Countdown to GameDay: Re-motivating the ACC

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

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!

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

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 . . .

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

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

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 . . .

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.)