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Home > Jeff Schultz > Archives > 2008 > October > 14
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
ACC is there for the taking
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This might not be the best time to point this out, given that Georgia Tech just made Gardner-Webb look like Oklahoma-Texas, Alabama-Florida, the U.S.-Great Britain-Soviet Union.
But if the Jackets ever had aspirations of becoming more than merely a subplot in the ACC, the window has never been this open.
Have you looked around?
Florida State and Miami are so removed from dominance that their game against each other — once the biggest non-bowl event of the season — barely registered with the populace this year. Clemson just lost its coach — and, really, talent and expectations notwithstanding, the Danny Ford stories are starting to get a little old.
The Jackets won at Boston College this season. They almost won at Virginia Tech. Virginia hired Al Groh thinking it could grow into a power. Time’s up. This is year eight, and the Cavaliers have been blown out this season by Connecticut (45-10) and Duke (31-3). North Carolina might be the next conference power. But if that’s the biggest thing Tech is battling, things suddenly don’t look so daunting.
This week’s game: Clemson. It’s time for the Jackets to ring the bell.
“There’s no reason why we can’t be on top of the ACC,” coach Paul Johnson said Tuesday. “Can we compete every year? Well, I hope so. If I hadn’t thought that, I wouldn’t have come here. There’s no reason why Georgia Tech can’t be right there in the conference.”
Scholarship limits have leveled the playing field in college football. (That’s probably the greatest argument for a playoff system.) Everybody has players. Every coach of a perceived power is forced to watch recruits sign across the street.
There’s also this: The best recruits aren’t growing watching Miami and FSU battle at the top of the rankings. They’re watching Miami struggle and Clemson implode and Bobby Bowden say he feels re-invigorated — only to then lose his conference opener to Wake Forest, 12-3.
Except for “not having a marquee team” currently near the top of the rankings, Johnson doesn’t believe the ACC is any different from others. He views the strength of other conferences or schools, particularly in the SEC and Big 12, as more perception than reality.
Is he just sticking up for the ACC? Maybe.
But Johnson makes an argument: “Ole Miss loses to Wake Forest and people say, ‘Well, they’re a bottom feeder of the SEC.’ But then they go and beat Florida and the same people say, ‘Oh, that’s how tough the SEC is.’ It’s perception. Georgia’s a great example. Georgia’s a very talented team. They’ve got some great individual players. But the perception and the expectation level before the season started was unbelievable. And what warranted it? Because they blew out Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl?”
(Just in case Mark Richt needed some early bulletin board material.)
Johnson seldom is at a loss for words. Struggle to beat Gardner-Webb and just watch him make paint peel. He blistered his players at halftime and following the game.
He warned them again about sleeping on opponents. He berated them for being smacked by a team that had lost to Charleston Southern.
So they should be grounded again by Saturday.
Tommy Bowden is out at Clemson. Johnson said the Jackets should expect the Tigers “will play like their hair is on fire.” But this is a greater opportunity for Tech to establish its footprint in the conference.
Senior tackle Andrew Gardner said, “I won’t be here for much longer. But I don’t see a reason why Tech can’t compete every year, even if all of the teams get better. Obviously we’ve shown in this offensive system that there’s points to be scored. So why shouldn’t Tech be in the hunt ever year?”
When people questioned early whether Johnson’s spread offense would work in the ACC, he joked, “It’s not like we play in the NFC East.”
That is more apparent than ever — and the window is wide open.
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