what.
”Tootsie Roll” by the 69 Boys. One of the worst songs ever, but the beat is good and I have fond memories of drunkenly and obnoxiously grinding on Agnes Scott girls at band parties to it.

3. The song you’d use to tell someone you love them.

I honestly have no idea. The last dance at my wedding was “Let’s Get it On” by Marvin Gaye and that’s honestly as romantic as I get.

4. A song you know would sell lots of VWs (or ipods, or whatever) if they paid for it. (One that hasn’t already been used).

“Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones.

5. A song that forced you to sit down and analyze its lyrics.

Weezer’s “In the Garage,” the first song to warm my nerdy little heart in high school.

6. A song you like that a 2 year old would like too.

The amount of Weird Al songs in my mp3 collection make this impossible to answer.

7. A song that makes you drive too fast.

”Jesus Built My Hotrod” by Ministry. Actually the entire Psalm 69 CD is a fucking ticket waiting to happen.

8. A song that makes you feel like kicking someone’s ass.

”Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against the Machine. In fact I might have to reconsider my favorite political song. Rage Against the Machine is pretty damn tight when it came to that.

Of course I started looking through my play list and I found both “Walk” and “This Love” from Vulgar Display of Power by Pantera. After spending a brief second to lament Dimebag Darrell, I felt like beating the holy hell out of somebody.

9. A song that both you and your grandparents (would probably) like.

I like classical dude so pick and choose.

11. The song you’d send to someone you hated.

Fucking “Holla-Back Girl.” I still think that song was written on a dare.

12. A sad instrumental song that would be in the soundtrack to a movie about your life.

It’s clichéd and silly, but then again so is my life. I’ll go with the Eric Clapton version of “Classical Gas.” “The Real Folk Blues” from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack would place highly up here as well.

13. The peppy song that would start the opening credits in the soundtrack to a movie about your life.

Since I bumped “The Real Folk Blues” then I’m going with “Tank!” from The Cowboy Bebop soundtrack.

14. An acappella song.

Personally, I think Rockappella were unappreciated musical geniuses. How the fuck should I know?

15. A good song from a genre of music that no one could guess that you liked.

I know almost all of the words to “Roll On” by Alabama. Sure we played it my fraternity house before every football game, but I actually like it. It’s definitely one of the finer offerings from the cousin fucker genre.

Unfortunately this man and I actually have something in common.

16. A song you think should have been playing when you were born.

“Experimental Film” by They Might Be Giants: another great TMBG offering that works well for my life up to this point.

17. A favorite artist duo collaboration.

Actual obscure artists alert! Demons and Wizards was a collaboration by Iced Earth and Blind Guardian that was absolutely fantastic nerd metal.

18. A favorite song that you completely disagree with (politically, morally, commonsenically, religiously etc.)

Any song in which Eminem wraps about how great it would be to kill his ex\current\ex\current wife.

19. The song that you love despite the fact your IQ level drops several points every time you listen to it.

I’m listening to “Boombastic” by Shaggy right now. But I’ll go with “Bad Touch” by The Bloodhound Gang.

20. Your smooth song, for relaxing.

I don’t want to sound like a queer or nothing, but I’m taking “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode.

Hey lady it’s time for the DVDA shot!

21. A song that you like but would play loud to annoy the neighbors.

“Fell in Love With a Girl” by the White Stripes

22. A favorite song that’s about a sport or sports.If we can count poker as a sport, then “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers is my choice here. Otherwise I’m going for the stretch and say that the 12 Gypsy King’s version of “Hotel California” always makes me think about bowling.

Nobody fucks with the Jesus.

23. A favorite track from an outfit considered a “super-group.”

Oddly enough Demon and Wizards actually made the Wikipedia entry for supergroups so I could go with one of their many songs that I really enjoyed, but for this I’ll go with “Fall to Pieces” by Velvet Revolver.

24. The song that makes you want to drink more beer.

I’m going to have to steal a page from Orson’s book and mention that somebody tapping their fingers on their desk make me want to drink more beer.

Funny Because It's True

2006-03-02T16:32:00.000-05:00

Bagging on my hometown of Columbus, GA is like breathing for me, an automated response that I don’t even have to engage myself mentally for. I associate so many things that went wrong with my teenage life with that sweltering hellhole of a town. Seriously, Dante’s next chapter of The Inferno would have discussed a boring, mid-sized, always hot, always muggy town covered in strip malls and auto dealerships. Where the finest eating establishment is a lone Outback Steakhouse packed to the gills with horny GI’s trying to hit on your mother.

So when a fellow Columbus’ite (Columbus’ian?), writes a glorious rant with regards to the recent scandal involving men wearing clown suits performing football security (DISCLAIMER: no actual clown suits are in the article, but admit it, you laughed at the image) then I’m going to link that bitch. Doug absolutely nails what being from Columbus is like. Nobody has heard of it, even though it’s the home of the Coke formula, AFLAC, and 1996 Olympic Fast-Pitch Softball venue. I could expound further, but just read his post. He puts this one out of the park.

Just Plain Awful

2006-02-28T17:54:00.000-05:00

Lord Douchebag of the San Antonio Gunslingers has come up with this interesting little blog roundtable to get us through the dry months before football officially starts. Never one to pass up on opportunities to expound upon my sever nerdosity (nerdisity?) here are my answers.

1)What is the worst DVD/video you own?

Oh, you are heading into dangerous territory with this one. I threw out my porn collection years ago (well my physical porn collection, god bless the internet). So unlike Orson I won’t be taking the easy way out. But I have a strong history of intentionally and occasionally unintentionally buying absolutely terrible films. I use to play MST3K with my buddies in HS and college so I have a strong collection of movies that would make your eyes bleed. That being said, I’m going with the copy of Caddyshack II that I accidentally bought instead of Caddyshack.

A lot of people don’t know this, but the writers of Caddyshack II have to kill a puppy just to get an erection now. It was their punishment from the movie gods for destroying an absolutely classic film. He may not have died for 15 more years, but I also blame Caddyshack II for the death of Robert Stack. This movie is a vicious killer that should no longer be ignored.

Scientists have proven that Caddyshack II is the source of all types of leukemia.

2)What is the worst concert you've ever seen in person?

I have actually not been to a lot of concerts, but I can definitely still contribute to this without reaching into the annals of my college days and listing one of many absolutely bowel looseningly awful band parties that I attended. I would have to go with the time I saw Chingy right before Ludacris at the Tabernacle back in 2004. The opening act was David Banner, who I hadn’t heard of at the time, he was awesome. The highlight of the show was him setting aside the fifth he had been liberally drinking throughout the concert to have a quick round of prayer.

Ludacris was really on that night, much better than he was at Music Midtown the same year. The only real negative spot of the evening was Chingy and his poor sidekick with the broken leg trying to bounce around the stage to too much bass with a mic in one hand and a crutch in the other. What made it so terrible? Well, it’s hard to say. At the time he only had one recognizable single and the rest of his songs lacked the same energy. The sound crew had the bass way too loud even for a rap concert. And his rhyming just wasn’t as interesting in person as it was on the radio.

3)What is the worst experience you've ever had at a restaurant?

I’m going to be completely honest here and admit that I am(was) a gamer. Meaning that I understood Paul Westerdawg’s joke about Radakovich introducing Clough to Harlan Ellison and Gary Gygax a little too well. With that in mind, I have spent many a 3 and 4 AM at the Denny’s on Macon Road in Columbus, GA. The food isn’t bad for a Denny’s and the service is surprisingly friendly considering the bevy of toothless unwed mothers surrounding you. No the problem is that you also have to deal with all of the art house assholes on their 157th cup of coffee talking about postmodernism and Foucault throughout the night (invariably misunderstanding either). Mix that in the with bitter drunks that just got done striking out against the toothless un-wed mothers that were off that night at one of Columbus’ many “fine” bars and well you’re surrounded up to your tits in the intellectual dregs of society.

But when the Grand Slam Breakfast calls, you have to answer.

4)What is the worst movie you've ever seen in the theatre?

This one isn’t that hard at all even though I have actually seen movies “worse” than the one I’m about to list. Much like my VHS and DVD collection, I have been to see many many terrible films in the theater. Batman & Robin, Dungeons & Dragons, No Holds Barred all spring to mind. But I went into this films knowing that the fun was going to be in their awfulness. I was prepared for the cinematographic shit to hit the sensorial fan. Sometimes the film was more painful than expected, Batman & Robin, but I still had some prep time before the visual assault.

But every now and again you head into a film all atwitter about its possibilities and its potential. Your friends have come back and told you what a wonderful movie it is and you must go and see it before the terrorists take this wonderment away. Maybe they are playing a cruel trick on you. Maybe they just really hate you, but unbeknownst to you the time has come to enter into a film that has been shown to cause AIDS in laboratory animals. This film for me was Starship Troopers.

First of all, Starship Troopers is one of my favorite books of all time. Ranking just behind Stranger in a Strangeland on the all time list. So to see Paul “Showgirls” Verhoeven’s adaptation of a treasure of American literature was jarring to say the list. No, that’s really not a strong enough statement. I think I could go home eat my copy of Starship Troopers, drop the subsequent deuce on a ream of computer paper, and produce a better script than this festering hemorrhoid of a film. I hate, hate, hate this movie. I want all the bad things in the world to happen to Paul Verhoeven and only Paul Verhoeven. Now excuse me, I have to go put some more water in Casper Van Diem’s mother’s dish.
Where the fuck are the drop suits you gigantic Dutch hack!?!

5)What is the worst book you've actually finished?

Now this is a tough one, because I usually have no trouble setting a book down if I don’t like it. So I’ll have to go with some book that I was forced to read for school . . . ah hah . . . I’m going with Catcher in the Rye.

I don’t think it’s actually fair to the book, because I still think my 9th grade English teacher was somewhere between spore mode and a fiddler crab in terms of evolutionary development and thus didn’t give me a better appreciation of the book. As for my memories, I just thought the whole book read like one of the worse episodes of My So Called Life. I just never got into the troubles of teenagers angle. Mostly because I had a truly shitty 5 year stretch leading up to and including my freshman year of high school so spoiled rich kids that didn’t get asked to the prom just didn’t really resonate with me. I mostly felt that Holden Caulfield just needed a good old fashioned ass-whupping. Of course this was the same point in my life that I wrote a paper arguing that The Old Man and the Sea maybe didn’t have anymore significance that being about a guy that caught a really big fish. I think it’s fair to say that I hadn’t quite find the art in my soul yet. Still, in terms of just memories I’m going with Catcher in the Rye until I read it again and maybe understand it better without Mrs. TeachFromtheCliffNotes guiding my understanding.

6)Who is the worst looking or least appealing celebrity you would have intimate relations with “just to tell the story”?

Another tough call here. I mean the opportunities for some good old fashioned hate sex are about endless. But as an old wrestling fan I think I would go with Joanie Lauer, aka Chyna. Surviving that experience would be worth the story alone.

Sadly this was the most flattering SFW picture I could find. I have a healthy fear of this women.

Just Like The Simple Pleasures of a Monkey Knife Fight

2006-02-23T17:11:00.000-05:00

After last night’s loss to Duke the amateur coaching ranks have grown yet again. Both sides of the spectrum are vying to see who can out moronic the other side. I use to get upset about this, but now I just lean back and enjoy one of life’s more simple pleasures, the retard fight.

This is everyone’s fault, but mine.
Be careful! He has a list!
Is that applesauce I smell?
I need your validation coaches. I'm pretty, funny, and oh so smart.

Well Check That Off The List

2006-02-22T12:25:00.000-05:00

Well it looks like Tech has a new AD and much like the tide, death, and taxes half of the fan base is inevitably upset about it.

I never really got the whole infatuation with Curry. Sure, he went to Tech, but so do half of the mouth-breathers on the Internet that make me question daily the actual value of my degree. Beyond that a 79-98-4 record over 6 seasons as HC, a defection to Alabama, and an absolutely stunning head of hair do not really an AD make. Despite the support of a group that spends much of their time wishing the NCAA would force men’s basketball players to wear those really short shorts again.

(Feathered and beautiful. They don't make it like that anymore Cotton.)

I fully support the new hire and hope for good things to come. Nathan has a much more detailed and articulate take here.

UPDATE RANT:

Okay, I can't stand this fucking "Tech Man" nonsense any longer. Bill Curry road the fucking M-train through Tech in the 60's and was our head football coach 20 GODDAMN YEARS AGO! What is with this belief that somehow this will give him some kind of mystical insight into the actual daily running of the athletics deparments? Or what we need as a program in 2006.

He has no relative nor recent administrative experience other than telling the make-up women to apply more foundation so that he can look younger than Lou Holtz. I thought engineers were fucking logical.

More Bloggity Goodness

2006-02-10T15:52:00.000-05:00

I have updated my blog roll again. I took out my failed political\movie blog and added The Courtmaster Rules on College Sports. I've actually read his blog some before and it's quality stuff.

I'm hoping to update my blog roll in the coming days as there are tons of great blogs out there that you guys should be reading.

Tenuta a Wolverine?

2006-02-08T15:08:00.000-05:00

I’m not into panic mode yet as we’re still into typical online rumor mongering, but the Tom Smykowski in me could come out anytime.

(Dan is trying not to get to "we're all screwed!" just yet)

EDSBS is reporting that Michigan is interested in Jon Tenuta “Super Genius” as their preferred DC replacement of choice. I’d say more, but I just swallowed my tongue.

Recruiting Round Table

2006-02-06T14:07:00.000-05:00

After some commenting back and forth between Doug from Hey Jenny Slater, Nathan from the Golden Tornado, and myself we decided to have a recruiting\thoughts for next season round table. Look for my answers to Doug’s questions over on his site. Nathan may or may not get involved. The basketball team may have killed him. I’m not exactly sure.

1. Unlike most of your head-in-the-sand Tech fans, I think that Mark Richt is a hell of a coach and a fantastic recruiter. He’s had nothing worse than a top-15 class (according to Scouts) since 2002 and two top-5 classes in a row. He’s played for the SEC championship 3 times, winning two, and only had a single season in which he won fewer than 10 games. Yet, at times I notice some unease in the Bulldog nation with the fact that UGA has at least one inexplicable loss per year and have never been in serious contention to play in the BCS Championship game. Are these the fringe fans or is there some legitimate concern in the Dawg nation about Richt’s ability to climb to the next level?

I think there is some concern, yes, and it’s not been limited just to those “fringe fans” – I think you kind of saw it “peak” (which, let me make very clear, is a relative term) after the 2004 season. In all honesty, I can’t say I blame them: When you look at all the superstars who were finishing their Georgia careers in 2004, you just kind of have to scratch your head at how they didn’t end up in anything bigger-time than the Outback Bowl. However, I also think a lot of that sentiment was mitigated to a large extent by the season that came directly after it. I don’t know if there’s a single person out there who didn’t think Georgia had a mammoth rebuilding job ahead of them in 2005, yet we still came through it with 10 wins and an SEC title. When you take that into consideration, I think it’s pretty clear that, whether or not he has any national titles under his belt yet, Richt at least has the program operating on a very elite level.

I don’t want to harp on that 2005 SEC title game too much, but for my part – and I said this on my own blog after we won the last SEC title – I saw that game as a potential tipping point for the Georgia program under Richt. We’d lost the last SEC title game we played, and I was worried that if we lost this one, we’d start to bear that Atlanta Braves stigma, the taint of a team that wins one title and then can’t do any better than runner-up status from there on out. Instead, we blew out LSU and earned what I think is a much, much stronger reputation going forward. Like I said, it showed that we were at a point in the program’s history where even the rebuilding years could be special. The title we won in 2002 showed that we had reached a higher level; the title we won in 2005 showed that we could stay there.

Consider, too, that even the great Wally Butts and Vince Dooley didn’t win titles right away. OK, Butts only needed four years to win his first one, but Vince had been coach of the Dawgs for 17 seasons before he brought home the big trophy, and I don’t think you could find many people in Bulldog Nation who would trade the Dooley years for anything.

I know it sounds like I’m saying “Just give it time, we’ll win the Big One eventually” – and in today’s sports environment, where not only do you have to win at all costs but you have to win right away, that isn’t going to come across as particularly inspiring advice to some people. But we’ve got time; Richt has gotten Georgia back to a level where we’re not looking at one- or two-season “windows,” where if we don’t win a title in that brief period, we’re screwed. At this point, every single season offers a chance for something special. Which is especially exciting when you consider how young Richt is — clearly, he’s got many good years of coaching left in him, and I know I’m not the only one who’s thrilled by the prospect of having a guy who stays for 20 or 30 years and thus ends up leaving a JoePa or Bobby Bowden-style legacy in Athens. With the success that Richt has achieved already, you give him that long and you’ll have some crystal footballs in your trophy case by the time he strolls off into the sunset. I’m willing to wait for that, and as long as Richt keeps the program on its current year-in-and-year-out-competitive level, I think the vast majority of the fan base will be, too.

2. Related to those recruiting classes mentioned in question 1 and especially a second top-5 class in a row: Do you feel that the margin of victory for UGA over Tech in the last two games was far too small for two teams of such supposedly disparate talent levels? Does this show that the recruiting services are mostly a bunch of bullshit, that rivalry games aren’t only about talent, or that maybe the coaching disparity isn’t as big as people think (okay stop laughing)?

Not that the others aren’t, but that’s a really good question. Would I have liked for the margins of victory in 2004 and ’05 to have been larger? Hells yes I would have. (I really would’ve liked to have seen what would’ve happened if David Greene’s stupid thumb hadn’t gotten injured in that ’04 game . . . ) Do I think the narrowing margins indicate a narrowing talent gap between the two teams? Mmmm – perhaps. I don’t know that the talent gap is narrowing quite as dramatically as the scores have been, but I’ll totally agree with you on the recruiting-services-being-bullshit point. Start the petition that exiles Tom Lemming to a remote Pacific island for the rest of his days and I’ll sign that sucker twice.

What I really think the narrowing gap has to do with, though, is the simple fact that the motivation gets bigger and bigger for Tech’s players every single year, while for Georgia’s players that really isn’t the case. The Tech players and coaches are tired of losing to Georgia — you know it, I know it, and the American people know it — and each year they feel more and more pressure to win. On the Georgia side, they don’t have that kind of pressure, and while I don’t want to say that the UGA players are becoming complacent as a result, I do think that in 2005, at least, Tech’s players came into that game hungrier. As for when that motivation will finally be enough to put Tech over the top versus Georgia . . . well, I wouldn’t dare speculate on that.

3. Related to the above, considering that Tech brought in another pedestrian recruiting class, at least according to the experts, do you feel that the days of Tech being able to compete with UGA are gone at least for the foreseeable future?
Not really sure. I wouldn’t dare say something like “Y’all might as well just stay home for the next five/ten/X years,” because that’s a real good way for me to end up looking like a real dumbass at some point. If I were a Tech fan, I would be less concerned with the “star ratings” and the opinions of snake-oil salesman like Tom Lemming — as we’ve both said, and as Calvin Johnson has confirmed, a recruit’s supposed lack of “superstar” status has absolutely nothing to do with his eventual production on the field – and more concerned with how the NCAA sanctions have cut into Chan Gailey’s ability to offer those recruits scholarships in the first place. The quantity of recruits, in other words, as opposed to the quality. Sanctions are a killer, there’s no two ways around it. Put it this way: I don’t think Tech’s ability to compete with Georgia is gone for the foreseeable future, but I think their ability to string together consistent success against Georgia the way George O’Leary eventually did has been severely hampered. Beating Georgia isn’t necessarily an impossible goal at this point, but beating us consistently is going to be a real challenge until the effects of those sanctions wear off.

I’ll pause now so that y’all can make your “Well, you would know all about NCAA sanctions, wouldn’t you” jokes . . . all done? OK, good. Next question.

4. With D.J. Shockley being injured this year and Pope Urban bringing in the only recruiting class higher ranked than yours in the SEC, do you feel as if you missed the boat on being able to consistently win the Cocktail Party? Not to suggest that you’ll consistently lose, but do you think it will be possible for UGA to repeat the consistent level of dominance that UF showed over UGA for the last 16 years?

Oh, boy, don’t get me started on this past season’s Georgia-Florida game. When Shockley got hurt against Arkansas, it was almost as if God Himself had turned into Bill Lumbergh and said, “Oooohhh . . . yeah, love what you’ve done this season and everything, but I’m gonna need you guys to go ahead and lose to Florida again, m’kay? Oh, and by the way, if you wouldn’t mind abandoning any hope of a national title in 2005, that’d be greeeeat. Thanks a bunch.” I’m getting a bleeding ulcer just thinking about it.

No, I don’t think it’s possible for Georgia to repeat the dominance that UF has shown over UGA for the past 16 years, but that isn’t even the issue at this point — I’d be happy with Georgia just beating Florida twice in a row. (Twice in a row, God! I go to church every Sunday, would that have been so freakin’ hard?) Sure, Bulldog Nation would love to start doing to Florida what they did to us for the past 16 years, but really I think we’d settle for just being able to beat the Gators more than once per decade. Do I think this is going to happen anytime soon? Well, I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but I think we’re going to get back to that point eventually. Nothing lasts forever, and Meyer’s spread-option system has shown some major vulnerabilities in the speed-first environment of the SEC. If we can somehow find a way to take two in a row from those guys, I think that’ll be what starts to even things back up again.

5. Give a quick overall of how you feel your team will fare next year considering the losses, gains, and what you know about the rest of the SEC.

Well, it’s gonna be a rebuilding season, no two ways about it. But again, this past season showed that a “rebuilding season” for Georgia isn’t an automatic ticket to mediocrity. I think it hinges on two things: Finding a capable QB, and toughening up the middle of the defense so that we don’t get run all over like we did in the latter half of the ’05 season. With respect to the first issue, I gotta think that between Joe Tereshinski, Blake Barnes, Joe Cox and Matt Stafford, there’s somebody in that group who can step up, and when they do, they’ll have a ton of blazingly fast receivers to throw to. As for the second, I think we’ve got the talent there, too, we just need to coach ’em up, and getting a reprieve from our semiannual plague of injuries would sure be nice.

I think our main strengths will be a strong (and deep) running game – the importance of which you can’t underestimate in the SEC – and a strong defense. Now, I know I just got through saying that the defensive middle needs to step up a bit, but I think we’ve gotten to a pretty consistent “We don’t rebuild, we reload” level with our defense – who would’ve thought that after losing superstars like Pollack, Thurman, Davis and VanGorder, we’d have a defense in 2005 that in some aspects was even stronger than it had been the previous year? I was one of the few people out there who wasn’t afraid that the Georgia D would automatically revert to Island Of Misfit Toys status after losing those guys, so I’m optimistic that our defense in 2006 will come out swinging even after sustaining some losses. The return of Quentin Moses, in particular, is going to be a huge boost for this unit, not just in terms of production but in terms of experienced leadership.

Now, do I see back-to-back SEC titles on the horizon? Uh . . . no. But I will say this: Of the 12 games on our schedule, the only ones I’d pick out as “budgeted losses” are Florida and Auburn. Of the remaining ten, I’d say seven of those are probable Ws, which leaves Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia Tech as games that could go either way and that I really can’t predict at this point. If we can take two out of three of those – in addition to the other seven – we’re sitting at nine wins with a chance to earn a tenth in a bowl game. Which would give us five straight years of double-digit wins for the first time in team history – something only eight other programs in the history of DI-A football have been able to do – and if you can find a Georgia fan anywhere in the world who wouldn’t be happy with that, please introduce me to him so I can tell him he’s effing nuts.

I'm a Bad Bad Blogger

2006-01-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

I know I have been woefully lean on updates in the last few weeks, but to be honest this current basketball season has been draining. Not only because the team can be frustrating to watch, but because our fans have once again gone batshit insane. I knew folks were going to have us in the NCAA tournament after the first BC win and now folks have us losing every game left on the schedule and maybe even some pick-up games with the a 14 and under team along the way. The best thing about a predominately engineering oriented fan base is the predictability.

I am going to write more on the blog. But I think I’ll write more about Tech fandom in general and stay off of basketball. I feel I have some interesting insights into what makes Tech fans so psychologically different than other fans. Besides Nathan just does a fantastic job covering men’s basketball already. The best I could do is link to him, but I shouldn’t have to do that, because you should already be checking his blog.

So updates are going to come, I promise.

GT vs. Wake Forest

2006-01-17T12:42:00.000-05:00

Nathan has a real nice preview for the Wake Forest game up at his site. So thanks to Nathan for saving me some effort on that.

REAL: GT News Flash

2006-01-13T17:54:00.000-05:00

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting the Theodis Tarver has been ruled eligible for the rest of the season. Fantastic news for Theo and for the team.

Story

GT News Flash

2006-01-13T15:59:00.000-05:00

This just in from the Georgia Tech Athletic Association Sports Information Department:

“In honor of the retirement of the venerable Dave Braine as Georgia Tech Athletic Director we are offering a family package on attendance for the retirement party. For just $40 dollars you will receive 4 tickets to the event, 4 cokes, 4 hot dogs, and a complimentary ‘Don’t Let the Door Hit Ya Where the Lord Split Ya’ t-shirt (distributed randomly in one of four completely different shades of gold.*)

We will be making this offer to the University of Georgia alumni base first so that Mr. Braine’s last time in Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field would not have a confusing lack of opposing fans. In this same light chair back seats will not be available so as to create as authentic a game-day experience as possible.”

*May also be yellow.

Are You Marcus Vick?

2006-01-10T17:58:00.000-05:00

It was hairy until the puppy killing question, but luckily I am apparently NOT Marcus Vick.

Find out for yourself over at EDSBS.

Tinfoil Hat Theory About the Tarver Situation

2006-01-10T10:01:00.000-05:00

As folks are probably well aware, Theodis Tarver was ruled academically ineligible to play basketball for the rest of the season. However, he was only ineligible by GT’s standards and not the NCAA’s. Personally I think it’s a load of horseshit and they probably could have find something during his oversight hearing to give him a shot to get back on the team, but they didn’t.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories; in fact my theory on this isn't even much of a conspiracy. But I have to wonder if the administration would have played hardball like this if we weren't under NCAA sanctions right now?

If they are then that would mean that our AD and most likely our President are sacrificing the well being of a SA to save face for their own clusterfuck of a situation. Which is absolutely despicable, but the kind of bill passing that I have come to expect from Dave Braine in the last few years.

I can see him in his office right now with his bib on to make sure he doesn’t get in applesauce on his suit going “See! I’m in control here! I have absolute control of the situation! Look, how relevant and competent I still am!”

So to Dave Braine, please just fucking retire at the end of this year. Relevancy passed you at least two years ago and I think you might have been having long heartfelt conversations with senility in the interim. Unlike most of the alumni base, I have absolutely no delusions that our SA's play on a level playing field with the rest of the student body. You could have helped to fix this*, but instead are most likely trying to save face for your own ineptitude. So in my own not so humble opinion, you can go fuck yourself Dave Braine.

*Before the UGA and SEC comparisons start, I'm not talking about passing a kid that failed. Theo should have to retake any classes he did not pass. But if you think we haven't switched a few F's into I's on behalf of SA's in the past then I have a bridge for sale just outside of NYC that is a hell of a piece of property. A regular student might have even gotten them considering the family tragedy that Theo had to endure.

ESPN it's just time to keep Simmons away from College Sports

2006-01-05T12:42:00.000-05:00

Orson covers it pretty well over at Every Day Should be Saturday, but I thought I would put some of my own thoughts down about the column.

First let me say, I have enjoyed Simmons for a long time. I first found him on Page 2 and in a lot of ways the passion he wrote with back when he first started contributed a lot towards my own growing sports fandom. That being said, I have battled in the last year with dealing with his increasingly mediocre writing and metamorphosis into a punch line worthy of his own columns. Has there become much difference between Bill Simmons and Dick Vitale or Stephen A. Smith? I mean other than Simmons is still somebody you have to go looking for to annoy you and ESPN has the medium to shove Vitale and Smith into my face on a nightly basis?

I mean are the phrases “watershed” and “The XXXX face” really different than “diaper dandy” or “PTP’er?” In any column you can count on a 90210 reference as easily as you can count on Stephen A. Smith saying, “there’s no question about it.” It’s been frightening, but I think Kevin Cott is slowly surpassing him and this is a guy that until he got the Intern job was working his way towards being a lawyer.

I still enjoy some of his writing. When he sticks with what he knows like the NBA, mailbags, or movies (bring back the fucking sports movie write-ups they are the best thing you have written in the last 12 months) then I still find him entertaining. He has definitely lost his fastball, but he can still write a column that I at least enjoy and maybe chuckle once or twice during.

As for the most offensive part of the columns, though his blatant ignorance of the two best teams in the nation is pretty damn offensive, let’s see it in text and then dissect it some.

"I loved watching the Monday Bowl games, when the No. 9 team was battling the No. 12 team, and people were pretending that this was even remotely interesting. Oooooooh, if they lose, they could drop from No. 9 to No. 14 for the season! Who cares? Does anyone even keep track of this stuff? Imagine if, one day before the NFL playoffs started, San Diego played Kansas City to determine who was the 13th best team in the NFL? Or what if the AFC and NFC Championship losers met one day before the Super Bowl to battle for the No. 3 ranking? Would anyone care? Of course not. So why would anyone follow these meaningless college bowl games? I find the whole thing perplexing. Back to the column."

I’m going to dissect this part line by line, but let me tell you that the rest of the column was equally putrid with a dash of just plain retarded thrown in. How can somebody work for fucking ESPN and be this ignorant of college sports? For the love of god some of that shit would had to have rubbed off on him somewhere. I mean when Skip Bayless, who is eating a healthy amount of crow between eyebrow tweezings, comes across as more knowledgeable than you about anything, besides manscaping techniques, you have some serious goddamn problems.

As for the quote above let’s look at some of this horseshit:

"I loved watching the Monday Bowl games, when the No. 9 team was battling the No. 12 team, and people were pretending that this was even remotely interesting."

Hey Bill, it might just be my ability to remember something other than stale jokes, but didn’t you buy fucking Clippers tickets when you moved out to LA? I mean watching two great college football teams play in their final game of the season and dozens of seniors play in the last football game of their entire sports career doesn’t hold a candle to courtside seats at one of the most irrelevant, until this season, NBA franchises of all time. You also fucking Tivo episodes of 90210, but just recently learned about 24 so let’s not get into making fun of other people’s hobbies.

"Oooooooh, if they lose, they could drop from No. 9 to No. 14 for the season! Who cares? Does anyone even keep track of this stuff?"

Yes! Your goddamn sports writing brethren who manage to shit out a thousand ridiculous pre-season columns based on how teams finished the regular seasons. Not to mention fans looking for bragging rights over their regional rivals and most importantly of all the goddamn recruiting prospects! How can you be this ignorant of college athletics? You fucking have a degree and you wrote for your school paper. At some rudimentary level you must understand how this works and why even the WhoGivesAGoodGoddamn.com bowl can have some impact on your program.

"Imagine if, one day before the NFL playoffs started, San Diego played Kansas City to determine who was the 13th best team in the NFL? Or what if the AFC and NFC Championship losers met one day before the Super Bowl to battle for the No. 3 ranking? Would anyone care? Of course not."

I bet San Diego fans and Kansas City fans would care. I bet general football fans would care. Why? Because it means we get another game you asshole. Jesus, you wrote a column just two years ago about how much the sports purgatory of waiting for spring training to start once the Super Bowl is over sucks. And you can’t think why people would want to squeak just one more game out of their beloved teams in their beloved sport? Do you have a team of helper monkeys belting these columns out lately?

"So why would anyone follow these meaningless college bowl games? I find the whole thing perplexing. Back to the column."

It’s called pride you douchebag. That thing you had to swallow when it was time to admit to yourself you couldn’t hack it on Kimmel’s show. The thing you sold when you bombed on I Love the 90’s Strikes Back Again for the First Time (after whining about how the first one shouldn’t have existed yet in your column might I remind you.)

You know the thing you used to take in your writing before you started mailing it in every week like all of the Patriots, Celtics, and Red Sox you’ve thrown under the bus after they asked to be traded out of that shit-ass town and weren’t.

B-Ball Thoughts: GT vs. Vandy

2006-01-04T16:32:00.000-05:00

I’m going to try a new format for my thoughts on the men’s basketball game versus Vanderbilt last night. While I am pretty much an optimist, I think I have come across in the past as somebody that overlooks the flaws of the team. So going forward, I’m going to attempt to always follow a pro with a con when discussing a point. I’m also going to try and group the thoughts under headings. So I’ll talk about The Team’s pros and cons, Player’s pros and cons, etc.

The Team

Pro: 28 baskets on 22 assists. That is stellar ball movement and unselfish play.
Con: 22 turnovers. Some of these were bad, some were unlucky, but it’s still far too big of a number to carry into ACC play.

Pro: Moving without the basketball. We actually were moving on offense without the basketball trying to get a shot for ourselves or helping to create an open shot for somebody else.
Con: Vandy climbed back into a lead in the second half, because we had a 4-5 minute period of standing around again. The slight positive here is that will be telling on the game film. Our movement is also just running around until we get open. I’d still like to see a few more set plays in the half-court without coming out of a timeout.

Pro: Team defense was much better this game than the last few games I’ve seen in person. We’d make a basketball, Vandy would rush down the court and I thought we would give up another quick transition basket, but suddenly somebody would get in front of the ball and make them set a play. Vandy made a lot of contested shots to their credit. We play like this for more games and I doubt everyone will shoot over 40% against us.
Con: On the whole we did a better job, but I still think we need to help each other more by calling out the screens. We also would have two people rush out on the perimeter when only one was needed leaving somebody open for an easy bucket.

Pro: As a team we shot 60.9% for the game.
Con: Uh, it wasn’t 70%. (I didn’t promise these would all be good)

Pro: We out rebounded them 35-18.
Con: I still think our rebounding technique and teamwork needs some work.

Individuals (For brevity I’m only going with a single pro\con set for each player)

Anthony Morrow

Pro: I think by the end of his career he is going to combine the best traits of Marvin Lewis and BJ Elder, but with a dash of the fire of Jarrett Jack. BJ always seemed afraid to take over a game and Marvin was just too nice to be a bit of a jerk to the other team.
Con: I’d still like to see him put the ball on the deck more and score around the basket. That’s not necessarily his role right now, but if he could add it to his repertoire he will be a superstar by the end of his career.
D’Andre Bell

Pro: Outstanding game for the freshman GF out of California. He did his best Redick impersonation by just constantly running everywhere in the half-court offense and making his poor man chase him. Has found his shot in recent games and looks to be bringing back the lost art of the mid-range jump shot. A tenacious defender and ball-hawk, I can’t wait for 3 more years of this.
Con: Still gives up some dumb fouls they are playing hard fouls which I like, but they are still unnecessary. He’s also a chief culprit in the two men rush out to the perimeter and leave a guy open under the basket problem that I mentioned above.

Re’sean Dickey

Pro: Finally playing hard and seems to actually be doing a better job off the bench than starting. He actually logged more minutes than Tarver off the bench, but Tarver still started both halves. He’s fighting for the ball more and kicking it out of the post a little better.
Con: Hopefully it’s just a last night occurrence, but had a severe case of stone hands for a while there. 6 TO’s is not a good number if you want to log a lot of post minutes. He still dribbles too much for a post player IMO. I’d like to see he and Morrow work the two-man game a bit more.

Zam Frederick

Pro: Finally hit some 3’s to make folks respect him and had a respectable 5 dimes on the night. Defense is an adventure still, but improving.
Con: Still picks up his dribble too soon, doesn’t realize that’s he’s too short to score in the paint, and answered those 5 dimes with 5 TO’s. He’s improving and all of this experience will be good for next year when Critty needs a blow, but he’s just not a PG.
Side note: I still believe we as fans must put him on our shoulders this season and make him believe as much as possible. This season could turn him into a respectable back-up PG for next year, that means we could have Crittenton, Buck, and West who can all score and all bring the ball up court if needed on the floor at the same time. Who wants to try and set a press against that?

Theodis Tarver

Pro: His defense and presence are really starting to make a difference on the floor. I think he could be a scorer as well if we run a little offense through him, but he’s going to have to build some confidence for it to work.
Con: I don’t have much for him. He’s playing his role well on the team, but I wish he would look to score a bit more.

Paco Diaw

Pro: Boy he finds the open man when he needs to and those long arms are really disruptive on defense.
Con: 8 dimes in his number of minutes his huge, but 4 TO’s is an area he still needs to work on. In his interview with Wes before the game he mentioned that he put in 47 points in a HS game so I’d like to see him try and score a bit more than he his right now. I think a lot of this is just confidence and should improve as the season progresses and he gets more minutes.

Jeremis Smith

Pro: Another workman effort like we’ve come to expect: 9 points, 9 boards, solid defense, and a big dunk to put the game away at the end.
Con: I don’t think he was feeling well last night. While he was obviously playing hard, it looked like the fire was missing a little bit. Stefanie commented on it several times.

Miscellaneous:

The Fans

Pro: Decent turnout considering it was a 5 PM game on a workday, school wasn’t back in session yet, and it was right after most folks had taken a lot of vacation. Those that were there were also very loud when we needed to be and got the team up on defense at the end of the game.
Con: Time to go Dennis Miller here:

STOP FUCKING LEAVING EARLY IN TIGHT GAMES!!!

I swear to god I don’t understand how the team puts up with this. I’m about ready to cut half of you assholes. A double-digit lead with 1-2 minutes left in the game? Sure, I get that. A 5 point lead with 2 minutes left and 2 key players with 4 fouls on the other hand and you dipshits are filing out the exits like a bunch of goddamn Braves fans in a 1-run play-off game.

And before you start I can already here your complaints. “But Dan, I have to get back to my shitty McMansion that I bought just north of Greenville, SC and don’t want to sit in traffic.”

First of all, I don’t really give a damn. You’re probably the same asshole that bought that McMansion and then spends all day at work pissing and moaning about your commute. Let me help you with something, everyone you work with hates you. Actually that’s not true, the other douchebags that bought houses where everything will have to be replaced in 5 years and drive 30 miles one-way to work everyday love listening to it. It’s those of us that actually live in the city that want to poison your 15th cup of coffee.

Secondly, you wouldn’t have to sit in traffic leaving the game if you goddamn lemmings would learn that Fowler isn’t the only way off of campus. Jesus, a majority of you attended that school at least 4 years yet none of you apparently know that there are at least 5 major exits from the campus. If you didn’t attend Tech, here is a free campus map off of the Ramblin Wreck site. I have never sat longer than 15 minutes to get off of campus after either a football or basketball game. (Of course half the damn fans leave so maybe that has something to do with it.) I park in the O’keefe lot for football and never leave early so the line down Fowler is always bad at that point. Of course since nobody apparently knows that 5th street exists, I’m off campus in a heartbeat.

More on Tech and UGAg

2006-01-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

Goldtimer from Wreck Ramblin linked to my post about the UGAg loss yesterday and I just found it this morning. I’m going to post here my comment on his site in case folks don’t check it often or have trouble getting it to work. I’ll go ahead and take this time to expand on my thoughts a little bit.

Thanks for the link Goldtimer. I don't entirely disagree with you either and
someday I'll probably post some more detailed and better prepared thoughts on
the subject. I agree that as in-state rivals it is typically a good thing for us
emotionally and logistically when UGA loses a game. However, I don't 100%
believe in the zero-sum theory with regards to UGA across the boards, i.e. once
you get outside of W-L's, like a lot of fans seem to believe. In fact, it's
pretty easy to create paradoxes in that line of thought.
My post was more a
showing of concern that I sometimes feel our fans tie their emotions to UGA more
strongly than they actually do to their own team. It just seems that we somtimes
root more strongly for UGA to lose than we root for GT to win.

I should go ahead and say that for me some of the best days of football are a Tech win and a UGAg loss. The worst days are a Tech loss and a UGAg win. However, where I feel I differ from a lot of fans, or at least the online community, is that many come across as a Tech loss and a UGAg loss is a middling day in between the two. I personally put it much closer to the latter than the former. In nerdy engineering terms, UGAg’s performance is a smaller factor in maximizing my football happiness than Tech’s. Many times it feels as if we give them equal weight on the Hive or in the blog community. This is where the little brother concerns come in.

In terms of the zero-sum theory, I do feel that bad things for UGAg, on the field, are good things for Tech. But to be honest, I find the reveling in UGAg’s off-season woes to be kind of despicable. I might get a little chortle out of it, but I have never understood how we can piss and moan about obnoxious UGAg fans and then do little jigs because a player got caught driving with a suspended license. To paraphrase, I have met the enemy and we have become him. I think if we’re going to move forward as a program we have to concern ourselves with our own house. Especially in light of all of the on and off the field woes we’ve had in the last four years.

I'll Pass on the Schadenfreude

2006-01-03T13:03:00.000-05:00

I’ll be honest.  I don’t take much pleasure from schadenfreude when it comes to college athletics.  Sure, seeing UGA lose last night was a nice little pick me up, but I see far too many Tech fans that almost feel it validates our season that UGA also lost.  First, they were playing in a BCS bowl.  Second, they were conference champions and a 10-win team.  Third we still lost to them for the fourth season in a row.  I don’t find much happiness in their loss.  Maybe a little bit, but in the end I’m still much more pissed about us losing to Utah than I’m happy that they lost to WVU.  It also doesn’t help that they didn’t roll over and die in their game and almost pulled it out.

My love for Tech is a much stronger emotion than my hatred for Georgia.  That’s why I didn’t feel bad rooting for them to win the SEC when it looked like it was get us the Gator Bowl (a classic example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma).  I wouldn’t have minded if they blew out WVU and it cost the Big East their auto-bid to the BCS.  All of these things would have done more to maximize my happiness as a college football and Georgia Tech fan that a UGA loss does.

Once again we show as a fan base that we would rather define ourselves by who aren’t than by whom we are.

As close to 24 hours as you're getting

2005-12-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

(The entire Tech defense and offensive line pose for a team shot before the Emerald Bowl.)

I tried to give myself a few days to cool down, but this is the best that you're getting. Last night's Emerald Bowl was an absolute embarrassment and the worst part is that you have to lay it at the feet of the entire team. In fact if I had to put up a positives section for the game it would look like this:

PJ Daniels and Damarius Bilbo looked like they actually wanted to be there.

There that's the end of the positives. Good thing we got them out of the way. As for the negatives, I'm on vacation and enjoying being away from a computer too much to but together the Robert Jordan sized tome of suckitude that I had to experience last night. We flat sucked. We were the suckiest bunch of suck that ever did suck. Tenuta got his ass handed to him last night. The one thing that will keep him from being a head coach is his obvious stubbornness to not give up on the vaunted zone blitz when it isn't working. Let's be very clear here, we gave up four fucking touchdowns (and a 2-point conversion) to a back-up QB and a WR that run nothing but post patterns the whole goddamn night. It was apparent that it was down year in the ACC for QB's, because Ratliff showed all you needed to beat us was an accurate passer with an o-line that gave him a few seconds to make a decision.

It was obvious in body language that nobody wanted to be there and yet again Gailey forgot he had a running back average over 6 yards a carry, because they managed to stop 2 running plays in a row. He has got to hire an actual OC that has a firebrand personality. The Nix and Gailey combo is too nice and guys just aren't fired up to be out there. And for anybody that wants to ask for evidence of this it's been obvious in at least one game a season for 4 years now. My personal favorites are Wake'02, Clemson in '03, UNC in '04, and now Utah (congrats on bumping NCSU guys) in '05.

I guess hearty congratulations are up for bumping the b-ball performance out of my mind as well. It's been a shitty week in Jacket nation and I'm just glad that I didn't have to go to work on top of it all.

To Hell with Recruiting . . . Rankings

2005-12-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

Scott over at the GT Sports Blog gives a great analysis of why we should take the recruiting rankings with a grain of salt. I don’t always agree with Scott’s analysis of events, but I think he’s done a great and thorough job on this one.

Take a look.

A Shitty Christmas Present

2005-12-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

Apparently Lewis Clinch is out 4-6 weeks with a stress fracture in his leg. That’s really a shame since I think he had the potential to be a huge help during the start of ACC play. However, this could be good for Lewis since watching from the bench next to the coaches could help him adjust the mental aspects of the game where he was obviously struggling some (defense, timidity, and shot selection).

Best of luck to Lewis and here’s to a speedy recovery.

Updates Coming

2005-12-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

I'm in a pre-sales for a logistics software firm. Everybody and their brother loves to get software demos this time of year, because they don't have anything better to do and they're trying to set purchasing budgets for next year. I have been up to my ass in data studies and conference calls the last 2 weeks. On top of that things have been kind of slow GT wise anyway.

As we get into the swing of basketball season, I promise more content and ill-conceived vitriol. Sometimes even at the same time.

Blogtacular

2005-12-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

There's another solid GT blog out there called Yellowblazer's World. YB has some excellent insights and topics of conversation. I also believe its proprietor is an active military servicemen (like both of my brother in laws).

So check it daily or the terrorists have won.

Well That's Embarassing

2005-12-08T16:26:00.000-05:00

It’s a tough thing to admit, but sometimes you’re the asshole in the room. After last nights basketball shellacking old Dan here went off the deep end for close to 24 hours. At this point, I’m pleading head cold and NyQuil. As proud as I am of my overall dicketry, even then you can cross the line. So I’m going to throw up here on the old blog that sometimes you are the high horse fan that you hate so much. Wake up calls and self reflection are a good thing folks.

And because I do feel guilty about it and it will scroll off the front page of The Hive relatively quickly. I’m apologizing to SportsFisherman in this space as well.

You’re still not actually getting cookies though.

That sucks!

2005-12-05T18:11:00.000-05:00

I had typed up a whole nice post about the men's basketball game versus UVA yesterday and it got eaten. Of course, this is the one time I don't save the post in Word before I put it up on the blog. Well live and learn I guess. Here's a much shorter version of what I saw last night live from the Thrillerdome.

Jeremis Smith via hustle and gritty play is quickly becoming my favorite player on this team. If he can incorporate a consistent stand-up jumper in his game, he's going to be a beast.

Anthony Morrow is developing ice water in his veins. He's not 100% there yet, but it's going to be fun to watch it develop. I think come his junior campaign he's going to incorporate the best traits of both BJ Elder and Marvin Lewis.

Defense was improved again last night and I felt like we won the game by out hustling the other team when our shots wouldn't fall. Good effort overall.

I was a little disappointed that we let a couple of bad calls get to us and take us out of our game. That mental toughness just has to be learned though.

Transition defense still needs some serious work. We're just not stopping the ball well at all and as ACC play progress folks are going to take advantage of it.

De'andre Bell had the best game of his career last night and more importantly proved that he can shoot from the line with a 3-4 performance in crunch time. As much as I loved Ish, Bell is going to be him and more by the time his career is finished at Tech.

Zam had an improved game although his stats didn't show it. His D looked improved, not revolutionary or anything, and he put the team on his shoulders for a few series when we needed some buckets. He is not and never will be a Jarrett Jack style guard, but few are. Hopefully the fans will realize that sooner rather than later, because I think he will be a solid player for us.

Lewis Clinch is pressing something fierce right now. I think he'll get it worked out, but it's a little tough to watch. I'm wondering if he's working on the mechanics to his shot or something, because it just looks off right now.

Finally, the frigging fans need to stay through an entire game. It was Sunday fucking night at 8:00 PM people and you're leaving with a 1 minute 40 seconds left in a 4 point HOME basketball game. That is just absolutely fucking pathetic. I might give you a 12-16 point lead, but you're bailing when the kids need your support. If I could take down names and seat numbers, I'd try to get your tickets pulled during re-seating next year.

It’s Official! I’ve Made it as a Blogger! My First Hate Mail!

2005-12-05T12:49:00.000-05:00

Apparently my all in good fun article about Tyler Hansbrough and Josh McRoberts being the same goofy white kid who drives from one school to the other to play for both touched a nerve with the more satirically challenged portion of our fan base. Before I move into making fun of these PM’s let me first give a hearty thank you to the person that sent them to me. First, my wife and I got a big kick all weekend out of them. More in a laughing at you kind of way, but hey fun is fun. Secondly, I couldn’t have asked for better proof for my point about our humorless fans. Here is each PM in its entirety (grammar uncorrected), mocking to follow directly there after.

I made the mistake of reading your blog.

i find your constant referance to white bb players as goofy white kid to be extremely offensive. i dont see you refering to stupid black kids.

if your black than you are a racist. if your white than you dont have a clue.

if you were to call John Barry a goofy white kid i would hope he would knock your ass out. he appeared on the hbo with bryna gumble sports show and complained that the nba does not give white players credit. point being that their are many who feel this way but stifle themselves due to the pc movement.

as far as there being a lot of good black bb players i agree. reaason why they outnumber the white bb players is cultural.

many white kids grow up knowing that the key to being successful is an education. meanwhile the black community embraces success as being a professional athlete despite the fact that the odds are stacked against it. the fact that there are so many poorly educated black athletes that cant get a college scholarship bear that out.

the white guys are studying while the black guys are playing hoops. hmmmmmm.

so if you are into differentiating black vs white by statements such as goofy etc than i guess that stupid and black could be linked.

another reason could be that white athletes are a good bit more diverse wrt sports than blacks as far as sports played.

a VAST majority of black athletes concentrate on bb and fb. while the white athletes play fb bb baseball golf tennis sking wrestling field hockey skateboarding swimming skydiving soccer gymnastics etc. give the white athlete a choice of bb and fb only and things would even themselves out.

get it?

Apparently one day without the validation of an anonymous blog writer wasn’t enough for champ here so roughly 24 hours later I got another one.

I find your blog obnoxious.

your constant ref to goofy white kid is blatantly racist regardless if you are white or black.

i have a hunch your black.

calling any white kid goofy is similar to calling a black kid stupid.

the reason why there are more good bb players is societal at best otherwise you buy into the idea that we are all not created equal.

for you to even talk like that is an embarassement to the gt community.

Now for the fun part, derisive laughter and finger pointing. A choice selection of some of the more big belly laugh inducing arguments.

i find your constant referance to white bb players as goofy white kid to be extremely offensive. i dont see you refering to stupid black kids.

One, I think somebody forgot to read The Rules, but allow me to reiterate; I really don’t care if you find my blog offensive, that’s the whole point! Secondly, I specifically referred to two white basketball players as goofy white kids (Hansbrough and McRoberts) and implied that another one was in the past (Eric Montross.) What this has to do with stupid black kids is kind of a mystery to me, but I’m sure you’re about to explain it to me.

if your black than you are a racist. if your white than you dont have a clue.

And if I were Hispanic or Asian where would your arguments go then chief? It’s becoming clear that one of us has a black and white worldview problem, but I’m not thinking it’s me.

if you were to call John Barry a goofy white kid i would hope he would knock your ass out.

Look I like Born Free as much as the next guy, but I don’t know what British composers have to do with this. Oh, you were referring to Jon Barry former Georgia Tech player.

he appeared on the hbo with bryna gumble sports show and complained that the nba does not give white players credit. point being that their are many who feel this way but stifle themselves due to the pc movement.

First off the comedy in this paragraph is awesome. Who the fuck is Bryna Gumble and who gave her a show on “The HBO?” Secondly, god bless Jon’s goofy little heart, but Steve Nash, a non-goofy white guy by the way, was the league MVP last year. So I don’t agree with his assertion at all. There just aren’t many completely dominat white players in the league right now. In fact I can think of two, Nash and Nowitszki. I also don’t think either of them are goofy. Bogut is surprising me, but his junior high ‘stache pushes the goofy limit a good bit.

many white kids grow up knowing that the key to being successful is an education. meanwhile the black community embraces success as being a professional athlete despite the fact that the odds are stacked against it.

Yep and that pretty much confirms who has the racial issues here. I’d love to see some studies backing this assertion up, but since I believe it came from the la la land inbetween your ears where the world fits easily into black and white, bite-sized chunks I’m thinking they don’t exist. Well maybe if you’re over at David Duke’s website you could find something, but I’m thinking those results will be just a wee bit partisan.

the white guys are studying while the black guys are playing hoops. hmmmmmm.

Were you actually in that joke picture I put up about the Duke Alumni Basketball Game? Do you own a white pointy hat? Still lament the fact that blacks, women, and jews are allowed to vote? Because right now the only one that is definitely hung up on race is you sport.

so if you are into differentiating black vs white by statements such as goofy etc than i guess that stupid and black could be linked.

Where did I ever differentiate black vs white? I called two specific white kids goofy. I mean look at these two:

For the love of god, they look like they shouldn’t be allowed to use forks much less play basketball. Instead they are two of the best freshman basketball players in the country. I find that kind of stuff funny and impressive. Good for them I say, but I’m still going to make fun of them for looking slightly inbred.

so if you are into differentiating black vs white by statements such as goofy etc than i guess that stupid and black could be linked.

Only in your crazy little world of fucked up logic does this sentence even make sense.

another reason could be that white athletes are a good bit more diverse wrt sports than blacks as far as sports played.a VAST majority of black athletes concentrate on bb and fb. while the white athletes play fb bb baseball golf tennis sking wrestling field hockey skateboarding swimming skydiving soccer gymnastics etc.

I hearby dub the, King of Random Generalizations. I’d like to rebut this entirely, but you’re stretching my limit on crazy talk. The fact that you threw in field hockey is really just the icing on the big fat crazy cake you’re baking here.

give the white athlete a choice of bb and fb only and things would even themselves out.
get it?

Uhm, no you really lost me long ago. In the immortal words of the Nib Highschool Principal (slightly paraphrased): “I’m sorry sir, but you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone reading this blog is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Not content to attempt to drive me insane with your first incoherent grouping of words, you then followed up with these gems:

I find your blog obnoxious.

Excellent, I mostly wrote it for people like you who I am not completely convinced are actually literate.

your constant ref to goofy white kid is blatantly racist regardless if you are white or black.

I wrote a 1700 word post. In it I used the word goofy 4 time and the word white 10 times. Never in any of those words did I refer to all white kids as goofy. That would be a racist statement. Instead I made fun of two goofy white kids who impress me despite looking like they should be struggling to color inside the lines. Let me make it clear, I like the games of Hansbrough and McRoberts. Just like I loved every goofy red hair on Luke Schenscher’s big goofy head. Luke gets the allure of the big goofy white kid and even played up to with letting his hair grow out.

i have a hunch your black.

I have two hunches that I can’t decide between on you: angry old man or retarded high school kid. Both involve white velcro shoes and a pair of jeans that are probably a size too small. The funny thing is that your hunch is completely off base; not surprising given your lack of analytical skills. A school picture of me:

By god if anybody is qualified to discuss goofy white kids it’s me. I graduated with a bachelor and a masters from GWKU. I’m the goddamn president of the goofy white kid fan club. Hell, I barely tan I’m so white.

the reason why there are more good bb players is societal at best otherwise you buy into the idea that we are all not created equal.

I had no idea that being taller, faster, and stronger was societal. That’s fucking amazing, I think you just set the field of anthropology back at least 100 years. What do you mean the idea that we’re not all created equal? It’s not an idea, it’s a fucking fact. Otherwise I would be in the NFL right now and you wouldn’t be a dumbass.

for you to even talk like that is an embarassement to the gt community.

And I found your inability to capitilize words, tell the difference between your and you’re, or form an even semi-coherent argument to be an embarassment to the entire human race much less the GT community. Go out and rent to own a sense of humor, look up the word satire in the dictionary, and if all else fails don’t come back here, because last I checked nobody is forcing you to do it.

P.S. My wife wants me to thank you again! She was sick with the flu and miserable all weekend, and your two PM’s were the only thing that kept her smiling and laughing all weekend. So Thanks again Hoss!

Thank you, Chokies!

2005-12-04T00:24:00.000-05:00

First you screwed up our chance to have righteous indignation over the Rose Bowl participants by forgetting to get off the bus against Miami.

Now the ACC looks like a bunch of fucking jackasses, because FSU is going to the Orange Bowl. 7 and motherfucking 4 FSU! Wait I guess that should be 8 and motherfucking 4 FSU.

Excellent gameplan of not blitzing the shakiest quarterback in the ACC. Fucking transcendent really. Couple that with letting him gain confidence by throwing all of the 7-8 yard routes he pleases with soft coverage and I think your coaching staff probably had the FSU moneyline.

Other Blog

2005-12-02T09:30:00.000-05:00

Having thought about it some more, I have created another blog that will be more in line with the post that I put up by Stefanie yesterday and where I can vent other general frustrations, give book and movie reviews, and talk about things like her essay that fall outside the realm of general sports. There won't be much overlap between the content over there and what I write over here other than the contributors.

Staying Out of Anger Management

Outstanding Tribute

2005-12-02T09:03:00.000-05:00

The senior highlight video put out by the GTAA this year is truly outstanding and well worth a download.

Senior Video

Hoops 11/30/2005

2005-12-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

Just some random thoughts around Tech Basketball, the Big 10(11)\ACC challenge, and whether or not the same goofy white kid is actually playing for two different teams in the ACC.

Michigan State vs. Georgia Tech

Having not seen the UIC debacle, but assuming it looked something like the second half collapse against Elon; I wasn’t really sure what to think the boys were going to pull-off in this game. I knew we had the talent to win, despite what the overwhelming number of dumbasses on The Hive thought after the UIC game. What I wasn’t sure was if we had the mental discipline to stick in a game in a hostile road environment against a much more experienced and physically stronger MSU team.

Well, I’d say that question has been answered now. At least for a single game this season. I’m not about to crown the boys conference champions or anything and I’m sure there will be some more inexplicable losses a la UIC in the future, but the fire and the foundation are there. Just surrounded by a few rough edges that I know Hewitt and experience can round off.

Positives:

Dickey is realizing that he’s got the potential to be a dominant big man. Although I think Paul Davis is more Dirk Nowitzki than Shaquille O’Neal on the defensive end. He also was less of a black hole, though still pretty bad at times, than he was in other games that I saw this season.

Scoring points when we needed them. We might not shoot this hot again from behind the arc all year, but the boys are going to believe they can make those baskets in the future and that is always a step in the right direction. Morrow’s confidence grows by leaps and bounds every single game.

We hustled for rebounds. Unfortunately there is a negative corollary to this one.

Offensive spacing, ball movement, and moving without the ball were all very improved in the half-court offense. In the second half of the Elon game and I can only assume in the entirety of the UIC we did a very poor job of moving the ball around and moving without the basketball. That was much improved in this game.

Jeremis Smith will cut you. I have now seen Jeremis knock a man out completely in the Elon game and bust open pretty boy Davis. The thing I especially like is that they aren’t dirty plays just going hard after the ball and being 230 of rock solid whup ass. If he was a punk, I wouldn’t be as impressed.

We lost. Hear me out on this one. I would have loved a win as much as anybody else, but a loss is sometimes a better teaching tool, because now Hewitt can point at some of the negatives I’m about to get into and say “see, do this and this differently and we win that basketball game.” We barely lost a game that we were supposed to lose by a lot and hopefully that becomes momentum to win the games we’re supposed to win and steal a couple of the ones we’re supposed to lose.

Negatives:

Boxing out. We seem to be trying to pull down most of our rebounds off of athleticism. That works great in high school, but not against Michigan State and certainly not against the beasts in ACC play. It also allowed for a lot of easy second try buckets for MSU in the second half.

Help Side Defense. I made a lengthy post about this on the Hive and it’s just something we’ll have to be patient about as good rotational and help side defense is about turning everything into an automatic reaction to a situation. You can’t really teach that as much as just drill the boys over and over.

Stopping the ball in transition. We have got to do a better job of getting in front of the dribbler in transition defense. We hustle back, but I don’t think we do a good job of keeping an eye on where the ball is and gave up some easy buckets while we were trying to setup the half-court defense. Like the help side defense problem, I think this is just a matter of drilling it into the boy’s heads.

All in all, I was impressed with the gutty performance we had last night, but unless we turn that momentum into some wins before ACC play gets into full swing it might all be for naught.

Big 11\ACC Challenge

Work has been hellacious this work and my wife is sick so I haven’t gotten to watch as much basketball as I would have liked. So my thoughts around some of the remaining games in the slate will be fairly brief.

First and foremost the ACC pulled it off again which is always a good thing for the conference especially in a “down year” like the one we’re having this year. You also need to consider that two of the “rebuilding” ACC teams took top 15 Big 11 teams down to the wire. I think the ACC will be just fine when March rolls around.

Florida State 97 over Purdue 57

Where the fuck did that come from? Florida State ran a nice up-tempo game against a completely overmatched Purdue squad. I think they even managed to get at least 15 students together that knew the rules to basketball in their auditorium which is always a moral victory for the Seminole nation. I suspect many of them were probably just hoping to get an opportunity to throw things at Jeff Bowden should he be there.

Illinois 68 over UNC 64

In the first 5 minutes of this game, I thought UNC was going to get run out of their own gym. They stuck with it by playing solid methodical basketball and letting Dee Brown throw up some awful looking shots (my god he can handle the rock though.) David Noel is setting himself up to be the surprise player of the ACC this year. He looked very solid in what I saw of this game. And thank god for Tyler Hansbrough. Duke has held the goofy looking white kid monopoly for far too long. I don’t think UNC has had a kid this goofy and this white with this much talent since Eric Montross was a lock to be drafted by the Celtics. Bravo to Coach Williams on bringing back a Carolina tradition.

Although I think there might be something nefarious afoot with Hansbrough and McRoberts. See below.

Iowa 45 over NC State 42

I love NC State games. Whenever the score rolls by you have to double check to make sure they aren’t showing a football score. I tried watching some of this game last night and it was like watching flies fuck. I’d run their game down some more, but Hewitt is 0-4 against the Pack in his last two years. So I guess their old-time basketball works somewhat.

Next up on Discovery, NC State vs. Air Force. What a moment!

Duke 75 over Indiana 67

I’m just not 100% sold on the dominance of this Duke team yet. Redick has become an undeniable all-star player (even if he’s still a bad poetry writing fairy.) Chewbacca is still the landlord, although Killingsworth was giving him fits. And McRoberts and\or Paulus are set to carry the torch of annoying white Duke douchebags that stick a dagger in your heart at every opportunity.

Despite all of that, there’s just some congruence missing in how this squad plays together and they seem too foul and turnover prone to stay #1 all season. Paulus is becoming the new Jason Williams (Miami Heat version) in that he either makes a gorgeous feed or no-looks it into the Indian kid sitting just to the right of the Duke bench. I think Texas bumps them off on the 10th. Of course Coach Ratface manages to find ways to win when you think they’re down.

(Picture: I'd be careful if I was you. The Landlord has been known to rip people's arms off when he loses.)

Same Player Different Teams?

Finally, until somebody proves to me otherwise I’m going to continue believing that there are no such persons as Josh McRoberts and Tyler Hansbrough. I think they are the same superman cloned from the DNA of Larry Bird, Danny Ferry, and a small piece of Adam Morrisson’s junior high style mustache. I think this player then travels from game to game swapping jerseys in between and gaining power from the ridicule of opposing fan bases.

Look he even played for both sides of the Mickey D’s AA teams

First we need to consider the evidence of the case. One, there is no way that Duke let’s a goofy white kid like Hansbrough slip past them unless they knew he would actually be playing for them. This is a school whose entire basketball foundation is based on annoying white kids that look like they should be in homes for people with special needs that can play basketball. Bilas, Laettner, Hurley, Ferry, Redick, the list goes on and on from there.
Duke’s annual letterman’s game is a little different than most schools.

Secondly, I think we need to start looking into this recent trend of coordinated white kids that can actually play in the paint. Either Larry Bird was his generations Wilt Chamberlain and just didn’t write a biography about it or human cloning has come farther than we thought. McRoberts, Davis, Hansbrough, Morrisson, can all score from anywhere on the court when recent trends had tended to force the small white kid to the outside and the big white kid to the inside. I’m not too caught up on my bible, but I could swear one of the signs of the apocalypse had to deal with white kids with tiny mustaches being talented basketball players.

Most likely it’s a question without an answer, or until UNC and Duke actually play at the same time. Until then we’ll have to consider it one of the NCAA’s great unsolved mysteries.

Round Ball Thoughts on the Morrow

2005-11-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

I'll throw up some B-ball thoughts tomorrow about tonight's game. I was planning on doing it tonight, but I have a sick wife to take care of and Duke to grudingly cheer for. By god it makes me ill, but losing to the Big 11 would be worse.

You Can Be A Man!

2005-11-30T11:38:00.000-05:00

What's the matter with you. Is this how you turned out? A suburban fannuchio that cries like a woman.

Orson at Everyday Should Be Saturday is really on a roll this week. First the incomparable 52 Reasons Disney/ABC/ESPN Sucks post and now a fine piece of satirical journalism in Jim From Hoover Pusses Out.

Unfortunately as Nathan discussed back in September, apparently Tech fans don’t have the same problem. As you’ll see in the coming months, I’m not the biggest believer in Chan, but I’m willing to give him a fair shake after the Auburn and Miami games this year. Especially if he’s willing to send Coach Wilson back to special ed and maybe even hire an actual play calling OC this off-season. That being said, I don’t have a problem with folks that want to call out the coach after an inexplicable performance (VT) or an inexplicable loss (NC State), but have the sack to at least engage the coach in an honest debate. Throwing out stupid little zingers so that you and your buddies can giggle like schoolgirls after they hang up on you does nothing except prove you’re a pussy as far as I’m concerned. No better than some crack head purse-snatcher running by on the subway.

So man up and put forth some arguments. You might be surprised by the answers. You might be right. The one thing you won’t be is irrelevant.

Scrumtrulescent

2005-11-29T15:28:00.000-05:00

I don’t think there really is any other term that could be used to describe Orson’s opus at Every Day Should Be Saturday in regards to the decline of ESPN. The sad thing is that I still watch, because Sportscenter is still the most reliable way for me to catch-up on the happenings of the previous sports day while I have breakfast. I personally find Fox Sports to be about as unwatchable, if not more. So I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it has become apparent that it’s time for Travis to go behind the woodshed with Old Yeller again.

The Rules

2005-11-29T10:45:00.000-05:00

It’s time for me and Sundance to establish the rules of this blog. First, you’ll be seeing a lot of switches in layout and format as I mess around with the HTML (which will involve learning more HTML) in the coming days and weeks. I don’t like the current format that the blog is in, but it was the cleanest of the basic templates in my opinion and the best starting point for an easy to read and navigation friendly site.

Secondly, at my core I’m basically a nice guy. But there are two things that I am not, clean mouthed and PC. I will be swearing on this site a great deal and I am big fan of such insults as retard, mouth breather, UGA grad, etc. If you find any of this offensive, well it was intentional and I don’t give a fuck. This blog is going to be a source of a lot of emotional catharsis for me as a Georgia Tech and general Atlanta sports fan.

Finally, I am a Tech grad and huge Tech fan, but a lot of the aforementioned catharsis is going to come in calling out a lot of the things about our fan base, really all fan bases, that piss me off to no end. Sometimes I swear that the stupidest smart people on the planet surround me. Seriously, I doubt 50% of the fan base could pass a course in basic logic. It’s fucking mind boggling to read some of the arguments put forth by people that I entrust to build a bridge that won’t fall down. So spare your breath if you’re going to call me out for not being a real Tech fan, because I refuse to keep our skeletons in the closet. I think that is a bullshit high horse tactic at best and an intellectually dishonest one at worst and I won’t do it. I will call out general foolishness that I see from other fans and in the increasingly inept print news services, but I want to establish now that nobody, including myself, will be free from scrutiny.

Trust me it will workout for the best though, because I’m funniest when I’m angry.

Let's Get it Started

2005-11-28T18:01:00.000-05:00

Kyle T. King over at the excellent, though mutt driven, Kyle on Football asked Nathan from Golden Tornado why there aren’t more Georgia Tech based blogs and I figured what better impetus to get my blog going than a challenge like that. So here it is and as a first post I thought I would respond to that very same question to the best of my ability.

One thing that Kyle touched on early in the post is that honestly most Tech grads are not that comfortable as writers. I know for a fact that part of the reason I’m starting a blog is to force myself to become a better mechanical writer in addition to forcing myself to get some thoughts down on paper. While we swarm, no pun intended, Internet message boards by the thousand; there comes a certain unspoken rule about the acceptable level of poor grammar and spelling that is allowed in such venues. The blog world on the other hand contains a much more journalistic feel, at least those that are respected and worth reading, and thus has the always intimidating and often frightening requirement of proper sentence structure.

I think secondly and more importantly is that honestly the Tech fan base might be the most humorless in all of college football. The whiny little brother syndrome really does carry over into everything and for the most part has absolutely killed our ability to laugh at ourselves. I think it stems back to high school when most of us probably were not the coolest of the cool. When animals are faced with adversity they move into either fight or flight, but the third option apparently is becoming a snot nosed little bitch when teased and talking about how said aggressor will be working for you someday. A reply that harkens back to the days when Mom told us that the other kids were making fun of our comfortable and very practical Velcro Keds because they were just jealous. Putting yourself out on the Internet opens you up to ridicule and apparently on the whole we can’t deal with that.

Finally, I have to ask is a good thing or not that we aren’t out in the blogosphere? Combine the above mentioned little brother complex with our always fun at parties superiority complex and it would be like they discovered a way to clone HeismanPundit except he would whine about 50 year old national championships and just wait until basketball season. I think it’s for the best that you have excellent informational blogs like the Georgia Tech Sports Blog and Wreck Ramblin, but try to keep the opinion\humor blogs to a minimum. Nathan does a good job of it and I hope to do a good job of it, but I don’t think a Tech flood of relevant and\or funny blogs will ever be a reality.