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November 2005
Tech demonstrates it can, will compete
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
East Lansing, Mich. — Much good should come of this. Georgia Tech came to the snowy North and had a shot — a clean, if hurried, look — to beat one of the nation’s most gifted teams on its floor. To say the Jackets deserved to win would be incorrect, but if they play the way they played for roughly 30 of these 40 minutes they’ll deserve to win 20 or so times this season.
In losing 88-86, the Jackets learned they have the scorers to run with anybody. Still at issue is whether they have the urge to guard somebody. This game was lost in the first half, when Michigan State was allowed to make 58.6 percent of its shots. To its credit, Tech scored enough — 54 points in the second on 64.7 percent shooting — to keep the game within reach of a last-gasp rally, and sure enough the rally arrived and Zam Fredrick hoisted a trey to steal it at the end, but he back-rimmed the thing.
No matter. The important thing here wasn’t to win, though that would have been nice, but simply to progress. When you lose to a bad Illinois-Chicago team by 22 points at your place, you have cause to question everything. Asked what Wednesday’s margin would have been had the Jackets given a similar non-effort, Paul Hewitt said, “40 or 50.” And then: “I had a dream the other night that it was 42-2 at half.” And it wasn’t State with the deuce.
For four minutes, this game seemed en route to something lopsided. The Spartans flew to leads of 12-3 and 15-5. Then Tech decided to play, and when Tech decides to play it can still be rather good. As has been suspected, some of these sophomores — Ra’Sean Dickey, Anthony Morrow, Jeremis Smith — are greater talents than the seniors they replaced. Shrugging off the taunts from the idiots in the Izzone (as the MSU student section is known), the three mustered an aggregate 61 points.
“When we play for each other, instead of playing young, we’re a very good team,” Hewitt said. The Jackets played for each other for the majority of these 40 minutes, but a simple majority wasn’t enough to carry the night. There’s a lesson in that, too.
Hewitt: “It simply comes down to, ‘Did you come here to play, or did you come here to win a championship?’ You win championships with defense and rebounding. I told the guys in the first four minutes of the second half [after State’s Paul Davis got himself going], ‘You’ve given up.’?”
The Jackets hadn’t really. They never trailed by more than 12 points, and they have enough shooters — as opposed to last season’s team after B.J. Elder got hurt at Kansas on New Year’s Day — to give themselves a chance. Ask the Spartans, who led by 10 points with 1:27 to play and were reduced to praying that Fredrick’s last shot clanged.
Scoring won’t be the issue with these guys, but Tech didn’t rise to the 2004 NCAA championship game on the backs of scorers. It got there because a bunch of role players dedicated themselves to the greater good, defending like demons and playing every possession as if lives were at stake. When you have success like that, you invariably start signing bigger-name recruits, and almost no heralded recruit made his name defending.
Will these Jackets make such a commitment? It’s far too early to know, but much of Wednesday’s game struck a positive chord. Tech outrebounded the nation’s best rebounding team and left the esteemed Tom Izzo wondering about the work ethic of his own guys. “If you don’t check [meaning defend], you don’t win big games,” Izzo said. “If you don’t check, you don’t win championships.”
Michigan State could well win a national championship four months hence. If these Tech sophomores learn from their tutorials this winter, they’ll be in the chase come 2007 and 2008.
Permalink | Comments (26) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Pursuing Pierre would behoove Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Juan Pierre. He’s exceptional. He’s available. He’s exactly what the Braves need to push their consecutive streak of division titles to 15. Not only that, he’s capable of doing enough with his bat, glove, legs and heart to end their annoying habit of vanishing each October.
We’re talking about a guy who arrives at the ballpark five hours before most of his teammates. Prior to games on the road, he fires balls against the outfield walls to make sure that he knows all of the possible ricochets. He even spends time rolling balls from home plate toward first and third base, just to see how far to place his bunt attempts down the lines.
Here’s the biggest thing: He’s the ultimate winner. In fact, it was Pierre’s considerable energy that did the most to propel the Florida Marlins to a world championship for the 2003 season. In other words, if the Braves take my advice about Pierre, the choppers and the chanters needn’t worry about those gathering storms. You have the suddenly potent Mets, for instance, but this is only a mirage. They are doing what they always do after imploding in a New York minute, and that is, they are throwing a bunch of pennies at folks and praying that it works. They got Carlos Delgado to smash the ball, and they got Billy Wagner to keep hitters from doing so.
This isn’t a mirage: Rafael Furcal is going, going, almost gone. All that he did during his six years with the Braves was provide a wonderful spark as a leadoff hitter and own a solid glove at shortstop that nearly was golden last season.
I mean, didn’t he? And isn’t it time to wonder if the Braves will vanish earlier next season than normal?
Jack McKeon chuckled over the phone on Wednesday from his home in Elon, N.C., between chomping on one of his eternal cigars. He’s a baseball lifer who most recently managed the Marlins before retiring after last season. He chuckled, because the Mets and Furcal notwithstanding, he can’t fathom how anybody can believe that the Braves will stop winning the National League East as long as John Schuerholz is general manager and Bobby Cox is manager.
“Listen. Everybody thought we were going to walk away with the thing last year after we picked up one guy, and that one guy was Carlos Delgado,” said McKeon, still chuckling, whose Marlins finished seven games behind the Braves. “You know, I like Furcal, but there is nobody who is not replaceable. Look at how the Braves brought in all of those young kids [18 rookies] last year, and they just took off. It’s getting the right players, and that’s the knack that Bobby and John have. They’re always able to get somebody who fits in and can pick them up.”
Did I mention Juan Pierre? He’s the Marlins’ center fielder. With a phone call to those operating the latest fire sale for this sorry Florida franchise, Pierre is the Braves’ left fielder (some guy named Andruw Jones already is in center).
Yes, Pierre slumped to .276 last season, but that still was just eight points lower than Furcal’s batting average during what was considered a superlative year for the Braves’ catalyst. And Pierre’s lifetime mark is .305 as the leadoff guy that the Braves would have with a Furcal departure. He steals bases, and he rarely is caught (267 out of 363 attempts). He makes contact more often than not (never more than 52 strikeouts in a season). Mostly, since the Braves are traditionally a finesse team, they need as much grit as they can get, and Pierre is the grittiest player in the game. He never wants to leave the field.
Since Pierre’s first full year in the majors with the Colorado Rockies in 2001, he hasn’t played less than 152 games in a season. He has spent each of his three seasons with the Marlins playing every game, including every inning during the 2004 season.
“In all of the decades I’ve been in the game, I’ve only had two workaholics — Tony Gwynn and Juan Pierre,” said McKeon, still employed by the Marlins. As a result, he couldn’t say how he thought Pierre would fit with the Braves. Then again, he didn’t have to.
Permalink | Comments (105) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
BCS is A-OK with me
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
God bless the BCS.
I’m for anything that will keep big-time college football from that absolutely naïve idea called a playoff system.
Maybe you’ve recalled that I’ve mentioned the significant flaws of a playoff system in the past, and they range from more time for student-athletes away from academics to greater controversy than now over who gets in and who goes where.
We’ll revisit all of that another day. As for this one, the Bowl Championship Series is doing just fine, thank you. It might need tweaking each year, but the BCS is about the best solution you can have for selecting a national champion each year.
That is, if you want ONE national champion. I haven’t a problem with the polls and the computers providing multiple national champions. It gives more folks a chance to claim that they are the best (see 1990 with Georgia Tech and Colorado).
Anyway, Southern Cal and Texas clearly are the nation’s two premier teams this season. And guess what? Barring unlikely upsets this weekend (Southern Cal against UCLA and Texas against Colorado), the BCS will have both of those teams playing in the Rose Bowl for the national title.
End of BCS controversy. Well, not that there ever should have been one.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Yellow Jackets will test coach’s optimism
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
In its most recent game, the Georgia Tech basketball team lost by 22 points at home to Illinois-Chicago. This early-season nadir gained clarity three nights later when Illinois-Chicago lost by 20 to Georgia Southern.
Take comfort.
Georgia Southern is not on Tech’s schedule.
“I’m still optimistic,” Yellow Jackets coach Paul Hewitt said Tuesday. “But at some point, it has to be about actions, not words.”
Hewitt recently received a contract extension and nobody erupted. At Tech, that speaks volumes. The Jackets have been to the NCAA tournament three times in Hewitt’s five seasons, including the past two. If you were to compile a list of the young, bright and popular coaches in the college game, Hewitt sits near the top of the list.
And if he still is lucid by mid-season, all the better.
Tonight, the Jackets play Michigan State. Until the other night, this was expected to be the first real test of the season. Now it seems everything will be a test.
Hewitt called his team’s second-half defense against Elon “the worst defensive half in my five years here.”
That was in a win.
Over Elon.
Hewitt generally oozes optimism. He’ll be critical but rarely finishes a thought without some foreshadowing of better days ahead. If the man captained the Titanic, he would announce to the passengers, “We’re going down. But the moon is shining bright, it’s a lovely night for a swim, and this is going to be a great character builder for us.”
It goes without saying that Hewitt’s optimism will be tested. Tech lost five seniors and its floor leader, point guard Jarrett Jack, to the NBA. The only ACC team that took a bigger hit was North Carolina, which lost its top seven scorers. (But reloading with another class of McDonald’s All-Americans tends to erode people’s empathy.)
This is a program that reached the national championship game two years ago. But when the preseason rankings came out, the Jackets weren’t even included in the “also receiving votes” category. That placed them behind Harvard and Wisconsin-Milwaukee, among other afterthoughts.
Hewitt’s reaction: “I was amused by it.
“I guess it doesn’t surprise me. I guess we’re still at the stage of a program where we’re trying to prove ourselves, and me as a coach trying to prove myself. But I don’t use that as a motivation. We have enough to concentrate on.”
It’s one thing to be green (the Jackets start four sophomores and a junior). It’s another to be “lackadaisical,” a description Hewitt spewed the other day.
He blames himself for the Illinois-Chicago game, saying the players were poorly prepared. But he didn’t like their effort level, particularly on defense.
“When you have a younger team, there’s a fear that effort is dictated by whether you make shots or not, or who you’re playing,” he said.
“We’re still looking for that determination, that toughness that we’re going to need to win games in order to get to the tournament.”
Yes, he believes this can be a tournament team. “I genuinely believe if we don’t have a good season, then I didn’t do a good job teaching them,” he said.
But things could get painful when the ACC season starts, and there was more obvious reason for optimism a year ago. The Jackets looked stocked for another Final Four run but were hit by injuries and never really found their stride.
The gloom even got to Coach Sunshine. In late January, after an emotional overtime win over Wake Forest, Hewitt was approached by somebody about writing a journal for AOL. The idea was to follow a team from late in the season through the NCAA tournament.
Hewitt declined.
“I didn’t want to do a journal because I didn’t know if we could make the tournament,” he said.
Tonight, it’s Michigan State. “They run about 25 to 30 different sets,” Hewitt said. “And they run each one like it’s the only one they do.”
How many does Tech run?
“Not that many.”
They’re young, and it’s early. Hewitt said he’s going to like coaching this team because, “They’re good players.” They just need to learn. And when you lose by 22 to UIC, they need to learn a lot.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Tuesday Countdown: Stick this in your pipe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Has anybody seen my pipe?
9: Look, I’m not condoning drug use or anything like that. But, really, why is everybody getting so worked up about Michael Irvin getting caught with a little herb and a puffing instrument in his car? He’s not running the government or a company or an offense. He works for ESPN. I mean, is he suddenly going to be too whacked out to debate Mike Ditka?
8: Innocent or guilty? We may never know. But it’s pretty obvious the way it LOOKS. Which is why I would be stunned if Irvin still has a job with ESPN/ABC/Disney when this is all over.
7: OK, last note. Irvin says he’s clean and innocent. But he also wouldn’t commit to taking a drug test when asked by on-air buddy Dan Patrick, our nation’s conscience. So, is this the equivalent of “The Dog Ate My 12-Step Plan”?
6: Dick Pound of the World Anti-Doping Agency says one-third of NHL players may be on performance-enhancing drugs. I think there’s a better chance that Michael Irvin was smoking a mixture of thyme and oregano.
5: The Toronto Blue Jays just gave reliever B.J. Ryan a $47-million contract. I’m so glad baseball has rid itself of economic stupidity.
4: Most lucid individuals would blame general manager Matt Millen for the Detroit Lions’ problems before Steve Mariucci. That said, Mariucci has done little to show he has the makeup to be a head coach. He hardly ran a tight ship in San Francisco, either, and only the 49ers’ remaining talent in those years kept the team afloat. Like Mike Martz and Norv Turner, he may be more cut out to be an offensive coordinator.
3: The Falcons are 7-4. Simple math: They probably have to win at least three of five against Carolina (road), New Orleans, Chicago (road), Tampa Bay (road) and Carolina to make the playoffs. If it doesn’t come down to the last week, I’ll be stunned.
2: The Falcons’ DeAngelo Hall said, “How we play this week should define our season.” Let me just add that he better start worrying about what will define his career. Because for the most part, it hasn’t been coverage.
1: Anybody for an over/under on when the Hawks equal the Falcons’ win total? Last year, they almost didn’t make it (Falcons 11 wins, Hawks 13).
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Players eagerly await next step
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch — They answered one question in Detroit: They are not, as was briefly feared, on the road to ruin. This week brings another question, a tougher one: Just where are these Falcons headed?
“This is about a playoff berth, a Super Bowl,” said DeAngelo Hall, the burgeoning cornerback. “We’re good enough to go there. Last year, we thought we lost a game [the NFC championship in Philadelphia] we should have won.”
And this is how it works in the careening world of professional sports. One week you’re wondering if you can beat anybody; the next you’re thinking you can handle everybody. The Falcons went to Detroit and beat a bad team the way you’re supposed to beat a bad team, and now they believe again. They believe they can go to Charlotte and beat a team widely considered the best — not just in their division but in the NFC.
“This is championship football right here — bar none,” Keion Carpenter, the strong safety, said. “In order to get where we want to go, we’ve got to win this game.”
Sure, the Falcons could still make the playoffs if they lose to Carolina, but their offseason vision of themselves — heir to Philadelphia as the NFC’s next great power — would take another hit. These guys carried great expectations into September, and those consecutive home losses to the Bays (Green and Tampa) seemed to serve as a sobering blast of reality. Winning in Charlotte would go a long way toward proving that the Falcons are really and truly better than they’ve played to date.
Toward that end, Detroit was a necessary new beginning. “It was a steppingstone,” Carpenter said. “And now we get the next steppingstone.” Then, giving the Lions the benefit of the doubt: “Anytime you can go out and dominate a good team, it builds your confidence.”
Nothing that has happened, not even the back-to-back losses, has put a dent in the Falcons’ self-assurance. Some of that comes from Jim Mora, who’s a can-do kind of guy, and much of it stems from having the incomparable Michael Vick on the roster. “He’s the best player in the league,” Hall said Monday. And then, just to balance the ol’ ambition scales, Hall announced that his goal is “to be known as one of the best defensive backs ever to play this game.”
This doesn’t sound like a team that will be satisfied with a wild card. This sounds like a team with a greater point to prove. The Falcons gave the football-watching nation a taste of their worth on Thanksgiving, but that was only a taste served up against an opponent so moribund that it just sacked its coach. “I don’t think we answered the question last week,” Hall said. “I think we’ll answer the question this week. … How we play this week should define our season.”
That’s a lot to thrust on any regular-season game, but the Falcons really haven’t had anything approaching a defining win since opening night against Philly. From here on, they’ll play only one lightweight — New Orleans in another Monday-nighter. Everything else will be big-time. The Falcons, it must be noted, don’t appear to be trembling at their mission. They appear to welcome it.
“This is why you play the game,” Carpenter said. “It’s easy to go out and play when you’re 3-13, but players are made in these games right here.”
The Falcons have a slew of gifted players. The guess here is that these players also possess the requisite grit. They can win Sunday. They can take this division. They can go just as far as they did last season, and maybe further still.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Woodson’s wrath necessary for young team
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
He doesn’t want to talk about it these days, and that’s understandable. At Jason Collier’s funeral, the mother of the Hawks player whose 28-year-old heart stopped beating in October suggested during remarks to those gathered that Mike Woodson’s relentless style as a coach contributed to her son’s death.
Since doctors aren’t even sure why Collier died, there is no need for Woodson to respond these days to the wrath of a grieving parent. Instead, Hawks forward Al Harrington served as Woodson’s defense attorney Sunday at Philips Arena and said of the Collier situation, “There are nights when we go home frustrated and tell folks what coach did, but you don’t tell them the good stuff that coach did. One time after a practice or a game, coach may have challenged [Collier] a bit, and that’s the part that he told about.”
Whatever the case, Woodson doesn’t want to talk about it, but he sort of did in response to something else.
Let’s start with this: The always shaky trio in the NBA of youth, inexperience and immaturity is dribbling for the Hawks. Thus the reason why those in the Atlanta locker room have struggled for long stretches while trying to adjust to the intensity of the NBA on the court and the sharpness of Woodson’s tongue off of it.
As for the intensity thing, there was the Hawks’ ugliness on Sunday when they ruined their otherwise impressive afternoon in search of a three-game winning streak by not matching the explosive ways of the Portland Trailblazers. A 13-point lead for the Hawks in the third quarter became a 77-75 loss.
As for the Woodson thing, he is what he is when dealing with players. That is, he is pretty much his college coach (some guy named Bob Knight) and the person that he served under as a top assistant in the league for three seasons (some guy named Larry Brown).
In other words, Woodson is blunt. We’re taking very blunt.
Blunt is good. Blunt is needed for a franchise that had to blow up its roster due to the incompetence of previous ownership and management and is rebuilding with a slew of athletically skilled but professionally challenged players.
“Well, the name of the game is trying to teach them the right way in learning the game, and it’s not personal,” said Woodson, 47, in his second year as an NBA head coach, all with the Hawks. “Sometimes it might be harsh to get my message, but sometimes there is a pat on the butt. I come in here tomorrow, and I’ve forgotten about what happened yesterday in terms of what was said during the heat of battle. Heck, they’re liable to bark back at me.”
They have, by the way. Loudly. Earlier this season, Woodson spent the aftermath of a particularly raw loss in Los Angeles to the Clippers delivering a critique of each player’s performance. And, yes, blunt was the operative word. We’re talking blunt to the point where 19-year-old Marvin Williams, the Hawks’ normally soft-spoken No. 1 draft pick from North Carolina, ended the meeting screaming at Woodson for screaming at him.
In response, Harrington, a senior citizen at 25 on what is the NBA’s youngest roster, told the coaches and other Hawks personnel to leave the locker room. He wanted time for screaming at Williams and other Hawks youngsters who just didn’t understand Woodson’s tough love.
“Guys are just a little too sensitive, and they have to realize that we’re all in this for the same thing, and that is to win basketball games, and that you can’t take any of this as a personal attack,” said Harrington, recalling the clean version of his speech that day. In addition to scolding teammates for having a thin skin regarding Woodson, he told them to leave that college and high school stuff out of the pros.
Harrington glanced around the locker room adding, “Maybe you’ve noticed that we used to dance before games and all of that kind of stuff. Once we start winning, we can dance, flip, do whatever we want to do out there. Until then, we have to take a serious approach. We realize that we’re in a position where we get no respect, and the only way we’re going to get that is that we’re going to have to win.”
Instead, the Hawks started 0-9 before their modest winning streak. They’re passing better. They’re defending better. They’re also listening better — you know, whether they like what they hear or not.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Terence Moore
Georgia, Tech defenders provided thrills
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
As the fellow who had just watched his 56th Georgia-Georgia Tech football game said, taking leave of the press box Saturday near midnight, “This was not one for the ages. Maybe for the aged, but not the ages.”
Even the score lacked personality —14-7 — like a 3-1 score in baseball. Not dull, I give it that. Sluggish offensively, but there was nothing dull about the defense. Amazing that those young bodies could survive some of the crashing hits they took. It was trench warfare without weapons. At least you knew this, that you wouldn’t be seeing Georgia’s Gordon Ely-Kelso taking off on a run from punt formation, if he valued his life.
You must have thought it was never going to get out of the first quarter. Took an hour and 15 minutes, and four reviews from the replay crew. A Broadway musical doesn’t get that many reviews. What I’m saying is, the 56,000-or-so came to the Tech campus expecting so much and getting a yo-yo offensive performance out of both sides kind of let the air out of their balloons. It wasn’t long before their interest waned in trying to interfere with the signal-calling. It was good, though, to see old Bobby Dodd Stadium rocking again, as in the days of the Grant Field original.
Now, as for the featured match between Reggie Ball and D.J. Shockley, it was short of the luster you expected. Ball got his touchdown early, then Shockley got his, and the next 46 minutes was an offensive vacuum. Neither distinguished himself, but the decision obviously went to the senior Shockley, who performed more within himself and kept order in his ranks.
Ball, well, you just don’t know what you’ll get from him, though usually you can count on him taking the game on himself too often. He’ll bring you out of your seat on one play, then send you crashing back on the next. I trust we shall not be subjected to a preseason Heisman Trophy campaign in his behalf next season. When he is good, he is very, very good. When he’s bad, he’ll drive you nuts.
Whether his fault or not, it was significant that Calvin Johnson, with all his ability and the hype, was a factor only when he caught Ball’s 2-yard pass for a touchdown. Give Georgia’s defense a thumbs-up here, and most of it was done with single coverage, mainly by senior DeMario Minter. If there was an unofficial match between him and Leonard Pope, the towering Bulldog, it never developed. The Bulldog sophomore who filled in the blanks for Georgia was Kregg Lumpkin, who turned a cameo appearance into a full night running the ball. He had gained only 156 yards all season. Against Tech he ran for 74 yards and kept the offense alive with chunks of yardage.
This rivalry never has brought out the best in Ball, beginning with his year as a freshman, when he had an encounter on the Georgia sideline, then disappeared from the game the last half. Then there was the fourth-down miscalculation in Athens last year, and he was not to escape this time. He delivered the fatal blow when he was intercepted by Tim Jennings as the end approached. Georgia had gone ahead on Shockley’s touchdown pass to Bryan McClendon, finally, now Tech had moved swiftly down to Georgia’s 11-yard line in reprisal when the Yellow Jackets’ night came to a disastrous end.
“We were getting ready for overtime,” Gerris Wilkinson, the senior linebacker, said. “Fourteen points should not be enough to beat us.”
But alas, it was. Mark Richt is still unscathed in this old series. But let’s get one point across here: It is not a series of 12 in a row, as ballyhooed over the radio, referring to Georgia Tech’s sentence by the NCAA. “Vacated” does not mean defeat. “Vacated” simply erases the game from the books. It was never played, in other words. This one was, and Georgia won fair and square.
Permalink | Comments (66) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Tech squanders rare opportunity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Look at it this way. (Georgia Tech fans surely will.) Playing at home, Chan Gailey’s best Tech team wasn’t able to beat the weakest Georgia aggregation since 2001. That new contract and the famous victory over Miami to the contrary, a Tech coach cannot ever feel secure in his job until he beats the hated mutts from Athens. Against that bunch, Chan Gailey is 0-4.
Only one other full-fledged Tech coach has lost his first four games against Georgia, and that was Bill Curry swimming against the high tide of the Herschel Walker era. (George O’Leary, it must be noted, started 0-4 against the Bulldogs, but the first of those losses came after he inherited Bill Lewis’ mess in 1994.) Curry broke through on his fifth try. (So did O’Leary, for that matter.) After Saturday night, it’s hard to envision Gailey beating the hated mutts anytime soon, if ever.
The Jackets had every chance. They outgained Georgia by 61 yards and had seven more first downs and basically controlled the game on every level except the scoreboard. The scoreboard, however, tends to matter in every game, and never so much as in a rivalry game. The Bulldogs didn’t make many plays, but they made the two that mattered. And Reggie Ball, as is his peculiar and exasperating wont, undercut some splendid and resourceful work by turning the ball over three times.
When last we saw Ball against Georgia, he’d thrown the ball away on fourth down — not knowing it was fourth down — with his team five points in arrears. That egregious loss spawned all manner of hand-wringing in Tech circles, and this night commenced as if Ball and his mates were about to set things right. The Jackets scored on their first possession, flashing 78 yards with the greatest of ease, Ball keeping for two key gains and finding Calvin Johnson with a lovely parabola of a throw for the touchdown. Not five minutes in, Tech had its first lead over Georgia under Gailey. Matters pretty much deteriorated thereafter.
The Jackets didn’t score again. They kept moving, but they couldn’t move far enough. Ball lost a fumble at midfield and threw a weird interception inside Georgia territory with 14 seconds left in the first half. A sack blunted another drive, and another Ball fumble — he recovered this one — helped halt yet another. And then Travis Bell missed a field goal, which Tech fans have come to expect, and the game was left for Georgia to seize. And Georgia did.
D.J. Shockley, who had an otherwise indifferent night, found Bryan McClendon for the winning touchdown over Dennis Davis, whose interception had clinched Tech’s monumental upset of Miami seven days earlier. That, alas, remains the flaw in the Gailey system — no gain ever gets fully consolidated. The Jackets beat the nation’s No. 3 team on the road one week but cannot muster more than seven points on their ground against their oldest enemy the next. Tech rises so far but no further.
Once again, the Jackets teased their backers with a rousing drive at the end of a Georgia game, and this time nobody lost track of downs. This time, the surge ended with Ball’s first-down interception, Georgia’s Tim Jennings flashing in front of Damarius Bilbo to seal this game in much the same way Tim Wansley stole George Godsey’s pass to give Mark Richt his first victory over Tech on this field in 2001. Richt hasn’t lost to the Jackets yet, and there seems no compelling reason why he ever will.
Losing 51-7 to Georgia in Gailey’s first season was awful in its way, but the narrow losses of the past two seasons surely hurt Tech fans just as much. There was no difference between the teams Saturday, no difference except that the Bulldogs took better care of the ball. If you root for the Jackets, you came into this game wondering, “If not now, when?” And you exited, sad to say, thinking, “Maybe never.”
NOT AGAIN
After four tries, Chan Gailey still is searching for his first win against rival Georgia. How his record against the Bulldogs compares to past Tech coaches:
Coach (Years) Record
John Heisman (1904-19) 7-4-1
Bobby Dodd (1945-66) 12-10
William Alexander (1920-44) 7-10-3
Bud Carson (1967-71) 2-3
Bobby Ross (1987-91) 2-3
George O’Leary (1995-2001) 3-4
Pepper Rodgers (1974-79) 2-4
Bill Curry (1980-86) 2-5
Bill Fulcher (1972-73) 0-2
Bill Lewis (1992-94) 0-3
Chan Gailey (2002-05) 0-4
Permalink | Comments (188) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
SEC championship is the real prize
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
If some Georgia fans had their doubts about D.J. Shockley coming into this season, it’s probably because a certain rivalry game was fresh on their minds. It’s probably because it is difficult to forget when a backup quarterback is so mediocre that the starter feels compelled to come back into the game – despite a fractured thumb.
That was the lingering memory of Shockley from last season. He replaced the injured David Greene when the Bulldogs needed him most last season against Tech, then he was pulled for a guy with only four good fingers on his throwing hand.
“That was on my mind a lot this week,” Shockley said late Saturday. “It was the one opportunity I had to perform, and I didn’t come through the way I wanted to.”
Saturday’s game might not go down as a desperation game, as it pertains to Shockley trying to prove his worth. He entered the Georgia Tech game having won eight of his nine starts, and the only defeat came by one point to Auburn. But in the 14-7 win over the Yellow Jackets, Shockley did manage to wipe clean a smudge from his resume.
Albeit, belatedly.
His 19-yard touchdown pass to Bryan McClendon with 3:18 remaining voided an otherwise miserable evening. On the winning drive, he completed all four of his attempts for 44 yards.
Prior to that possession, he was 11 for 30 with an interception.
“It was a night for the defense,” he said. “A lot of things happened out there. But the important thing is, we persevered.”
It all looks good when you win.
This could have been considered the ultimate trap game for the Bulldogs, if the opponent wasn’t an in-state rival. It’s hard to imagine that an 8-2 team could have less at stake than Georgia did Saturday.
The national championship dream scenario had long been kaput. Win or lose, the Dogs were going to the SEC title game next week. Win or lose, the only way they were getting into a BCS game was by winning the SEC title game, thereby clinching a Sugar Bowl berth. Perhaps you could make the case that losing to Tech would diminish what bowl Georgia went to if it lost the SEC championship.
But for the Dogs, there’s really only two bowls, anyway: The Sugar Bowl and Not The Sugar Bowl.
Similarly, Shockley couldn’t have felt the same level of desperation as Tech’s fifth-year seniors, who were winless against the school from Athens. Shockley was 3-0, even if he didn’t figure significantly in any of the results.
As a freshman, he saw limited playing time in a 51-7 dismembering in Athens. As a sophomore, he watched from the sideline with an injured knee. Last year, he threw a touchdown pass but was mostly average.
OK, mostly miserable. His 3-yard scoring pass gave Georgia a 16-0 lead in the second quarter. But the rest of the game went so poorly that Greene came back in despite a fractured thumb on his throwing hand. Anybody skeptical of Shockley entering the year pointed to that game first.
So imagine the reaction when he completed only 9 of 23 in the first half. The Jackets’ defense pressured Shockley but not nearly to the extent it harassed Miami’s Kyle Wright the week before. The senior had several misfires, overthrowing some receivers, underthrowing others.
For a guy who entered the game with 18 touchdowns, only four interceptions and a 152.16 quarterback rating, Shockley looked borderline shaky. He was lost for an answer why, afterward, other than to credit the Jackets’ defense.
But when it mattered most, he looked under control. On second and 15 from the Jackets’ 44 following a holding penalty, he connected with tight end Leonard Pope for 12 yards, then with wide receiver Mario Raley for another 8 near the sideline. A penalty moved the ball to the Tech 19. Two plays later, Shockley spotted McClendon had a step on Dennis Davis running toward the end zone.
McClendon had dropped two passes earlier, but Shockley didn’t hesitate. “A quarterback has to have faith in his receivers,” he said. And apparently a little faith in himself.
Permalink | Comments (106) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Braine’s record speaks for itself
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Some of these Georgia Tech folks need to get a life. Come to think about it, they aren’t alone regarding Dave Braine.
About the only person within close proximity of the Yellow Jacket Nation more perplexed than I by those who suggest that Buzz, the school’s mascot, knows more about sports than Braine, the school’s athletics director, is Paul Hewitt, the school’s basketball coach.
He’s still fuming over the Braine bashers, and not just because he was brought to Tech five years ago by the supposedly overmatched Braine, whose credentials say otherwise.
Hewitt told me this week that three years after he was hired at Tech, he wasn’t fired by Braine, who had many urging him to do so. In case you’re wondering, none of this has been mentioned before. “That’s because Dave doesn’t operate that way, and he’s not the kind of person who is going to stay in your face and say, ‘I told you so,’ ” said Hewitt, recalling the secret furor Braine created after the 2002-03 season, when he awarded Hewitt with a raise and a contract extension despite an underwhelming performance by Hewitt’s team.
A group of Tech supporters were so peeved back then with Braine for the Hewitt move that they complained all the way to the office of Tech President Wayne Clough. What Clough and Braine did in response was nothing. What Hewitt did the next season was take the Jackets to the NCAA championship game.
See a pattern here? Thirteen years ago, when Braine was in charge at Virginia Tech, the school’s president asked Braine if it was time to oust the Hokies’ football coach who just finished 2-8-1. Uh-uh, said Braine, who eventually watched Frank Beamer become the Big East’s coach of the decade for the 1990s. This is the same Beamer who ranks only behind Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno in overall victories among active coaches and who continues to have Virginia Tech among the nation’s elite.
Memo to the Braine bashers: Given the Hewitt thing and the Beamer thing, you should take a deep breath and count to 10 on the Chan Gailey thing.
As for the latter, Braine ignored the howling over Gailey’s seven victories in each of his first three seasons at Tech and gave his football coach a new five-year contract last week after a 6-3 start. It was a start that was typical of Gailey’s Jackets, with some good (upset at Auburn), some bad (choke at home to N.C. State) and some ugly (collapse at Virginia Tech). Then three days after Gailey’s new contract, the Jackets provided some great. They shocked mighty Miami in the Orange Bowl. Just like that, Braine wasn’t considered The Scarecrow anymore by his critics, who grudgingly had to concede that Braine does have a brain.
Well, theoretically. Even Braine told me over the weekend that his thought process could have been smoother when he delivered the truth last week that Tech never will have nine- and 10-win football seasons on a regular basis. It’s the truth, because Tech never has done it. Neither have most teams, but you can’t say that, unless you don’t care to be politically correct.
“There are two ways that you can do things,” Hewitt said. “You can be popular, or you can follow your convictions. Nobody ever is going to accuse Dave of not having the courage of his convictions. The guy knows sports. Now, knowing sports and being a fan are two different things. The fans get emotional. Dave is calculating, and that’s why he’s been successful.”
Very successful. There was Braine’s stint at Marshall 20 years ago, when the Thundering Herd galloped out of nowhere into football prominence. There were his prolific days at Virginia Tech. Then there was his arrival at Georgia Tech in 1997, when he replaced the highly underrated Homer Rice and kept the Jackets prominent as players and as students.
No question, Tech’s first trip ever to the NCAA slammer for using 17 academically ineligible players in four sports doesn’t help Braine’s legacy with the Jackets. Still, he has done much more than that to help that legacy, including using his wisdom to keep Hewitt around for a long time.
“Really, no amount of emotion is going to sway [Braine’s] loyalty to his coaches, especially if he thinks they are right for the job, and that doesn’t make him popular at times,” Hewitt said. “He doesn’t always say the right things — just because he’s trying to protect his coaches — but history will show that he’s one of the best athletics director ever to come around.”
History already has.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Weekend Predictions: Colts will lose, but, like, not yet
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
I know the Indianapolis Colts are not going undefeated.
I know this because an online betting service says the odds are against it, and more important, Brooke Burke gazed into my eyes like no one-dimensional women ever had in my history of full screen, one-dimensional relationships and promised me I could trust her. Brooke would not lie to me.
“Hi [Jeff]. I’m Brooke Burke and I’m as wild on sports as I am on exotic travel.”
Ohhh, yeah.
Brooke tells me this with a twinkle in her eyes on Sportsbook.com, which also has links to her instructional videos, as well as past speeches on global economics. OK, maybe not the speeches.
“They’ve got ALL the action,” Brooke says. “It’s quick. It’s easy. And it’s totally confidential.”
Um. Are we still talking about sports?
There are five videos, two in which Brooke wears the tight black top and three in which she wears the lacy blue top.
In one, she says, “Do you know, there’s, like, a billion online casinos?”
Like, no, I didn’t.
I was so thrown by that statistic, I almost forgot what Brooke was wearing.
Almost.
So. Speaking of statistics: Brooke is …
Check that. The Colts are 10-0. According to my soothsayer, the pressure will get to them. The odds are 3-1 against running the table and 12-1 against Brooke putting together another complete sentence.
This week, Indy plays host to the ‘Burgh. The Steelers haven’t lost to the Colts since 1984. They also get back quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who is 18-1 as a starter.
Miss Hottie’s probably right. The Colts will go down.
But not this week.
Sorry, babe. I’m just not feeling it. Work with me a little. Got any other shirts?
Colts cover 8.
FOUR BAGS
• Giants at Seahawks: Some think Seattle is the class of the NFC. But I still see Matt Hasselbeck and eventual doom. Then again, this could be an NFC title game preview, the resuscitation of the Falcons notwithstanding. Take the Giants and 41/2 — and in a straight upset.
THREE BAGS
•Bears at Bucs: Chicago is allowing 11 points per game. In the just-along-for-the-ride category, Kyle Orton makes Trent Dilfer look like Otto Graham. Make that seven straight for the Bears — and take the gift 3.
• Patriots at Chiefs: Kansas City lineman Lional Dalton was arrested Friday for allegedly grabbing his wife by the hair and pulling her down. But coach Dick Vermeil did not immediately rule him out for the game. Talk about a man desperate for a tackle. Take New England and 3 — and in a straight upset.
TWO BAGS
• Panthers at Bills: J.P. Losman replaces Kelly Holcomb, who replaced J.P. Losman, who has been given no assurances of starting after today. All of which leads to: Duh, Carolina covers 4.
• Chargers at Redskins: It’s Dan Snyder Nightmare Month. He lost last week to one former coach (Norv Turner) and today loses to another (Marty Schottenheimer). As long as he stays out of the SEC East, it won’t get any worse. Take San Diego, punt the 3.
• Dolphins at Raiders: Nick Saban must have realized this season would be a headache. But could he have expected that Ricky Williams would be the bright spot last week? Where do you go after a 22-0 loss to Cleveland? Here: Oakland covers 7.
• Packers at Eagles: The good news, Philly fans: The Eagles plan to divvy up all of the salary they’re recouping from Terrell Owens and will distribute it equally to all attending today’s game. Kidding. Discounted tickets? Free beer? No. No. But you do get Mike McMahon to L.J. Smith. Standard armor recommended in the 700 level. Eagles win, but take the Pack and 41/2.
• Ravens at Bengals: Chester Taylor has taken over as the primary ball carrier in Baltimore. Jamal Lewis seems resigned to the fact he’s a goner. The good news is, he and Reuben Houston can take business courses together in Bolivia. Cincy covers 9.
• Browns at Vikings: So maybe sailing on the Boom Boom Boat wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. Minnesota has won four of the past five and can at least dream about an improbable playoff run. A trip to Amsterdam ought to put them over the top. Vikes win but won’t cover the 4.
• Jaguars at Cardinals: Byron Leftwich has 10 touchdowns and two interceptions in the past six games. Arizona has 12 passing TDs and 13 interceptions all season. Jax covers 3 on the road.
WHO’S UP FOR BOWLING?
• Rams at Texans: Combined, these two teams have allowed 592 points. They could make the Swiss Army look like a threat, with that advancing front of toothpicks and mini-corkscrews. Take Houston and 3 1/2 — and in a straight upset.
• 2-8 at 2-8: The 49ers’ website is building up this week’s grudge match between kicker Joe Nedney and his former team, Tennessee. That should drive ticket sales. Titans cover 8 1/2.
• 2-8 at 2-8 (II): The Jets don’t have a quarterback. The Saints have Aaron Brooks. Advantage: Jets. Take New York to cover 1 at home.
PROGRESS REPORT (Still profitable. Still waiting for commissions. I have friends.) • Last week: 8-8 straight up, 9-7 against the line. • Fiscal season: 97-47 straight up, 77-63-4 against the line.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Athletes’ clout fading in management disputes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
In the ever-changing captaincy on the good ship “Doesn’t Get It,” it would be hard to top the reign of the Denver Nuggets’ Marcus Camby. When asked his opinion of the NBA’s new dress code, Camby said he would only comply if the league gave him a clothing allowance. Because as we all know, $7 million a year doesn’t go as far as it used to, even if you hit one of those one-day sales.
But there may be hope in matters regarding the Lost Boys of professional sports. I’m not sure why it turned or how it turned or whether it ever will turn back. But this past year has been like the Winnebago of reality dropping on a prima donna’s head. Or Lamborghini.
When Terrell Owens’ was so thoroughly pummeled by an arbitrator this week — effectively losing out the rest of his season, and salary and bonuses that may amount to over $2 million by the time this is done — it was the latest in a series of rulings or agreements that have gone against The Player and for The Man.
Congressional hearings and Bud Selig’s ensuing decision to wrap himself in Washington’s coat tails forced the players union to accept a drug-testing policy with some teeth. Now, a positive test gets you more than 10 minutes in timeout. Three positive tests and you’re out.
Imagine that. It’s almost like real life.
Baseball also will test for amphetamines. That’s more significant than you know. While juiced players have set records, games largely are played by guys being kept awake on something other than French roast. If there’s suddenly a hole between second and third next season because the shortstop is literally taking a dirt nap, now you know why.
Reality has hit every sport. NHL salaries weren’t excessive but the league’s TV deal had the worth of a TV dinner. Owners threatened to cancel the season. Nobody believed them, until they did. Players lost a year’s pay. They gave back everything but their socks. They were forced to accept a hard-cap deal that’s suddenly the envy of every sports owner.
The NBA has managed to survive this season without Latrell Sprewell. He turned down $7 million a year from Minnesota, and the rest of the league has since turned him down. The market for stranglers apparently isn’t what it used to be.
Ron Artest is back in the league. But he’ll never get back the $5 million in salary he lost for last year’s suspension after brawling with fans. He appealed. He lost. An arbitrator reaffirmed his stupidity.
The Detroit Lions have filed a grievance against wide receiver Charles Rogers, trying to recoup more than $10 million of a $14 million signing bonus because the receiver violated the NFL’s substance abuse policy. This case is being watched even more closely by teams than the Owens’ situation — if for no other reason than a drugged player is more prevalent than one who calls his quarterback a slug and employer classless on national TV.
Which leads us back to Owens. He is drug-free and a star, arguably the best at his position. But he has been shelved for the year and is devalued for life. What were the odds of that?
As to the potential ripple effect, Falcons general manager Rich McKay said: “I hope so. It doesn’t mean all players will be satisfied with their contracts. Players are no different than any of us. Most people feel, ‘We’re underpaid and undervalued.’ I don’t have any problem with that. The question is, what actions follow that? I can’t imagine you being mad about your pay, then writing columns, and in it saying, ‘The AJC stinks.’ “
Hmmm.
I’m sorry. Where was I?
Owens will get a job. But he’ll never get what he sought — a multi-year deal with a fat signing bonus and increased guaranteed salary. A team simply won’t risk the outlay.
“Teams always should have the expectation that a player is going to honor his contract,” McKay said. “Sometimes, holdouts occur, and you have to deal with them. But in this case, it went beyond that. The ruling was important, for the sanctity of the team.”
What’s a self-respecting prima donna without a sports coat to do?
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Falcons / NFL, Hawks / NBA, Jeff Schultz, Other, Thrashers / NHL
Game’s importance bigger for Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
“All Georgia-Georgia Tech games are big,” Bill Cromartie writes in “Clean Old-Fashioned Hate,” his history of the rivalry. But some are bigger than others, and to Georgia Tech, this is one of those. Much, much bigger than to Georgia. Not only is Tech grasping for something to lift it above the morass of bad news that struck the athletics department lately, but this is the game that can break the logjam of seasons of seven wins that have become Chan Gailey’s benchmark.
Not only that, but perhaps a bid to a loftier bowl, those postseason hoaxes that try to disguise themselves as “classics.” I offer the Silicon Valley Classic, and subsequent loss to Frenso State, as the worst I’ve ever seen. What a travesty that it should share equal recognition on that panel of Tech’s bowl events at Dodd/Grant Field.
Now, why is this game not as important to Georgia as to Georgia Tech? Well, no matter if the Bulldogs win or lose, they’ll still get aboard a bus and drive back to Atlanta next weekend to play for the SEC championship. Two weekends in Atlanta! Hot dawg!
The game Saturday is sort an interruption of business. A defeat could put a dent in Georgia’s national standing, but that could be repaired by winning the championship game, to be played against LSU. This game has no bearing on that, except where wagers are placed.
Once upon a time, a Tech-Georgia game packed a national wallop. Both were members of the SEC and the result reflected on conference standing. Tech was last a member of the SEC in 1963, then became an independent until the ACC invited the Jackets in. Georgia Tech won the last three SEC matches between the two.
The tide began to turn in Athens when Joel Eaves left Auburn to become athletics director in November 1963. A week later, Eaves made the decisive move of hiring the freshman coach at Auburn to become his football coach at Georgia. Old-line Bulldogs threw up their arms in despair. “Who is this Vince Dooley?” they cried in anguish.
Dooley emerged, and with him so did Georgia. Dooley won his first two matches with Bobby Dodd, and from that day to this, Tech has never been able to sustain a streak of dominance in the rivalry.
This game Saturday defies analysis. Two weeks ago you’d have taken Georgia and spotted Tech at least 10 points. Here is a Tech team that beat Auburn on The Plain, was cremated by Virginia Tech, lost to N.C. State on a fluke, beat Clemson by a point, lost as the favored team to Virginia, then beat Miami in an upset so vast that even Warren Sapp was upset.
It is an eccentric team. Reggie Ball sets the tone. His temperature is the temperature of his team. They win with key players out of the game, P.J. Daniels and Brad Honeycutt at Miami. They lose with them on the field. They had Georgia in their gunsight last year, but Ball misplaced his calculator. In this game, there is no favorite, no underdog. It’s as even as a carpenter’s level. The fascinating feature is that we’ll get to see Ball matched against D.J. Shockley for the last and only time.
It is an old rivalry that has lost a lot of its oomph. Neither plays for position in its conference. It might as well be Kiev Tech against Tiblisi U. The only prize is the state championship of Georgia, except for taunting privileges. It still maintains some degree of distilled rancor on the Georgia Tech side, though, for its old fight always ends, “To hell with Georgia!”
Good-guy Dunn shows he’s a great player
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Detroit — Even if you consider that the Lions spent Thursday at Ford Field looking worse than the windy, frigid, brutal conditions on this side of the Detroit River, the Falcons did exactly what they needed to do.
They won. They did so with Michael Vick continuing his growth as a runner and a passer, a rejuvenated defense, a nice return game for a change and (ho-hum) their greatness at running back that many have a tendency to forget.
What many prefer to remember is that, except for maybe the Nobel Peace Prize, the Falcons’ greatness at running back has won every award invented for good guys and humanitarians. This makes absolutely no sense. I mean, why can’t folks hear the name Warrick Dunn and recall that he is capable of brilliance whether he’s wearing a uniform or a suit?
“At the beginning of the year, a lot of people just looked at me as the guy who did a lot of things off the field, but hopefully now, people will start to look at me as a football player, not as a guy who is just a philanthropist,� said Dunn, after evolving into an everyman in the minds of more than just a few. Well, let’s hope so. To meet Dunn for only a little while is to like him a lot. Amidst much bad these days, he’s everything that’s decent about professional athletes in so many ways.
That’s why this was such a splendid Thanksgiving Day for those who already knew about the small player with the big heart. This time, Dunn displayed his considerable worth as one of the NFL’s most unappreciated stars to millions on national television before they headed for their sweet potato pie.
It wasn’t just that Dunn rushed for nearly 7 yards per carry against what was a respectable defense against the run. It’s how he did it. Along the way to finishing with 116 yards on the ground after playing less than three quarters in a 27-7 blowout, Dunn ran untouched through Detroit defenders for long stretches.
He was his own Motown soundtrack, because this was “The same old songâ€? by Dunn — you know, as a prolific runner, and he had his opponent screaming, “Mercy, mercy meâ€? and wishing he would just “Stop, in the name of love.â€? Then again, Lions offensive guard Damien Woody didn’t have “The tears of a clownâ€? after Dunn ended the afternoon with more than 1,000 yards rushing in a season for the fourth time in his nine NFL seasons, including four with the Falcons.
Woody is among the slew of veterans in the league who admire greatness, even if it wears different colors than their own and especially if those colors belong to Dunn.
“With the world watching, all that a game like this does for him is give him the exposure that he needs to show what he’s made of, and I’m really, really happy for him,â€? said Woody, who contributed to two NFL championships with the New England Patriots before joining the Lions last season. “When a lot of people think of Warrick, they think, ‘Ah, he’s a nice, shifty, little back,’ and that’s about it. But he’s a lot more than that. For a guy that size of 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, he doesn’t take a lot of hits, and for him to do the things that he does every week, wow, I think it’s amazing.â€?
Yes, it is. So is this: Unlike Dunn, folks always remember his peers, ranging from Shaun Alexander to Edgerrin James to LaDainian Tomlinson. There also are those who can recite the exploits of Tiki Barber, Larry Johnson and even Ronnie Brown, a rookie who only hopes to do what Dunn already had done.
If you combine Dunn’s consistent professionalism on the field and his legendary selflessness off it, you have to wonder why he wasn’t the one that they carried into the stadium on that elevated royal mattress as part of Thursday’s holiday celebration instead of Mariah Carey. And consider, too, that while more than a few of Dunn’s teammates have contributed in significant ways this season to the highs and the lows of a Falcons team that just ended an ugly two-game losing streak, Dunn has remained Dunn.
You know, steady, productive, consistent, dependable, classy.
Did I say “great�?
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Catch this: Dogs win, Tech covers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
From the home office of Weekend Predictions, a subsidiary of the Aquarium Journal-Constitution, whose sole mission is to provide 700 words, a photo essay and a flow chart on every fish by next Tuesday — Marge! Look! Another grouper! — welcome to the almost final forecast of this semi-pro season.
Our .614 winning percentage against the spread would have satisfied all of your financial dreams, had you actually invested on the picks, which of course you didn’t because that would be illegal, and it also would upset NCAA officials who abhor exploiting our student athletes, except in matters of selling out to TV networks and sponsors and expanding seasons to 12 games. But I digress. (Marge! Sandcrabs!) We will continue to provide economic indicators on NFL Sunday and publish a special bowl game edition of Weekend Predictions, provided trout aren’t spawning that week.
But first, it’s Georgia vs. Georgia Tech. This game once looked like Chan Gailey’s going away party. Suddenly, the Jackets are a couple of upsets away from the highfalutin Gator Bowl, while Georgia could be in danger of transitioning from Sugar to Cotton to Cap-1 to Outback to Peach.
Where’s the Sugar, Larry? Can you see it? Chicken nuggets, falling from the sky!
The Bulldogs have won four straight meetings. Gailey has been around for the last three. The deficits have shrunk from 44 to 17 to 6 but that still doesn’t play well on the rubber chicken circuit.
Reggie Ball suddenly looks under control. And this is the best defense the Jackets have had.
The problem? Last week. You win at Miami, everybody notices, including your next opponent. Tech’s best weapon, the sneak-up factor, just went kaput.
It’ll be close. Like two smelts cuddling in the night. (Do smelts cuddle? I missed that edition.) But I don’t see this series flopping just yet. Georgia wins — but take Tech and 3.
Second Day Turkey
(W.P. Holiday Shopping Tip of the Week: Doofus. Sleep in. Pay the extra 71 cents for Play-Doh next week.)
FSU at Florida: Gators quarterback Chris Leak — determined to succeed in Urban Meyer’s spread offense, and clearly with no place to go as a sociology major — announced he will return next season. Meyer, in isolation since the South Carolina loss, was unavailable for comment and is questionable for the game, according to Nurse Ratchett. Gators win but take Noles and 5.
Arkansas at LSU: Les Miles was a fool back when Meyer was cool. Seems they have morphed. LSU has won eight straight since losing to Tennessee (a former SEC school once good enough to have beaten Vanderbilt, according to campus historians). Actual factual: LSU allowed 61 points in the first two games (30.5 per) but only 70 in the next eight (8.7). See, I just look dumb. Cats over Piggies, cover 17.
L’il Orange at Kentucky: I’m sure Tennessee jokes will get old some day. Fortunately, I’ll be dead by then. Even Johnny Majors took a shot at Phil Fulmer in the aftermath of a home loss to Vanderbilt. “I don’t pull against those players up there,” quoth Majors. “But I don’t have any regard for Judas Brutus, who’s coaching up there.” Guess he found the fingerprints on the knife. Vowels win but take Cats and 9.
The Canes of Wrath: After losing at home to Tech, Miami QB Kyle Wright said, “We can lower our heads and go play in the Dust Bowl, or we can finish strong.” At least Tom Joad could read a blitz, Kyle. The Canes won’t blow it against Virginia, but forget covering 18.
North Carolina at Va-Tech: The Tar Heels will try to become bowl eligible against a team being given a second chance to clinch a spot in the ACC title game. Sure. And for John Bunting’s next trick, he’ll split an atom. Hokies cover 23.
Mississippi at Mississippi State: A lot like Harvard-Yale. Winner advances to the 20th century. (Oh look. I’ve got mail.) Col. Sanders covers 3.
I’M SCARY GOOD
Last week: 4-3 straight up, 5-2 against the line.
Fiscal season: 64-19 straight up 50-31-2 against the line.
A day to appreciate life and loved ones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Thanksgiving is a day that needs no elaboration. The very name says it all. It didn’t become a holiday by appointment, it evolved out of appreciation for life itself, for health, for a bountiful table, for love of family, for gathering together, a day to pause, give prayerful thanks and consider our good fortune.
But on the other hand, consider the plight of the turkey. The bird du jour. How was it that this awkward-looking fowl became our symbol of this festive holiday? We have the Pilgrims to thank for that, we are told, and the reason was that turkeys were plentiful and dumb. Virginia Tech was the only college that ever named its teams for the turkey — the Gobblers — but soon got the drift and converted to Hokies, whatever a Hokie is.
Then, there is the negative side of “turkey,” the guy who’s an athletic klutz.
But enough of this. Let us clasp hands across the table and be thankful for what we have, not what we haven’t, and how blessed we are, not fearing to include a giggle or two:
*I’m thankful for my trusty old pickup.
*I’m thankful when no young person rises and offers me a seat on the Airport Tram, (you know, where the sign reads: “Reserved for the elderly.�)
*I’m thankful when my neighbor offers me a load of firewood.
*And, I’m thankful when the fireplace season comes around.
*I’d be thankful if Jimmy Carter had been the kind of president he tries to tell George Bush to be.
*I’m thankful for cellphones — for others, but keep it down, please.
*I’m thankful when I’m making a reservation that I’m talking to somebody in Cincinnati, not India.
*I’m thankful for the leathery smell of a new car — especially if it’s paid for.
*I’m thankful when the postman leaves those envelopes with the little window in them.
*I’m thankful never to get involved with some parent trying to discipline his child.
*I’m thankful when the phone rings and it’s not a telepest.
*I’m thankful I didn’t grow up in a country where curling is the national pastime.
*I’m thankful for the bicycle I got last Christmas, but I fear it was a few years too late.
*I’m thankful for smoked turkey, sorry it doesn’t taste as good as it smells.
*I’m thankful I still keep a pencil trimmer, a glue pot and a typewriter at hand, in case of emergency.
*I’m thankful for cashews (please tell me they’re not fattening).
*I’m thankful I got a million miles in at Delta before we had to start undressing at the gate.
*I’m thankful when the chiropractor says, “That’s all,� and the hurting stops.
*I’m thankful for dear departed friends, of whom there have been too many this year.
*I’m thankful for something I can only explain by saying I think I’m the luckiest husband alive.
And having said all that, let’s gather around, bow our heads and give grateful thanks to all our military folk who’ve served us any and everywhere.
WANT MORE FURMAN BISHER?
Read insights from a lifetime of interviews in the new book Furman Bisher: Face-To-Face. Now available at ajcstore.com.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Other
A list sure to unite Dogs, Jackets in anger
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
After a one-year hiatus, our Field Guide to Georgia and Tech Fans returns in all its, uh, glory. Guaranteed to irk both sides. Guaranteed to delight absolutely no one.
*Georgia fans are convinced Mark Richt is the man with the plan. Tech fans are convinced Chan Gailey is a nice man.
*Tech fans suffer from hearing loss due to Wes Durham screaming on the radio after every first down. Georgia fans suffer from hearing loss due to Brook Whitmire screaming over the Sanford Stadium PA system after every first down.
*Georgia fans are wondering if, given that his three losses to Tech have been vacated by NCAA probation, Jim Donnan should get his job back. Tech fans are praying Jim Donnan gets his job back very soon.
*Tech fans believe their school got outmaneuvered in court throughout the Reuben Houston case. Georgia fans believe the rather uncanny Ed Tolley never gets outmaneuvered in court.
*Georgia fans wish Vince Dooley would return as athletics director. Tech fans wish their athletics director a speedy retirement.
*Tech fans think probation is the end of the world. Georgia fans think that if you’re not on probation, you’re not really trying.
*A few Georgia fans are beginning to think Michael Adams isn’t so bad after all. A few Tech fans are beginning to think Wayne Clough has a little Michael Adams in him.
*Tech fans believe Georgia gets better publicity from the local media because the local media is overrun by Georgia grads. Georgia fans believe their school gets better publicity from the local media because Claude Felton is the best in the business.
*Georgia fans wish D.J. Shockley had three more years of eligibility. Tech fans wish they knew exactly how Richt persuaded Shockley to stick around.
*Tech fans want Bill Curry to replace Dave Braine. Georgia fans do not want Bill Curry to replace Larry Munson.
*Georgia fans want Richt to hire a real offensive coordinator. Tech fans want Gailey to hire a real offensive coordinator.
*Tech fans believe Jon Tenuta will be their head coach someday. Georgia fans believed Willie Martinez was a rising star until Devin Aromashodu shook loose on fourth-and-10.
*Georgia fans are thankful Steve Spurrier beat Florida for them. Tech fans are thankful Steve Spurrier didn’t go back to Duke.
*Tech fans are wondering why Bobby Dodd Stadium needed to be enlarged. Georgia fans holding tickets for Saturday’s game are very happy it was.
*Georgia fans have lost track of just how many Bulldogs have been arrested. Tech fans have lost track of just how many ineligible players the Jackets used.
*Tech fans get really excited when Calvin Johnson makes one of his acrobatic catches. Georgia fans will get really excited the first time Johnson gets called for offensive interference.
*Georgia fans love hearing the chapel bell ring after a victory. Tech fans would love it if Travis Bell remembered how to kick a field goal.
*Tech fans wonder why their team can beat Auburn and Miami but not N.C. State and Virginia. Georgia fans wonder why their team can beat Tech but not Auburn.
*The Georgia fan’s most hated rival — Florida, unless Tech happens to win Saturday night, in which case everything would change. The Tech fan’s most hated rival — Georgia, and that’s never, ever subject to change.
Permalink | Comments (73) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Tech-UGA isn’t a real ‘rivalry’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Georgia vs. Georgia Tech.
Yawn.
OK, it’s a cute matchup whenever the Bulldogs and the Yellow Jackets go helmet to helmet, but nothing more, nothing less.
In other words, don’t insult the word “rivalry” by calling this game on Saturday at Tech such a thing. There isn’t a rivalry when one team (say, Georgia) keeps hammering another one (say, Tech).
Even if Tech wins this time, we’re talking about the Jackets managing their first victory in the series since the turn of the century. It would take several more victories after that by the Jackets before this series becomes a rivalry again — well, if it ever was one after Bobby Dodd became more famous as a stadium than as a person.
And speaking of always losing to the same team more often than not each season …
Florida gives Georgia fits.
That’s some “rivalry,� too.
Permalink | Comments (135) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Fine, but how ‘bout Dogs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
If last week was about shutting people up, this week is about changing perceptions. A win doesn’t signal the turning point in a program any more than a loss does.
Lose to Duke, beat Miami. Same, same? In some respects, yes (save the postgame party). The win only becomes more significant than the loss if it’s the start of something, not the finish line.
This week, Georgia Tech plays Georgia.
Got gumption?
“I don’t want to leave here without saying I beat Georgia at least once,” Tech linebacker Gerris Wilkinson said Tuesday. “It’s a respect issue. You can win 10 games a season, but if you can’t beat your in-state rival, you’re never really going to get the respect that you want. … The Miami game is the biggest win since I’ve been here, but it’s not going to mean that much if we don’t come in here and beat Georgia.”
That’s the prevailing viewpoint of a fifth-year senior who has witnessed four consecutive losses to Georgia. But this week is about far more than that for Tech. It’s about the direction of a program.
The Jackets’ 14-10 win in Miami was a high-water mark in the Chan Gailey era. The fact it came just as the athletic department was taking on water merely added to the drama. The win also ensured Gailey’s first winning record in the ACC (5-3) and that the Jackets wouldn’t end the season with three straight losses (Virginia, Miami, Georgia), as seemed apparent.
But college football teams generally are defined by two things: 1) Consistency; 2) Results against its rival (usually in-state). Suddenly, Gailey has security. What he doesn’t have is a record for success in Nos. 1 and 2. This week presents a double opportunity.
Beating Georgia would do more for increasing Gailey’s popularity with Tech supporters than the win over Miami did, if for no other reason than the fact it comes the week after the Miami game. Even losing to Georgia but competing at the level of a week ago would smother detractors. It would the send message, “We’re not going away.”
But lose 48-10 — then what does the Miami game mean? Little to nothing.
Gailey said of the rivalry with Georgia, “You live with it 365 days a year.”
He has lived with it worse than others. George O’Leary lost to the Bulldogs in his last season (31-17), but he had won the previous three. Gailey was hired in 2002, and his introduction to Georgia was a 51-7 loss. When the Jackets followed that up by losing to under- manned Fresno State in the Silicon Valley Bowl, the fan base started having Bill Lewis flashbacks. There have been two more losses to Georgia since, though by shrinking deficits (34-17 and 19-13).
Consistency also has been an issue. Under Gailey, the Jackets have had a tendency to follow leaps with splats. It’s easy to identify the high: The Jackets are one of only two teams to have two wins against schools currently in the top 10 (Auburn and Miami). The other is top-ranked Southern Cal (which has defeated Notre Dame and Oregon). The downs haven’t been quite as pronounced this season, but a home loss to N.C. State and a defeat by Virginia — the Cavaliers suspended four players two days before the game but jumped to an early 17-0 lead — unnerved the fan base.
Gailey believes this year’s team is less prone to letdowns and has been unfairly associated with the previous two. “You assume things that are going to happen, but that’s really better reading than it is reality,” he said.
But Wilkinson has seen it too often. “We have a big win, and then we have a letdown. It hurts the growth of the program,” he said.
After this year, he’s gone. But Gailey will be back, and how he and the program are perceived next season will be based largely on what happens Saturday. Because there is a difference between shutting people up and winning them over.
Permalink | Comments (124) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
The bright side of the Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: The front of the AJC sports section Tuesday depicted Jim Mora’s face on the body of the “Operation” game. It could be the first in a series of such graphics. Nominees for next week, pending the results in Detroit, are “Sorry,” “Trouble,” “Trivial Pursuit” and “[Get A] Clue.”
9: Seriously, Mora has really let himself go in the “bread basket.”
8: If you noticed in the Miami game, Reuben Houston played in mostly nickel and dime-bag packages. (Thank you very much. Tip your waitresses.)
7: Here is why you should care what decision comes down in the Terrell Owens case: If Owens’ four-game suspension is upheld, it will undercut every potential future prima donna athlete who believes that the guaranteed money in his contract is guaranteed income and can’t be taken away, no matter what stupid thing he does off the field. If Owens is forced to lose four weeks pay, and possibly some signing bonus money, knuckleheads are in trouble.
6: Is the Falcons saying, “We wanted to get younger” another way of saying, “We goofed by letting go of Ed Jasper and Travis Hall”? What has happened this season isn’t merely about underachieving players and some potential coaching decisions. Some personnel decisions have backfired on Rich McKay.
5: Steve Shields starts in goal tonight for the Thrashers. Over/under on his exit is the six-minute mark.
4: Georgia coach Mark Richt suspended a freshman player a game for a DUI charge. The good news: I guess this means running steps for punishment is passé in Athens.
3: In case you’re wondering, I ran into Dave Braine in the Georgia Tech cafeteria Tuesday, and he didn’t throw his soup on me.
2: If the Hawks win the rest of their games, they will finish 73-9, which would be a franchise record, and likely clinch home-court advantage through the playoffs.
1: I’m all about looking at the bright side.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
What are they made of?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch — Here’s where we find out about Jim Mora. Is he the bright young thing he seemed 12 months ago, or is he simply a guy who inherited Dan Reeves’ players and a healthy Michael Vick and had everything break right? Is he the NFL’s next great coach or just another one-year wonder? Can he lift the Falcons from the first hole of his tenure, or are burial services in order for this season of promise?
“This is the only way to find out about people — I know that’s a cliché you can read in every book,” Mora said Monday. “Hopefully I’m here for a long time, and if I am there will be other times like this. This is just the first time.”
It is. The Falcons have lost two in a row. (They lost two in a row last season only after they’d clinched the NFC South and were resting people for the playoffs.) If the playoffs began today, the Falcons wouldn’t qualify. They have fallen into terrible habits — of falling way behind early, of not being able to stop the run, of making just enough bad plays to lose. This doesn’t seem a team that’s playing for the NFC’s No. 1 seed, which was once their stated goal; on the contrary, these Falcons haven’t looked all that good since beating Minnesota on Oct. 3.
“There are lessons to be learned every week,” Mora said. “I think it’s great.” Here he grinned. “I know that sounds completely insane.”
Mora’s message: There’s a reason the Falcons can’t stop the run anymore. (In 10 games, five opposing backs have had 100-yard games.) They’re simply too young up front. “I hate excuses,” said Mora, sounding suspiciously like he was making one. “But we’re not building for one year — we’re building for many years. When you’re moving past [jettisoned linemen] Travis Hall and Fish [Ed Jasper], you’re in a transition phase. Other than [Keith] Brooking and Pat [Kerney], five of our front seven are young guys. That can catch up to you on a series. It’s transition — it’s not an excuse.”
About here, someone felt the need to ask for a clarification: Was Mora saying the Falcons, who once spoke boldly of making Super Bowl XL, are actually in a rebuilding year? “Absolutely not,” he said. “This is a building year. We’re building something here. There’s always going to be transition. That’s part of building something strong, going through adversity.”
And it is. Every team faces a moment of truth. The big-time teams handle theirs and move onward and upward. “It’s not like we’ve lost five in a row,” Mora said. “We’ve lost two in a row. Let’s not turn that into three or five in a row the way some organizations do.”
Since Mora arrived in January 2004, he has taken pains to paint his regime as a Class Operation. Three weeks ago, in defending his team’s silly policy of muting its offensive linemen, he took a shot at previous Falcons linemen and mentioned that this organization had never had consecutive winning seasons. His point being: There’s a new sheriff in town, pardner, and by gosh he’s a winner.
But look now. These Falcons are 6-4, facing four road games in the next five weeks, and there’s no longer any guarantee that the long-sought back-to-back winning seasons are at hand. Mora is glib and ambitious, but he needs now to show he can do what the Belichicks and the Cowhers do as a matter of annual course: He needs to right a team going wrong.
“I think we’re a pretty tough team,” Mora said, “a pretty darn good team.” And these Falcons might well be. If they are, they’ll show the nation by winning in Detroit on Thanksgiving. But there’s a reason the best NFL coaches tend to keep winning year upon year. The best of them are skilled not just at sketching X’s and O’s but at riding out reversals. Jim Mora looked spiffy as a frontrunner last season. Let’s see how he does playing from behind.
Permalink | Comments (100) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Sky isn’t falling yet, but it’s getting dark
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Oh, it was brutal for the Falcons on Sunday at the Georgia Dome.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers began their game-winning drive after Michael Vick ruined his otherwise stellar day with his fourth fumble in two games. In fact, when he struggled earlier in the afternoon, a large and loud chunk of the crowd nearly cheered itself hoarse after he left the field due to an injury and was replaced briefly by backup quarterback Matt Schaub.
There were the Falcons’ 11 penalties, including the always silly one for too many men on the field. Their receivers kept dropping the easiest of passes, and their defenders kept chasing the backs of Tampa Bay runners.
Worse, the Falcons kept losing during the most crucial part of their schedule filled with NFC South foes, and suddenly, their first back-to-back winning seasons after 40 years has gone from a likelihood to only a possibility.
Guess you can say that the sun, the moon and the stars are spiraling at the speed of light toward the Falcons’ portion of the earth. Even so, after his team spent a second consecutive week looking more vulnerable than venerable, Falcons coach Jim Mora suggested that such doomsday talk is ridiculous.
“No one is going to cut their wrists,� he said, before adding, “No one’s going to jump off a high building or walk around like the sky is falling.�
Yeah, well. The sky is falling around the Falcons, especially since they self-destructed in the beginning and at the end against the Buccaneers after an embarrassing home loss to the pitiful Green Bay Packers. Not only that, the Falcons play on Thursday in Detroit, where the usually wretched Lions are obsessed each Thanksgiving Day with turning their visitors into turkeys. Plus, four of the Falcons’ next five games are on the road. That means their decent 6-4 record could become something wretched quicker than another drop by a Falcons receiver.
Something needs to be said. Actually, part of it already was by a fuming Alge Crumpler on the Falcons’ sideline after the Buccaneers surged to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. There, with the Falcons offensive line sitting on the bench and looking rather spooked by the traditionally ruthless defenders for the Buccaneers, Crumpler ranted and raged at the bunch.
Good. The Falcons need more of that, especially from Crumpler, a five-year veteran who has seen more than a few Falcons teams turn these little slumps into much worse in a hurry.
“I’m not even thinking along those lines, because I just don’t see that ‘old’ any more, and because there is such a new mind-set around here right now,â€? said Crumpler, referring to the second year of Mora’s regime. Plus, the Falcons have the NFL’s youngest group of starters. Added Crumpler, “The expectations are high, and the young guys are playing extremely well. They’re just looking for somebody to show them the way.â€?
Enter a fuming Crumpler. According to Falcons offensive guard Kynan Forney, he and his linemates already were angry with themselves.
“We were just so [fired] up, you know, trying to hit [the Buccaneers] first before they hit us, that we just needed to calm down and play,� Forney said.
Then came a fuming Crumpler.
Said a calmer Crumpler later, recalling what he told the offensive linemen, though his tongue lashing was appropriate for all of the Falcons: “The things that came out of my mouth may not have been necessarily right, but I felt like we were letting the bully come into our place and push us around, and for us to have the week [of practice] that we had, it was unacceptable.�
After Crumpler’s tirade, the Buccaneers added a field goal, but the Falcons responded with 17 straight points. The rally was punctuated by Vick firing a 4-yard touchdown pass to Crumpler in the third quarter. From there, the game was a see-saw affair until the Buccaneers surged ahead on a field goal after Vick’s fumble. Then again, Michael Koenen missed a field-goal attempt of 55 yards that would have sent the game into overtime at 30-30.
Woulda, shoulda, coulda.
This is definite: If not Chicken Littles, the Falcons will become a bunch of Turkey Lurkeys on Thursday against the Lions if they don’t stop gobbling.
Permalink | Comments (75) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Tech channels chaos into surprise win
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Miami — So is this what it takes? Get slapped upside the head with probation. Have a head coach’s approval rating dip to presidential proportions. Take so many blows from the public that you’re punch drunk before you even go to the airport for the team flight?
Is that all it takes for Georgia Tech to put together one of the most inspirational performances in recent — and not-so-recent — history?
“Not one of you thought this would happen!” Chan Gailey said Saturday. “Not one of you!”
That would be correct, sir.
Georgia Tech won a football game Saturday night, 14-10, over Miami.
Right. If it only was that simple.
Gailey suffered a heart attack in March, underwent an angioplasty and made a full recovery to coach this season.
This doesn’t compare to that.
It just finishes ahead of everything else.
This was supposed to be an off week. But the Oct. 22 game against Miami was postponed because of a hurricane and suddenly the potential off week became a week in Hades.
The thought occurred that if ever a weeklong therapy session was needed, this was the time. Consider this four-punch combination: Gailey, having played to mixed reviews with the fan base, got a new five-year contract; athletics director Dave Braine, in coming to Gailey’s defense, was just a little too honest about his modest expectations for the program; Reuben Houston, suspended because he’s facing felony drug charges, was forced back onto the team by a misguided Fulton County judge, who seems to forget that playing college sports is not a right but a privilege. And then there was probation, the first in school history.
My kingdom for a Seconal.
Saturday’s meeting with Miami didn’t seem to be set up as a game as much as a sacrifice. But the Jackets didn’t get the memo.
“We’re the only ones who thought this could happen,” defensive end Eric Henderson said. “But we’re the only ones who had to think this could happen.”
They beat the No. 3 team in the nation. That’s all.
Their offense scored on its first possession against the No. 1 defense in the country. That’s all.
Their defense registered seven sacks, held the Hurricanes to 237 yards in total offense and to 1-of-14 on third-down conversions. That’s all.
Through nine games, it didn’t seem to most that Gailey had provided the clear improvement Braine wanted. Gailey got the new deal anyway. Then came Saturday’s upset. These things don’t always happen in order.
How emotional was this for the maligned Gailey?
“It’s up there,” he said. “I don’t know if it [ranks] one or two or three or six. But it’s definitely up there.”
Time after time, Tech’s defense came up big. Miami was stuffed on five consecutive possessions after Reggie Ball’s 16-yard touchdown run gave the Jackets the lead in the third quarter. With eight minutes left in the game, Miami had a third-and-1 at the Jackets’ 12. But running back Charlie Jones was stuffed for consecutive losses.
The ‘Canes got the ball back again with 2:37 left. They drove the ball from their own 11 to the Tech 27. But then Dennis Davis intercepted a Kyle Wright pass at the Jackets’ 3.
Um. What just happened?
This was not a Miami team devoid of incentive. It had lingering national title hopes. It had an eight-game winning streak since a season-opening loss to Florida State. One more victory and the rematch with the Seminoles in the ACC title game would be set. Now Miami is hoping North Carolina can knock off Virginia Tech.
I would say that can’t possibly happen, but …
“We heard the stuff all week,” said running back Tashard Choice.
“We knew what everybody was saying. We just didn’t pay attention to it. We got ready to play a football game. We believe.”
Miami will look for excuses. Maybe the ‘Canes were just numb from their own problems. A 2-year-old raunchy rap video surfaced this week, featuring several former and current players.
But that just doesn’t compare to the week on The Flats, and this game didn’t compare to anything in recent memory.
This team can take a punch.
Permalink | Comments (128) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
These Dogs not top pedigree, but good enough
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — They hadn’t won a game in a month. That was the bad news. The good: When finally they did win, the Georgia Bulldogs became SEC East champs.
There was a time when we wondered if Georgia would even rule this division, and now they do. When the Bulldogs broke through at Auburn in 2002, it was seen as a moment of deliverance. When they clinched the East by beating hapless Kentucky on Saturday, it was greeted as something much less. Indeed, this title-yielding game began under such muted conditions that, as Mark Richt said, “it felt like a morgue.”
That’s what happens when you lose to Florida and Auburn by the aggregate margin of five points. That’s what happens when you rise to No. 4 in the polls and then play your way out of the Top 10. “We got to 7-0 and everyone got excited about the national picture,” Richt said, and then D.J. Shockley hurt his knee against Arkansas and the Bulldogs went from 7-0 to 7-2. But there’s a greater point to this Georgia season, and with time to reflect we’ll all able to grasp it: Picked to finish third in the SEC East, the Bulldogs finished first.
Said Danny Ware, the backup tailback: “People doubted us in the beginning, and we showed them.”
Back to that beginning. When September arrived, Tennessee and Florida were touted as heavyweights. Georgia, meanwhile, had lost its quarterback and its defensive coordinator and its two best receivers and its three best defenders, and there was doubt as to whether any of the replacements were up to snuff.
Said D.J. Shockley, Greene’s scrutinized successor: “People were picking out individuals — like myself — and asking, ‘Can they get the job done?’ “
They got it done. These Bulldogs won’t play for the national championship, but neither, for all their accomplishments, did David Greene and David Pollack. What these Bulldogs have done is prove that this program has reached the exalted plateau where even a perceived rebuilding season can generate a division title.
Said Russ Tanner, the center: “We never said this was a rebuilding season.”
No, the 2005 Bulldogs weren’t as potent as they seemed on that heady day in Knoxville — Tennessee, it turned out, was no measure whatsoever — but Georgia was good enough to beat every team it should have beaten, and this was one of those years when simply holding serve was enough to book passage to the Georgia Dome. Sure, it would have been nice to whip Florida and Auburn and to stand No. 3 in the BCS rankings, but the mission of every big-time SEC team is to play for the conference title. For the third time in four seasons, Georgia will.
Said Kedric Golston, the defensive tackle: “We would have liked to be undefeated, but the main goal was winning the East. If you’d have told us going into the season this is where we’d be, we’d have taken that.”
Truth to tell, this is the fourth-best Georgia team of the last four years. Truth to tell, Georgia will enter its game with Georgia Tech having beaten nobody better than South Carolina, and at the time the Gamecocks weren’t seen as anything but mediocre. The now-devalued Tennessee game aside, these Bulldogs still haven’t managed a signature victory. But they’re 8-2 headed to Bobby Dodd Stadium, and if they win in the Dome on Dec. 3 they’ll play in the Sugar Bowl. Even by Georgia’s recently heightened standards, that’s still a big deal.
Said Bryan McClendon, the receiver: “We were picked third, and we came out with a championship. If that’s a rebuilding year, then maybe every year should be a rebuilding year.”
Permalink | Comments (77) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Good hunch about Hewitt’s bunch
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Just so you know, this is more than a hunch: Georgia Tech will overcome everything in college basketball this season to shock reality and dribble beyond goodness. In other words, ignore that little matter of the Yellow Jackets functioning without five seniors and a pretty significant junior from last year’s team. It also doesn’t matter that they’ll seek to prosper with a slew of freshmen and sophomores in a conference that has scary Duke and the rest of those ACC monsters.
This is more than a hunch, because here’s the reality: Paul Hewitt knows exactly what he’s doing. You know, not only when it comes to Xs and Os, where he has proved his worth at Tech as recently as two seasons ago with a trip to the Final Two, but when it comes to what it takes to keep the Jackets among the conference elite. What this means is, Hewitt can recruit, and he also can coach. Thus Tech’s four trips to the postseason during his five seasons, and he’s done so with veteran squads, rookie squads and a combination of both. He’ll do so with this bunch, too.
“People said that we were rebuilding, but I told them that we were reloading,” said Tech forward Jeremis Smith on Friday night at Alexander Memorial Coliseum, before he added the Hewitt part. “When we have a bad practice one day, we always come back the next day and concentrate on what we did wrong the day before. We don’t just practice just to be practicing. And during the game, Coach Hewitt allows us do what we want within our offense. We’re never just out there playing for ourselves. We’re always a team and a family out there.”
Let’s just say that, courtesy of that team and that family, the worst week in the history of Georgia Tech athletics got slightly better. Here’s a quick review, but close your eyes if you’re squeamish: You had that Reuben Houston thing, where a court ordered the Jackets to reinstate a defensive back accused of conspiring to distribute marijuana. You had that furor over football coach Chan Gailey getting awarded with a five-year contract for sustaining mediocrity. You also had the NCAA saying that, courtesy of an academic fraud, a slew of Tech’s results on the gridiron don’t exist anymore.
It could have been worse. I mean, the Jackets could have opened their basketball season Friday night before a spirited crowd with a loss to the Bulldogs. The putrid ones from North Carolina (you know, Asheville, not Chapel Hill) instead of the hated ones from Athens. Instead, with little drama, the Jackets did what they needed to do against their overmatched opponent. They used a lot of athleticism combined with discipline to turn the Bulldogs into puppies along the way to an 80-52 victory. It wasn’t flawless for Tech, though. In fact, the first half was a microcosm of how the Jackets will spend much of the time between now and the heart of the ACC slate. After a stifling stretch for the Jackets on defense that forced UNC-Asheville into enough turnovers for nine points inside of a minute, Tech became a fumbling mess for a while.
You can blame much of it on sophomore Zam Fredrick, the first-year point guard, who had four turnovers in 17 minutes. Not good, but not to worry, Tech folks. That’s because the Jackets have Hewitt, a shining light in the midst of their current doom. He gets it, all right. He has since he arrived on campus to take over a frightfully stale program that was evolving from prominent to irrelevant in the ACC.
Later rather than sooner, Hewitt and his assistants will have Fredrick operating fluently enough to distribute the ball to his young but gifted teammates. That is “later,” as in by the stretch drive of the conference schedule, with those tournaments (ACC and NCAA) weeks away.
“I don’t think you can change your goals,” said Hewitt, referring to Tech’s quick slide to inexperience. “The goal is still trying to be one of the top four teams in the ACC, to do well in the ACC tournament and to make it to the NCAAs. We’re not going to short-change these guys. When we recruited them, we didn’t say, ‘Hey, you’re going to come here and be average and be mediocre.’ “
Guess what?
Tech won’t be.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Weekend Predictions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Before ensuring your financial future, we bring you this pre-Thanksgiving alert: Two dozen live turkeys fell off the back of a truck on the New Jersey Turnpike Friday, snarling Newark traffic. “I think we should be investigating this as an escape attempt,” cracked Turnpike spokesman Joseph Orlando, who still has a sense of humor and therefore must not be a Jets fan. The accident was significant, and not just because this was one of those rare highway incidents not involving Rod Coleman. As far as we know, this probably kills Newark’s chances of ever getting a Super Bowl. UNLESS OF COURSE EVERY NFL OWNER IS PROMISED HIS OWN PRIVATE TURNPIKE LEADING TO HIS OWN PRIVATE MARINA WITH HIS OWN PRIVATE YACHT! Sorry. I find typing in all caps therapeutic. A few days ago the NFL tentatively awarded a future Super Bowl to Kansas City, which has an average late January temperature of minus 47 degrees, thereby making it a perfect settlement for polar bears, except that polar bears settled in the Arctic because they found staring at icecaps infinitely less boring than Kansas City. NFL owners twice rejected Atlanta for Super Bowls recently, largely because of an ice storm the last time the game was here. Also, bribes. Wait. Who said that? The NFL wants to reward Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt for living, I think, to the age of 148, and also for never being hit by a stray turkey on the New Jersey Turnpike. The Falcons’ Arthur Blank, wanting to project himself as ever the league man, released a statement that read in part: “Everyone in the Falcons family extends their congratulations to Lamar, the Chiefs and the great state of Missouri.” Right. I’m guessing Blank released a statement so nobody could see him bite through his tongue. Today, the Falcons face the Buccaneers. It’s not quite Atlanta and Tampa Bay city officials facing off, playing can-you-top-my-freebies. But it’ll do. The Falcons are coming off a stinker against Green Bay. Coach Jim Mora ran normal practices this week, except the part about players running drills barefooted on hot coals. I kinda think he got their attention. The Bucs’ defense generally handle Michael Vick better than anybody. But on offense, Carnell Williams has gone from a three-game wonder to an afterthought. The line is 6. Seems like a lot. But I’ll gobble. Falcons cover.
TIGER BEAT • Colts at Bengals: Cincinnati dumped 9-0 Kansas City two years ago. Now the Bengals face 9-0 Indy, and they must be ready again, because Carl Powell body-slammed teammate Reggie Miles in the equipment room. What is this: tough love week? Take Cincy and 6 — and in a straight upset.
FOUR BAGS • Panthers at Bears: So the FBI in Chicago thought it would be cool to invite da Bears over for a little barbecue, booze and shootin’. But two linemen brawled, one got a broken jaw and the other had a five-pound weight slammed against his head. But the FBI assured everybody that all of the drinking took place at the barbecue, not on the shooting range. Everybody feel safe now? Carolina covers 3.
THREE BAGS • Eagles at Giants: Donovan McNabb has been advised to have season-ending hernia surgery. Add a pina colada and I call that a vacation. New York wins and covers 7.
TWO BAGS • Raiders at Redskins: Randy Moss went on ESPN, the network of choice for prima donna wide receivers, and said of coach Norv Turner: “Um, I think his approach, being an offensive-minded coach, is something that I can accept, I like. I mean, he’s the man, uh, and, you know, I’ll leave that at that.” Heartfelt. Skins win but take Oakland and 6. • Lions at Cowboys: Cute move by Bill Parcells this week. He planted mousetraps around the Dallas locker room to warn his players against being “trapped” by overconfidence. On a related note, Drew Bledsoe is suddenly out with a broken toe. Kidding. Cowboys cover 8. • Saints at Patriots: Jim Haslett vs. Bill Belichick. Like I’m going to waste time on research. New England covers 9 1/2. • Seahawks at Phoney Niners: San Francisco hasn’t scored a touchdown in 39 straight possessions. Said quarterback Ken Dorsey, “Hopefully we can get back to having some fun and scoring some points.” So who’s bringing the time machine? Seahawks win but take SanFran and 12 1/2. • Bills at Chargers: The problem with Buffalo is not that they can’t decide between J.P. Losman and Kelly Holcomb. The problem is that they must decide between J.P. Losman and Kelly Holcomb. San Diego covers a whopper (11). • Jets at Broncos: Herm Edwards contacted Donovan McNabb’s doctor this week to see if he also could have season-ending hernia surgery. Denver covers 13. • Steelers at Ravens: Pittsburgh is so dented at quarterback that receiver Antwaan Randle El took snaps in practice. Hey, go wishbone. It’s the Ravens. Steelers roll, like, 6-2. • Vikings at Packers: Actual factual: Minnesota is looking to win consecutive outdoor games for the first time since 2000. But I was going to pick the Vikings anyway, just because Brett Favre isn’t going against the Falcons’ secondary again. Take Minny and 41/2 — and in a straight upset. • Jags at Titans: Tennessee has won 11 of the last 14 meetings. Hey, I’m all about the hope for the downtrodden. Take Titans and 4 — and in a straight upset.
DON’T LOOK, YOU’LL GO BLIND Cardinals at Rams: What’s better than players fighting? Coaches fighting! On Wednesday, St. Louis assistants Wilbert Montgomery and Steve Fairchild brawled, infuriating the team’s owner, Broom Hilda. “Very interesting year,” wide receiver Torry Holt said. I’m assuming that won’t make NFL Films. Shams win but take Cards and 9 1/2. Chiefs at Texans: An AP writer this week actually wrote, “Houston is playing to save the job of coach Dom Capers.” Dude, they’re 1-8. I think they’ve spoken. Chiefs win but take Houston and 7. Dolphins at Browns: Cleveland receiver Braylon Edwards is still upset Miami passed on him in the draft and took Ronnie Brown. “They used me as a pawn. They told me one thing and did another. We call that lying.” Here’s what he said in English: “I could’ve been in South Beach. I’m cold!” Take the Dolphins and 2 1/2 — and in an upset.
PROGRESS REPORT • Last week: 9-5 straight up, 7-7 against the line. • Fiscal season: 89-39 straight up, 68-56-4 against the line.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Gracious Andruw proves second to none
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Meeting come to order, y’all, whereupon we shall review the minutes of the past week while your veteran observer was dallying about with grandkids and soaking up the sunshine of the Lowcountry. Let’s see now:
Item A: I’d venture to say that Dave Braine has tied his future at Georgia Tech to Chan Gailey’s coattail. Renewing the coach’s contract as his team stalls at Virginia, with Miami and Georgia still on the menu, was a bold move, of which the athletics director was fully aware, I’m sure. Braine has been under fire by a colony of disgruntled but powerful alumni, but he has President Wayne Clough in his corner.
Item B: Andruw Jones was a gracious runner-up to Albert Pujols in the Most Valuable Player chase, accepting the judgment of the National League voting cast and saying all the right things. It seemed a logical judgment after all the subverted stats are fed into the grist mill. No player has ever won the MVP Award with a batting average as low as .263. “He had a little better season than I did,” Andruw said, and for that the Braves center fielder deserves a bow.
Item C: Oops, what’s this? The Braves are said to be considering a deal with Trevor Hoffman, the hot closer from San Diego? Have they forgotten the Dan Kolb experience? When they dealt with the Brewers for him, they were confident they had successfully filled the bullpen vacancy left by John Smoltz. Kolb’s career as a Brave never got off the ground, and now they’re willing to bite again? Wouldn’t it be a nice idea to develop closers in the farm system rather than dealing for pre-owned pitchers on the shady side of their career? My hunch is that eventually the closer of ‘06 will be Kyle Farnsworth. No guarantee comes with the opinion.
Item D: What an anti-steroid team! McCain, Bunning, Fehr and Selig, rated in the order of their influence. We’re all familiar with McCain, celebrated prisoner of war and senator from Arizona; Fehr, another lawyer, far as I know; Selig, a former car salesman, but none came from as far back as Bunning. He rose from a season of 5-12 as a Little Rock Traveler in the mid-’50s to the top in every field he challenged. Over 100-game winner in both major leagues, pitcher of a perfect game, Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, now senator from Kentucky. The steroid agreement never would have taken place had it not been for pressure from Congress, something that Fehr and his players union didn’t choose to resist. Now let’s see which player will be first to take a fall trying to beat the rap.
Item E: When has it come to pass that some judge assumes the power to determine the makeup of a college football team? This Reuben Houston case is enough to blow your mind. Surely no action should have been taken on his behalf until charges against him had been duly processed. The order to accept him on the Georgia Tech team is one of the most incongruous rulings I’ve ever heard coming down from the bench. Surely none of us has ever heard of such an action before, including the NCAA, which must be scratching its head. Seemingly nice young man, from out Starr’s Mill way, but was he suckered, or was it greed?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Other
College picks: Mediocrity won’t beat Canes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
In his four seasons as coach at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Modest Football Expectations, Chan Gailey will have gone 4-4, 4-4, 4-4 and — I’m going to live dangerously here and project — 4-4 in the ACC.
This scientifically improbable run of so-so-ness moved athletics director Dave Braine to reward Gailey in a way generally unforeseen in competitive athletics, at least here on Earth. With a five-year contract extension.
The deal actually had been in the works for weeks by Braine, and is expected to be made into a pilot for a new Jefferson-Pilot reality show, scheduled to debut next fall: “Congratulations! The Glass Is Half Full!�
Braine had planned to launch the show in September by rewarding Terrell Owens with a five-year contract extension and a $20 million signing bonus. But the shock value was considered insufficient.
“We expect Dave’s catch phrase, ‘You’ve Got A New Deal!’ to become as familiar as Donald Trump saying, ‘You’re fired!’ â€? voices told Weekend Predictions. “But, ‘You’re Fired’ is such a downer. We’re all about sunshine. Do you like our new stadium expansion? The seats are so clean. Never been used. Could I interest you in a bon-bon? Some ABBA, perhaps?â€?
In future episodes, Braine is expected to give five-year extensions to Dan Kolb, the executive director of FEMA and the cast of any show produced by MTV.
“We have also been in discussions with government officials on giving President Bush a new five-year extension,� voices said. “Our faculty athletics rep, George O’Leary, has found a loophole in the Constitution. Really. Say, have you seen my pet rabbit? Goes about 6-foot-3.�
This week, the Rambling Wreckage goes to Miami. The line is 17 1/2. If Tech pulls an upset, there will be another TV pilot in the works.
In Fantasyland.
Canes win and cover.
Bonus six-pack
Cats and Dogs: Georgia gets a third chance to lock up the SEC East. Funny. Nobody seems that excited about it anymore. And about the Auburn game: There’s way too much attention being paid to the offense and botching a two-point decision when the game came down to letting the Tigers drive down the field in the final minute. You’re looking at the wrong side of the ball, folks. Didn’t think Doggies could cover 27, then I remembered last year (Georgia 62, Rich Brooks 17). Doggies cover.
Clemson at South Carolina: The last time these two met, they brawled after the game, ending Lou Holtz’s career on a wonderfully awful note. This week, Steve Spurrier’s post-Florida high was punctured by the ever-present Lou Holtz Sack of Reality: 11 NCAA violations leading to three years probation. The good news is, it doesn’t affect Lou’s retirement fund. Or conscience. Take Gamecocks and 2 1/2 — and in a straight upset.
Iron [Deficiency] Bowl: Alabama is so beat up that Mike Shula decided to have his players practice without pads the week of the Auburn game. That’s believed to be a felony in Tuscaloosa, at least the kind that are actually prosecuted. The over/under on “The Bear wouldn’t have done that!� shouts this week: 137 million. Auburn covers 7.
VaTech at Virginia: The Hokies have had a week off since getting smacked by Miami. Hope Al Groh wasn’t counting on a long winning streak. VaTech covers 7.
LSU at Mississippi: Guess wins over Memphis, The Citadel and Kentucky haven’t fired up the troops in Oxford. Four players quit this week, bringing the number of exits to 12 since summer. Coach Ed Orgeron questioned their talent level. Problem: He brought in 7 of the 12. Oops. LSU covers 17.
Vandy at Tennessee: The Vowels dumped Memphis by four points last week. Dave Braine rewarded Phil Fulmer with a five-year extension. Tennessee wins, but take Vandy and the 12.
Kiss the accountant
(Nailed the South Carolina upset. Wasn’t really serious about anything else, but then you knew that.)
Last week: 5-3 straight up, 3-4-1 against the line.
Fiscal season: 60-16 straight up 45-29-2 against the line.
Permalink | Comments (101) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Braine on the defensive, and for good reason
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
If Dave Braine on Thursday looked like a man who had yelled, “Timber!” only to realize too late that the tree was falling the wrong way, it’s understandable.
Braine is expected to retire in the next year or two. That’s assuming he doesn’t enter a witness protection program before then.
“Nobody enjoys being beat up,” Georgia Tech’s athletics director said Thursday. “You’d have to be a glutton for punishment. But you have to stand up for what you believe, and if you can’t do that you don’t have any business being in this business. You’re not going to make everybody happy.”
True. But what were the odds of complete alienation?
Braine started the week by announcing that football coach Chan Gailey is being awarded a new five-year contract. Everyone waited for the punch line.
You could argue that the timing couldn’t be worse, given that the Jackets had just been whacked by Virginia and seemed headed for another obscure postseason bowl. But Braine probably figured it was better to announce the decision now than wait until after the Miami and Georgia games. Relatively speaking, Bee Nation is singing “Kumbaya” right now.
If Braine didn’t lose everybody with the show of support for Gailey, he took care of the rest by publicly stating the Jackets “will never” win nine or 10 games consistently. Now, most people could analyze Tech and the ACC and logically deduce that. But as an AD, you just don’t say that. It undermines everything a coach or a player works for. I’ve never ever heard general managers of expansion teams state, “We’ve got no chance.”
How do you feel if you’re a season-ticket holder — or a donor who helped pay for a certain stadium expansion? If Braine’s goal was to help Gailey, he made it worse. What’s an opposing recruiter going to do with that quote?
(I’m still trying to figure that whole thing about Gailey having the third-hardest job in college football behind coaches at Notre Dame and Army. I always figured Prairie View was pretty tough. Kentucky. Vanderbilt. Rice. Isn’t Notre Dame the school with a TV network and automatic recruits? When did that become the hardest job? And why Army, but not Navy?)
Of course, it gets worse.
A Fulton County judge forced the Jackets to reinstate Reuben Houston, the defensive back facing felony charges of conspiring to possess and distribute 100 pounds of marijuana. Reinstatement isn’t a story line that would fly even on “Law and Order.” Or in the SEC.
Then came Thursday. Probation. Tech knew it was coming, but it turned out to be even worse than Braine expected. They were hit with “lack of institutional control,” the NCAA equivalent of a four-letter word. Suddenly, Tech, which had never been on probation, was being described with the same phrase that was slapped on SMU.
The Jackets must vacate all records for games involving 17 athletes in four sports (including 11 in football) over a six-year span. They also will lose six football scholarships each of the next two years.
The NCAA investigating committee was chaired by an Alabama law professor. I figure he knows an infraction when he sees one.
Braine and school President Wayne Clough believe the punishment is excessive. Tech may appeal. I have no idea why. If seven-win seasons are suddenly the standard, is losing six scholarships that big of a deal?
Braine has been spinning ever since the Gailey contract. This week, he acknowledged the growing legion of his Braine-haters, and he punctuated his remarks Thursday with: “This won’t help any.”
He also vowed to make it to the weekend without another news conference.
“The most important thing is when I go home, I feel good,” he said. “All of us have done a very good job, and we’re a very good program. We’re not mediocre, we don’t want to be mediocre, we don’t strive for mediocrity, and anybody who thinks that is wrong.”
That’s it, Dave. Keep telling yourself the tree fell the other way. It won’t hurt as much.
Permalink | Comments (74) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
At least Andruw didn’t lose to Art Carney
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Once upon a time, I got really upset over an award. It was in 1975. I was in college. We had an Oscar-watching assembly at my apartment — we were all big movie buffs back in the day — and the Best Actor category came up. Jack Nicholson was nominated for “Chinatown,” Al Pacino for “The Godfather, Part II,” Dustin Hoffman for “Lenny.”
Three great movies. Three great performances by the greatest actors of the age.
Art Carney won.
No, not for “The Honeymooners.” For “The Late Show,” a small movie by a good director (Robert Benton), the charms of which still elude me.
On that March night in 1975, this was my measured response.
“Art CARNEY?????!!!!!”
I offered this opinion at great volume more than once. Indeed, it became a catch-phrase among my jerk friends for the next 10 years. Whenever one of our sparkling conversations lagged, one wiseguy could be counted on to look at me and, apropos of nothing, say, “Art CARNEY?????!!!!!”
Not willing to give my jerk friends more ammo, I learned then and there not to worry about awards. (They’re arbitrary things, reasonable people can differ reasonably, et cetera.) But I must admit that, 30 years later, I’m surprised — and a tad disappointed — that Andruw Jones didn’t win the NL MVP.
Andruw Jones won the Hank Aaron Award as the National League’s best hitter. He won another Gold Glove for his defense. His team finished first. He led the league in RBI, generally considered the most telling measure of “value.” So how did he finish second to Albert Pujols for MVP?
Don’t get me wrong. Pujols is the best player in baseball right now, but the MVP isn’t — or isn’t supposed to be — a gauge of pure talent or of a body of work. It’s supposed to go to the most valuable player of a given season. Great as Pujols is, he didn’t mean as much to the 2005 Cardinals as Jones did to the 2005 Braves. If I still cared about such things, I’d be really steamed right now.
(By the way, Johnny Depp got robbed a couple of years ago. He was WAY better in “Pirates of the Caribbean” than the overrated Sean Penn was in the overrated “Mystic River.”)
Permalink | Comments (38) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Falcons might go after T.O.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
They’re all correct. Jesse Jackson. The legal heads of the NFL players association. Anybody who knows that the best thing for Terrell Owens, the league and even the Philadelphia Eagles is for an arbitrator to rule Friday that the penalties T.O. received from his team for flapping his tongue were too harsh. He wasn’t shooting, snorting or sniffing, and he also wasn’t shaving (as in points).
Reinstate the guy after his four-game suspension or let him go.
Just don’t let him go to Atlanta.
Uh-oh. I’m getting these vibes that Owens is closer than you think to catching passes for an NFL team by driving from his home in Lithonia to the Georgia Dome instead of to the airport. And don’t think such a scenario is impossible, just because the Falcons’ current regime has flaunted its love affair with team chemistry during the past two seasons. Things happen, even around here, where pro franchises like to suggest that they are more into the conservative instead of the controversial before having a Michael Jackson moment.
Can you say “John Rocker” and “Isaiah Rider”?
Those who run the Falcons aren’t talking about Owens on the record. They are weary of tampering charges because T.O. remains property of the Eagles. Still, there are so many reasons why Falcons officials could lose their minds and bring the most openly disruptive force for an NFL locker room to Flowery Branch. It begins and ends with this: talent. The man can play, and he does so in extraordinary ways. In case you haven’t noticed, the only extraordinary thing about the Falcons’ wide receivers is how mediocre they are on most days.
We’re back to T.O., as in talent, and talent makes teams do crazy things (see Rocker and Rider). Let’s examine, for instance, what was said by the Falcons before the T.O. muzzle was placed over the organization. You had wide receivers coach George Stewart. We chatted in August after the Eagles kicked Owens out of their training camp for his circus that began after he declared he wanted his contract (a seven-year deal that was barely a year old) renegotiated. “I understand him, because we talk often, and we’ve always had a close relationship,” said Stewart, glowing back then. He joined the Falcons in 2003 after helping Owens become a Pro Bowl regular. In addition, Owens told me this summer how much he respects Stewart, along with Falcons coach Jim Mora and Falcons offensive coordinator Greg Knapp, all working in San Francisco during Owens’ stint with the 49ers.
This is the same Knapp who watched stoically during a 49ers game as Owens stomped and yelled and fumed around the coach for the longest time. Even so, Knapp told the AJC before Owens and the Eagles came to town to start this season, “I could coach [Owens] again. That’s not an issue to me.” Plus, Michael Vick mentioned last week that, under certain conditions, he could function without a problem in the same football universe with Owens.
Yes, this could get interesting. And, no, it doesn’t matter that the older Jim Mora said that he’d disown his son if the Falcons got Owens. We’re back to talent. Soon after Latrell Sprewell wrapped his fingers around the throat of his coach and squeezed, former Hawks general manager Pete Babcock told me he would never have a player like Sprewell on his team. He talked of how he’d prefer to win with character instead of with characters, but you know what? Given the chance, Babcock promptly acquired Rider, an extremely talented but famously troubled soul who was worse in a locker room than a slew of Sprewells.
Then you have a Braves franchise that is into boring. It’s also into winning. That’s why, after Rocker alienated much of the planet with his version of sociology in a national magazine, Braves officials ignored the turmoil he created in their clubhouse and preferred to remember that he could throw really hard.
Neither Rider nor Rocker contributed much to their Atlanta teams in the long run. It’s just that, when pro franchises wish to reach that next level in a hurry, they often suffer from amnesia. Like forgetting that the Eagles and the 49ers got rid of the mighty T.O. for a reason.
Permalink | Comments (262) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
By extension, contracts are no guarantee
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
There is good news for those who believe that Georgia Tech’s football program really did become a ramblin’ wreck after Chan Gailey got his contract extended by five years.
This means nothing.
Interestingly, Tech athletics director Dave Braine said coaching the Yellow Jackets is the third-toughest job in college football behind Army and Notre Dame.
Speaking of Notre Dame …
In December 2000, Notre Dame officials caused this same sort of squealing among their alumni by signing Bob Davie to a five-year extension. He was considered mediocre by many, but after the Irish won their last seven games of that season, Notre Dame athletics director Kevin White felt compelled to “reward” Davie.
The next season, after Notre Dame finished 5-6, Davie was fired.
So much for contract extensions – especially if Gailey losses another couple of games to Georgia, combined with, say, a meltdown next season against a Duke or Wake Forest.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
AD resets program’s expectations to fit coach’s capabilities
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It sounded like a concession speech. In announcing Chan Gailey’s new contract, Dave Braine essentially declared that his school must stop pretending. “Georgia Tech can win nine or 10 games [in a season],” Braine said, “but they will never do it consistently. That’s my belief.”
Braine isn’t some egghead athletics director imported from the chemistry department. He’s an old football coach who considers himself a pragmatist, and Tuesday he offered a clear rebuke to those old-line Techsters who can’t understand why their beloved Jackets don’t win the way they did under the sainted Bobby Dodd.
“Some people who graduated from Tech in the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s have no idea what it’s like today [academically],” Braine said. Also this: “We are an academic institution that happens to play football.”
Significantly, Braine did not say he expects this coach to win the ACC championship in the next five seasons. (Indeed, the AD said he won’t be around — his contract expires in 2007 — to preside over all five.) Braine did not say he feels Gailey has done the best job of any coach in Division I-A these last 47 games. Instead: “Chan Gailey will continue to be successful, though maybe not as successful as some people would like.”
We disinterested parties on the periphery can applaud this bow to reality, but not all Tech zealots will be so effusive. This, after all, is the program that expanded Bobby Dodd Stadium because George O’Leary insisted he needed a bigger venue to compete at the highest level … and now, the donations banked and construction done, Tech admits it can’t quite compete at the top level because its academic standards are too lofty.
“My off-the-cuff reaction is, will people continue to pay for mediocrity?” said Taz Anderson, the Atlanta entrepreneur who played under Dodd in the ’50s and in 1960. And then: “Contrary to what the athletic director would believe, we alumni who put thousands of dollars into the program would like to think we have a shot to win every game — not that we will win every game, but that we have a shot.”
Braine called coaching Tech “the third-toughest job in the country,” trailing only Army and Notre Dame. And if the Jackets changed coaches, Braine wondered, “who are you going to want to hire? Somebody who’s going to ask for [admission] exceptions and recruit people who aren’t going to do the work?”
Gailey is apparently doing the job Braine hired him — and is re-hiring him — to do. He’s winning enough games to go to a nondescript bowl every season without cutting recruiting corners. He is, as even his critics will allow, a relentlessly nice man and not a terrible coach. But the cold reality is that he hasn’t yet won more than seven games in a season, and nothing suggests Tech is about to get a whole lot better anytime soon.
Fifty weeks ago, sitting in the room where Tuesday’s media briefing was held, Braine was asked if 6-5, which Tech was after the 2004 regular season ended, was good enough. His words: “This year, yes.” And next year? “No.” Yet the Jackets must upset either Miami or Georgia to do better than that. Braine’s verdict Tuesday: “We needed to see improvement, and we have.”
From the periphery, what we’ve seen seems a further indication that Tech under Gailey has become all it’s apt to be — a team talented enough to win a huge game every season but too flaky to consolidate its gains. The Jackets under Gailey have seldom been an embarrassment to their backers — the Georgia losses of 2002 and 2004 stand as stark exceptions — but neither have they become a source of burgeoning pride. And now the AD has given the status quo his blessing.
Said Anderson: “I’m disappointed Georgia Tech would expect mediocrity in anything. We certainly don’t teach it in architecture or chemistry or engineering. It’s kind of hard to build half a bridge. … Maybe we need to concentrate on basketball and golf.”
Permalink | Comments (178) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Tuesday Countdown: Sticking with Chan
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Here’s a tip for all of your budding athletic directors: When you plan to give a head coach a contract extension, always do it before the team might get flattened in its final two games, never after.
9: See, as unpopular as Dave Braine’s decision to give Chan Gailey a new deal might be with some Tech fans, it figures to be even more unpopular after the Miami and Georgia games. So, really, it was a brilliant move. Sort of.
8: OK, maybe not so brilliant. Gailey does deserve some credit for beating up Auburn, a 6-2 start and the Jackets cracking the top 25, even if for only five minutes. But this all goes to what a program aspires to be. If Braine and Tech aspire to have a seven-win football team every season, then they’ve got their man.
7: But is that what you want? I’ve always operated under the belief that teams should try to win championships. Does Chan Gailey point you in that direction? In year four, the answer is still no.
6: This stat might come off as a defense of Gailey, but it shouldn’t. It’s just an illustration of the win-now times: He has the third-best winning percentage (.574) of any coach in Georgia Tech history. The only two ahead of him: Bobby Dodd (.714) and George O’Leary (.609).
5: If Reggie Brown, from Georgia, had any chance of making people in Philadelphia forget Terrell Owens, it disappeared Monday night when he dropped that pass. But he’ll certainly make them remember Reggie Brown.
4: It was bad enough when Ralph Nader came out saying that Owens has been wronged. Now it’s Jesse Jackson. Hey, here’s an idea: Maybe the two can go buy an NFL franchise and sign T.O. and all of the other poor and oppressed players in the world. Then let’s see how you react when Owens rips your quarterback and your franchise on national TV.
3: The lottery has reached $310 million. There’s an outside chance this will be the final Tuesday Countdown.
2: I’m guessing this will come down to dollars and Rafael Furcal is a goner. That’s fine. But given that he hasn’t had the most stable life away from baseball, he may want to take that into consideration before he decides to leave the Braves and Bobby Cox and goes to work for the Mets or Cubs.
1: Over/under on the first Hawks win anybody? Thursday? Friday? December? The winner gets 2 free tickets to a game. Second place gets 4 tickets. (Sorry. I still feel that occasional pull to the cheap joke.)
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Wake-up calls have to be heard
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
There is a difference between being good enough to win and just being really good. There is a difference between players who tell you, “I’m trying,” and those who look across the line and think, “This guy is going down.”
The first group wins games. The second group wins championships.
The Falcons — first group.
They started 6-2. When that happens, it’s easy to get fooled into thinking all is well. But Sunday’s loss to Green Bay wasn’t a step backward as much as it was an illustration of what often has seemed wrong with this team.
They opened the season by smacking the Philadelphia Eagles. I haven’t heard a smack since.
Jim Mora disputes that. He sees passion, he sees effort, he sees focus. He believes what the Falcons have accomplished this season largely has gone unappreciated.
“There seems to be a negative vibe,” he said.
Well, yes. But it all goes to expectations. It’s not up to fans or media to change that. It’s up to the team. It’s up to Mora and his coaching staff to wake somebody up.
Six wins, right? OK. Let’s look at that. Philadelphia was a .500 team heading into Monday’s game at Dallas. The other five victories have come over teams that currently have losing records and are a combined 15-30.
Maybe you can’t criticize a team for winning those games. But neither can you make any grand proclamations.
There are seven games remaining: Two against Tampa Bay (6-3), two against Carolina (7-2), and one against Chicago (6-3), Detroit (4-5, but 10-5 on Thanksgiving since 1990) and New Orleans (2-7, but one loss was a 34-31 Falcon escape).
The Falcons missed blocks and tackles against Green Bay Sunday. They fumbled six times. That’s not physical, that’s mental. That’s a lack of focus at the least, and emotion at the worst.
The Packers, down to their fourth-string running back, rushed for more than 100 yards for only the second time all season. They didn’t have any back go for more than 58 yards until Samkon Gado created wonderful memories for his family with 103. Brett Favre is a Hall of Famer. But it took a nonexistent Falcon pass rush to make him look like a threat again.
In short, the Falcons have looked like a team that has settled. Mora discounted the possibility that a 6-2 start might have created too much of a comfort level. During his Monday news conference, he said he didn’t sense any complacency or lack of focus in practice. But off stage, he couldn’t ignore the evidence.
“Certainly, the results of the game would indicate differently,” he said. “If you’re going to put it in the context that dropping the ball, fumbling the ball, missing tackles, getting lined up wrong is a lack of focus — I couldn’t argue with you. I told the guys after the game. I said, ‘You know what? Maybe I screwed up. Maybe I missed something.’ But I didn’t see that coming.”
Fast starts can cloud reality. If the Falcons are as tough as they think they are, or as they say they are — better show it now.
We learned something about their resiliency last season when they rebounded from lopsided losses to Kansas City and Tampa Bay. They have lost consecutive games only once in the Mora regime — that to end the season after the standings had rendered the outcomes meaningless.
Nothing is locked up now. Three teams are within a game of each other in the NFC South. Last season, the Falcons started 7-2 and had a three-game lead.
Mora is still learning what emotional buttons need to be pushed, but it’s often easier to motivate in year one than year two. In the beginning, players are more likely to be worried about impressing the coach. They’re more worried about their job. They’re more likely to play a little scared — in a good way.
What happened to that edge?
“If that was the case, then this certainly was a good wake-up call,” Mora said. “It came at the right time because we have the most important stretch of the season coming up. Thank God we put ourselves in position to have an important stretch of the season.”
Just so long as they all realize that stretch exists.
Permalink | Comments (78) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Falcons earned their fall from first place
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It was a bad loss. It was the worst loss under Jim Mora, the worst with Michael Vick as the starting quarterback. It was a loss so stupefying that it called into question not just the Falcons’ effort on this sorry Sunday but their possibilities from here on. If you can’t beat a 1-7 team in your building, should you really be thinking of division titles and home-field advantage?
“We didn’t play to our standards,� Mora said, but after a breakdown this comprehensive it’s fair to wonder just what those standards are. The Falcons entered Week 10 with the NFL’s fifth-worst passing offense and its 18th-best defense. They lost to 1-7 Green Bay because they threw the ball accurately but not really productively and because their defense induced one Packers punt over the last 38 minutes.
The Falcons had gotten away with substandard passing and defense through eight games, but against a 1-7 opponent they were exposed. The unknown Samkon Gado gashed them for 103 yards rushing, and the Falcons’ undistinguished wide receivers managed three catches for 36 yards in the game’s first 56 minutes. “We couldn’t get it going,� Mora said. “We couldn’t make a play.�
The Falcons went largely play-free all the way around. The defense couldn’t stop Gado from rumbling and Brett Favre from willing his team into Ryan Longwell’s range, and the home team’s receivers couldn’t stretch the field. The best thing any Falcons wideout did came in the second quarter when Roddy White drew a 43-yard interference penalty, but the lingering message of this game was that you needn’t interfere with these receivers to stop them. They simply don’t get open often enough.
“Everything we’ve been doing [scheme-wise] up to this point has worked,� said Vick, ignoring the raw numbers. “We believe in our scheme and our game plan.�
The Falcons beat the Dolphins last week with Vick throwing precise dinky passes, but all the dinks didn’t dent Green Bay. Vick didn’t start throwing to his wideouts until his team trailed by 16 points and had no alternative. The West Coast offense is fine in theory, but there are Sundays when you wonder if an offense based on the big-armed Vick delivering 10-yard passes isn’t a misallocation of resources. This was one of those days.
“It’s a game of narrow margins,� defensive end Patrick Kerney said, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Falcons’ margin is skinnier than it was last season. This defense isn’t as good — Gado is the fourth back to notch a 100-yard game against the 2005 Falcons — and opposing defenses have learned that the way to defuse Vick is to rush him more, as opposed to less. The Packers brought heavy pressure all game, and the Falcons couldn’t offset the blitzing by hitting the deep ball. The wide receivers couldn’t beat man-to-man coverage, and if your receivers can’t beat single defenders you need to find new receivers. (The Falcons thought they had. They might be rethinking about now.)
No longer are the Falcons tied for their division lead. They’re not even alone in second place. They have one gimme game the rest of the way — New Orleans here — and when you lose at home to a 1-7 team you forfeit the right to call any game a gimme.
“Sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way,� Vick said, but a big-time team has to be good enough to win even on a day crammed with lousy hops. If there was a lesson imparted Sunday, it was that the Falcons, for all their bold talk and lofty aspirations, aren’t yet big-time enough. They’re still 6-3, but suddenly it’s a shaky 6-3.
Permalink | Comments (59) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Two old rivals show the value of one measly point
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — They’d met 108 times before, and you’d have sworn the old enemies could do nothing to top the thrills and spills that had come before. From Michael Johnson jumping over Horace Willis to Jasper Sanks being stuffed on the goal line, the Deep South’s oldest rivalry had generated pretty near everything under the sun and moon — fire hoses included.
But the Georgia-Auburn series, splendid as it has been, has never had a better game than this. Meeting No. 109 began pregnant with the usual meaning — the Bulldogs could clinch the SEC East; the Tigers could stay alive in the SEC West — and it ended with the wildest finish imaginable. Indeed, the signature play of No. 109 beggared all belief: A fourth-down pass became a game-winning touchdown…and then it became something else.
Fourth-and-10, Georgia needing one more stop to crown itself champion of its division. Brandon Cox found Devin Aromashodu flashing over the middle, and this looked for all the world to be Auburn’s version of 70X Takeoff, the famous play that became the winning Georgia touchdown on fourth-and-14 that cold day on the Plains three Novembers ago. Aromashodu seemed sure to score, but Paul Oliver, hoping against hope, trailed the play and punched at the ball, and sure enough it popped free.
But Auburn’s Courtney Taylor fell on the fumble in the end zone. Touchdown, yes? Touchdown, no. Because the offense can’t advance a fourth-down fumble — it can only recover one — the ball was placed on the Georgia 3 with 1:52 remaining. Three Tiger runs gained nothing, but in a weird way Auburn was better served killing the clock before John Vaughn kicked the gamer at 0:06. Auburn won by the skinniest of points, but sometimes a point weighs a ton.
For some reason, a one-point margin seemed written on the autumn wind. In the first 108 convocations, Auburn had outscored Georgia 1,619 to 1,618. Lo and behold, the Tigers led No. 109 by a point after one half, a point after three quarters. Then Thomas Brown swept right to put Georgia ahead 26-21, and the Bulldogs wanted (and needed) to go for two. But some members of Georgia’s kicking team had dashed on the field, and the Bulldogs were called for delay of game before they could sort things out. (Then, for good measure, they were called for another.) Georgia wound up kicking for one and will forever rue the point it didn’t get.
Auburn would retake the lead on Karibi Dede’s return of Brannan Southerland’s fumble inside the final 10 minutes. Georgia would nose back ahead on Brandon Coutu’s field goal with 3:25 left, and soon the Tigers faced fourth-and-10 at their 35 and the Bulldogs were one snap from the Georgia Dome. But, just as the Michael Johnson catch in 2002 changed the outcome of both divisions, Cox hit Aromashodu and the identity of the SEC East winner remains in doubt, at least until Georgia beats Kentucky next Saturday.
Yes, Georgia was unlucky to lose by a skinny point, but the Bulldogs, truth to tell, never seemed to have a hold on this game. Auburn was clearly the stronger side — Kenny Irons, looking like a latter-day Bo Jackson, rushed for 179 yards — and it became a question of whether Georgia’s finesse could trump power. In the end, finesse failed. The Bulldogs wound up kicking three field goals, and Auburn needed only the one at the end.
Georgia can and surely will still win the East, but even that knowledge came as cold comfort this frenzied night. For the second game running, the Bulldogs had come up empty in a big-time test. They’ll fall out of the Top 10, and as Saturday night became Sunday morning they had to be chastened by this realization: If the Evil Genius Spurrier hadn’t beaten the Hated Gators for them, the Bulldogs would have been eliminated. No fire hoses were needed to douse this Georgia party.
Permalink | Comments (141) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Take T.O. timeout, Pack and 9
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
T.O.
T.O.
T.O. T.O. T.O. T.O. T.O. T.O. T.O. T.O.
There’s your fix. Option one was a rubber mallet to your cranium, but ESPN cornered the market and I couldn’t find one.
Let me just start by saying I’m genuinely concerned for Terrell Owens. The man was booed at a Hawks game. It’s not that boos are all that unusual at Hawks games, but they usually follow things like, “And now starting for your Atlanta Hawks ?”
“And that makes the score ?”
“Wait! Don’t go! You can play point guard! ?”
We’re now well into Owens’ autobiography, “How To Throw Yourself On A Hand Grenade For Dummies.” Clearly, he’s feeling the pinch.
His New Jersey home is up for sale.
His Atlanta home is up for sale.
For the full T.O. Experience and $8.898 million, you can have two cribs totaling 33,000 square feet sitting on 7.3 acres in two states with 11 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, pools, gyms, whirlpools, sandbox and a little wind-up doll that says, “Next question, next question, which one of you is Dan Patrick, next question ?”
So how badly does this man need money? He’s going to lose at least $800,000 in salary, and conceivably several million bucks. He needs the liquid to pay off his agent, who clearly needs a tie. T.O. even has the father of the downtrodden and oppressed, Ralph Nader, taking up for him.
Quoth Nader: “It should be the policy of the Eagles and the National Football League, as well as other sports teams and leagues, that players not be punished merely for what they say.”
So when did Ralph Nader swallow Michael Moore? I think I liked him better when he protested the rising cost of Cheez Whiz.
Today, in one of several games not involving Owens, the Falcons play host to Green Bay. This figures to be Brett Favre’s final game in Atlanta in possibly his final season.
He would have quit after last season, if only he had known the Packers would do the same.
The Falcons have won 11 of 13 at home under Jim Mora. Favre has never been great indoors, even when he was great outdoors.
But 9 points? Seems like a lot. I see 7-2. But I don’t see a mansion.
Falcons win, but take the Pack and 9.
FOUR BAGS
• Patriots at Dolphins: The last time New England was slapped around like last week, fans were asking, "You hired Bill Belichick? You mean the guy who got fired by Cleveland?" The Pats haven’t lost consecutive games since 2002 — but they haven’t won consecutive games all season. Which way, Mr. Scarecrow? Point this way: Pats win and cover 3.
THREE BAGS
• Broncos at Raiders: Actual fact: A 50,000-watt station out of Window Rock, Ariz., is broadcasting this game in Navajo. Said a Raiders mouthpiece: “This presents an exciting opportunity to unite the Raider Nation with the voice of the Navajo nation.” Yeah. Let’s not spoil them with schools, jobs and an equitable land deal. Just give ‘em Zack Crockett. Denver covers 3.
• Cowboys at Beagles: To think, we could’ve had Terrell Owens, Keyshawn Johnson and Peerless Price together in one stadium. The Self-Absorbed Boob Bowl. Dallas flattened Philly 33-10 last month. Eagles aren’t great, but they’re desperate. Counts for something. Philly covers 3.
• Vikings at Giants: Asked if anything had gone well this season, Mike Tice said, “I’ve lost 35 pounds.” Great. He can dance at the team’s next cruise. Men of (Rhymes With) Thor have been outscored on the road 133-34. Found the fat. Giants cover 9 1/2.
TWO BAGS
• Jets at Panthers: So now the Carolina cheerleaders say they weren’t having sex. Really. I mean, did we have to know that? Meanwhile, outside the restroom: 9 is covered up.
• Rams at Seahawks: Weekend Predictions Trivia! Joe Vitt, who is 2-1 as St. Louis’ interim head coach, was Seattle’s former strength coach. I know. The cheerleader story is better. Seahawks win, but take the Rams and 7.
• Texans at Colts: Indy is 8-0, but Peyton Manning said, “You can’t just show up on Sunday and expect to win.” Actually, showing up is optional this week. So are most vital organs. But I can’t bring myself to punt a whopper. Let’s dance, baby. Colts win, but take Houston and 18.
• Redskins at Bucs: When quizzed this week about the development of quarterback Chris Simms, Tampa coach Jon Gruden said: “Experience is a great teacher. Repetition is the mother of all learning.” Thank you, Grasshopper. Let me translate: He stinks. Skins cover 1 1/2.
• Browns at Steelers: Stats That Make You Go “Huh?” Trent Dilfer is 20-8 in November. This trumps it: The Steelers are 1-0 with Charlie Batch. But I got a funny feeling about this one. Pitt wins, but take Cleveland and 8.
• Chiefs at Bills: Dick Vermeil gets emotional when he reads the Ace Hardware circular. Now he’s lost Priest Holmes for the season. Make room, Cheswick: You’ve got a new roommate. But take K.C. and 2 1/2 — and in a straight upset.
LEAVES NEED RAKING
• Ravens at Jaguars: Two years ago, Baltimore tried to trade up to draft Byron Leftwich and failed. He went to Jacksonville. The Ravens got Kyle Boller. Cyanide would’ve been quicker. Jags cover 6 1/2.
• Charmed Existence: The Bears have won four in a row over teams with a combined record of 10-23. Now they get San Francisco. Do they get full pay for this? Bears win again, but take Niners and 13.
• Cardinals at Lions: A rumor circulated that Brett Favre was pushing Steve Mariucci for the Green Bay job. Question: Why? Cards and 4 (but Lions straight up).
MIND-BOGGLING PROGRESS REPORT
(On your feet!)
• Last week: 13-1 straight up, 9-3-2 against the line
• Fiscal season: 80-34 straight up, 61-49-4 against the line
• You say: Locks? I say: Bagels.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Jackets haunted by Virginia ghosts again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Charlottesville, Va. — They came surging back from getting blown from here to where Thomas Jefferson is buried about a mountain or three down the road. Just like that, the Yellow Jackets scored 17 consecutive points to tie Virginia in the third quarter on a gorgeous Saturday at Scott Stadium, and all things were possible for a Georgia Tech bunch that suddenly remembered how to block, tackle, pass, run and catch again.
Final score: 27-17. Let’s just say Tech didn’t finish with more points than Virginia, and it only figured. Traditionally, Scott Stadium is the Jackets’ little house of horrors. Why? Nobody really knows, and Joe Hamilton is among them. “All I know is that one of the times we were playing down here, and [former Tech center] Craig Page turns to me and says, ‘Something about this place I just don’t like,’ ” said Hamilton, recalling his stretch during the late 1990s as the Jackets’ quarterback.
Then Hamilton sighed in his current role as a television analyst for Tech games, and added, “It’s not a particularly loud stadium to play in. It’s not cold. The field is nice, and Virginia always is pretty good, so we don’t take them for granted.”
Oh, well. Remember when Scott Sisson booted away those Virginia goblins with his right foot to push Tech past the Cavaliers down the dramatic stretch and toward a national championship? That was 15 years ago. That was the last time the Jackets won within these city limits. That was when they entered games with enthusiasm instead of whatever they possessed after the opening kickoff of this one. Not only were those Virginia goblins present, but they had help from an uninspired opponent.
These weren’t the Jackets of that three-game winning streak — you know, the ones that flashed signs of spending a rare November since 2000 of not resembling turkeys before Thanksgiving. “You just don’t have an answer to those types of things,” said Tech defensive end Eric Henderson, whose team gobbled often against Virginia, especially during the Cavaliers’ sprint to a 17-0 lead early in the second quarter. “You don’t want to come out flat. It’s just the way it happens sometimes. You can feel it, when guys on the other team are making plays that you on the defense normally wouldn’t give up. You know you have to get it turned around quickly, or it will be a long night.”
So this was a long night for the bumbling Jackets, owners of at least five dropped passes and 10 penalties, most of them at costly times. Whatever edge Tech had before the game from the suspension of four Virginia players (including two starters) was negated by lethargy.
All you need to know is that Virginia roared ahead in a hurry after scoring on a couple of mighty drives. Both times, Wali Lundy rushed for touchdowns. Both times, he did so with the greatest of ease (15 yards and 19 yards) as Tech defenders served as wonderful spectators. This looked nothing like a Tech defense that entered the game ranked 10th overall in the nation. This looked much like a Tech defense without a clue. While Lundy and other Virginia backs kept bruising the Jackets with their legs, Marques Hagans kept doing so with his legs and his arm. The Virginia quarterback kept finding Deyon Williams in particular to the dismay of Tech cornerback Kenny Scott, who kept getting scorched.
Tech’s offense wasn’t much better against a Virginia defense that was weakened (well, supposedly) by the loss of its starters at nose tackle and safety after those suspensions. In addition, Virginia lost another safety in the first quarter, when Nate Lyles left the game for good with an injury. It didn’t matter, and neither did the momentum Tech owned entering the weekend.
We’re back to those goblins. Then again, according to Tech wide receiver Damarius Bilbo, those goblins simply were Virginia fans with their mouths flapping.
“They ticked me off even before the game started,” said Bilbo, whose touchdown catch of 24 yards in the third quarter knotted things at 17-17. “It was like, ‘I’m gonna be your boss.’ ‘You stink.’ I don’t think [you] can put it all in the paper. Sometimes fans can be the 12th man.”
Yeah, and if they get some help from the other team, well, you know the rest.
Permalink | Comments (66) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Just another win for Spurrier? Don’t believe it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Columbia — When there is only one sign hanging in a corner of the stadium that somewhat sheepishly recognizes the “1969 ACC Champions,” it sort of lets you know. Haven’t been a lot of celebrations around here.
It follows that Steve Spurrier tried to stay out of the way Saturday.
It was South Carolina’s moment — not his. It was for the players, the students, the alumni — not him. Florida? Did South Carolina play Florida? Funny. Didn’t even notice. Right.
“I didn’t look over there much,” Spurrier said. “I didn’t even look over there during pregame warmups. I just tried to find a play or two to help South Carolina. Didn’t think about Florida much at all.”
Steve Spurrier: Great coach. Lousy liar.
The wonder was that after South Carolina punched the Gators in the mouth and their fans in the gut with a 30-22 win at Williams-Brice Stadium, Spurrier didn’t turn around, face the Florida executive suite and give some biting salute.
This game meant more to Spurrier than he’ll ever let on, and it had far less to do with the fact the Gamecocks hadn’t beaten Florida since 1939 than it did his own history. It wasn’t so much that Spurrier left Gainesville after 122 wins, six SEC titles and a national championship for the Redskins. That was about ambition. But when his NFL experience went splat and Florida had an opening, school president Bernie Machen and athletics director Jeremy Foley didn’t immediately offer a warm embrace.
Spurrier wasn’t certain he wanted to come back. But he would’ve liked the chance to say no. It hurt.
“He kept saying all week it was like every other game,” defensive tackle Chris Tucker said. “I was thinking, bull. This is his old team. I’m sure he was more excited than anybody.”
Could this have possibly gone any better for Spurrier? The Gamecocks (7-3) have now won five straight after losing to Alabama and Auburn by a combined score of 85-21. Spurrier came into the season wanting to be one of the big three: Florida, Tennessee or Georgia. He beat two and scared the hair off the third.
It almost seemed like he was preordained to win Saturday. South Carolina led 7-0 before it had even done much on offense. An interception and ground-shaking, 48-yard return by the 288-pound Tucker set up a short TD run. Later, with a 14-3 lead, Spurrier went for it on fourth-and-2 from the Florida 3 rather than kick a field goal — and fullback Daccus Turman punched in his second touchdown.
Quoting the man who changed offenses in the SEC: “Who’d ever think that fullback up the middle would be one of our best plays?” The Gamecocks had 80 yards rushing by halftime. They had been averaging 79 per game.
Spurrier’s players emulated their coach. They were neither intimidated nor lacked confidence. They committed no turnovers, had only three penalties.
What would it have been like if he was on the other sideline?
“It would’ve been like every other year,” Tucker said.
On the other sideline, this was Urban Meyer’s view: His players looked disorganized, even disinterested. A shot from Spurrier: “I really think they played harder against Georgia… . This was one of our easiest wins.”
Florida was called for 11 penalties, including a false start on second-and-inches on a potential scoring drive at midfield, and illegal participation for having too many players during a South Carolina punt, which negated a would-be final Florida possession.
Should play well in Shreveport. Spurrier and Meyer are both 7-3, but it’s not hard to figure which one would win a popularity contest today. After the game, South Carolina players dumped an ice bucket on their coach and attempted to carry him off the field, but Spurrier declined.
“You only do that for conference championships,” he said. “I’m going to have to coach them up on that.”
But they all knew what it meant to Spurrier, even if he said only, “Winning at Tennessee and this victory are similar.” They presented their coach with a game ball in the locker room. Spurrier got emotional.
“His face was all red,” said tackle Na’Shan Goddard. “He was smiling.”
Seems he also had something to celebrate after all.
Permalink | Comments (49) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Cox most deserving of managerial honor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
He could manage them old. He could manage them young. And as if to prove it, check the Braves of 2005: He had a first baseman who was 47 years old and a catcher who was 21, and others of various ages in between. That’s Robert Joe Cox (his baptismal name). He came along the dusty backroads of baseball, served time in such places as Salem, Oregon; Great Falls, Montana; Panama City, Salt Lake City and Tacoma before he got his first taste of the nectar, life in the big leagues. He was the Yankees’ third baseman in 1968, but lost the job the next season. Someone once asked him about a long home run he hit in Washington, and Bobby said: “I don’t remember that, but I hit so few of them I should remember them all.”
Actually, he hit nine long ones in his two years as a Yankee. He had come up in the Dodgers system, but what most of us overlook is that he was once a Braves farmhand, traded into the farm system in 1966. He put in a season at Richmond, like many of the kids who come along on the way to Turner Field these days. There was no place for him in Atlanta. Clete Boyer, the flawless fielder, was here ahead of him. Cox’s knees began betraying him when he was 30 years old and his days as a player were done. There was something about him that caught the eye of Lee MacPhail, who ran the Yankees, and suggested that he turn to managing. Which he did, on the Yankees farm at Ft. Lauderdale, first stop on the road that led him to his fourth Manager of the Year Award this week, one at Toronto and three with the Braves. None was more righteously earned than this one, not that this should have come as a surprise. If you’ve seen the movie titled “The Misfits,” you might have applied it to the players on hand at spring training. Cox began with a patchwork outfield, Brian Jordan, a reclamation project on one side of Andruw Jones, and Raul Mondesi, out of desperation, on the other. John Schuerholz had had brilliant luck picking up Gary Sheffield, then J.D. Drew for the outfield, but it was written of Mondesi that this time Schuerholz might be pressing his luck. He was.
Jordan was injured, Mondesi flopped and there was no place to turn but the farm. None of those raid-the-bank-of-prospects to trade for some veteran running thin on the tread. They’d taken that turn earlier, sacrificing Jose Capellan, a brilliant investment, for Dan Kolb, the bearded closer, who had had one good season. Mike Hampton was an expensive casualty most of the season, John Thomson missed a couple of months, and Kevin Gryboski, Tom Martin and Gabe White were job applicants who fired and fell back. Schuerholz put in calls to Richmond and Mississippi, summoning kids still too young to be out late at night, and Cox managed on. It was a glorious season, and few of us will ever forget the excitement generated by Jeff Francoeur, Brian McCann, Kelly Johnson, Macay McBride and Wilson Betemit. I’m sorry that Joey Devine can’t be included, but it was uncanny that the last pitch of the season should have been delivered by this kid four months out of college. Well, face it, you can’t push every button, ring every bell and toot every whistle and create a symphony.
Cox fitted pieces together, gave the kids their opportunity, and they produced. It was beautiful to behold, a tribute his mastery dealing with players and maintaining order in the clubhouse. That has always been a trait of a Bobby Cox team. He respects his players to the point that no criticism of his ever surfaces. What he says to them, and of them stays there, unless the terms are glowing. None of us has any idea just how much longer Bobby Cox will manage on. All one can say is, heaven pity the fellow who follows him. Which reminds me of a story oft-repeated that developed at Cox’s firing after the 1981 season. Ted Turner was the chief then, and someone asked him, “Just what are you looking for in your next manager?”
Turner looked at Cox, who had the moxie to show up for his own firing, and said, “Somebody like Bobby Cox.” He meant it, and later hired him to be his general manager, but that was long ago.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
College picks: So help me God, Dogs will cover
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
OK. So let me see if I’ve got this straight. Rafael Palmeiro was not found of guilty of perjury for claiming — while pointing his finger, which by the way is very rude — he never (“NEVER!â€?) took steroids, even though he tested positive for steroids, I think five minutes after his testimony.
But a real live U.S. congressman says he can’t conclude whether Palmeiro ever used steroids, while acknowledging that he tested positive for steroids, which reasonable humanoids would conclude contradicts any contention that he never took steroids. Because, like, duh.
“This is not a finding of innocence,� quoth Tom Davis. “It’s a finding that we could not substantiate perjury.�
Ah-HA!
Wait.
What?
And we pay these guys? I’ve seen Shaggy and Scooby-Doo solve tougher cases. In a half-hour! (The only thing that could make this more obvious is if Palmeiro was the old hotel owner who was trying to scare off the guests with those cool ghost sounds.)
Watch me.
Palmeiro tested positive? He said he’s clean? He lied. Next.
Oil companies claim they didn’t price gouge? They made record profits? They lied. Next.
Mark Richt needs to hire an offensive coordinator? Why, because he lost to Florida with his backup quarterback?
Scooby? “Rut-roh.�
You moron. He had his backup quarterback! Mr. Richt, you’re free to go. Next. (Aspiring journalists: It’s all about transitions).
Richt caught flak because of some lame third-and-a-mile call against Florida. But Georgia didn’t lose because of that call. Georgia lost because D.J. Shockley was out and Joe Tereshinski was in. It’s called being limited. Even Congressman Yahoo could figure that out.
Two weeks later, Shockley is back. The Doggies are healthier and coming off a bye week. Auburn is rolling, but not to the degree people think. You get limited credit for pounding Mississippi and Kentucky. It’s also the week before the Alabama game.
The line says Georgia by 3. This, I can substantiate. Dogs cover.
Georgia Tech at Virginia: Saw a salary chart the other day and couldn’t help but notice Cadavers coach Al Groh is pulling in $1.7 million per year. I could lose to North Carolina for a lot less than that. Meantime, the Jackets have won three straight but are staring at Miami and Georgia after this one. Gravity’s a bummer. Virginia wins, but take Tech and 5.
LSU at Alabama: So the Tide is unbeaten and a home underdog. It feels disrespected. Which means what exactly? Great defense, yeah. But the offense has been anemic: 0 touchdowns the last two games, 1 in the last 13 quarters. That works against Old Ms., Tennessee (now anyway) and Missy St. LSU-Miles may not be LSU-Saban but it won’t take much. LSU wins. But take Bammy and 3 because a 5-3 final won’t cover.
Past-Present? Perfect: If Georgia trembled at the thought of losing to Steve Spurrier in September, what’s Florida thinking? The over/under on athletics director Jeremy Foley’s sleep tonight: 6 (lithium, not hours). Forget history (South Carolina hasn’t beaten the Gators since 1939). Florida had to go overtime to beat Vanderbilt last week. Maybe it’s just the storyline in my head talking but: Take Poultry and 4¸. And in a straight upset.
Miami at Wake Forest: Last week the ’Canes pounded Virginia Tech, which means they’ve now won seven straight since opening with the loss to FSU. So what’s the average Miami fan saying? Probably, “Yeah, but Larry Coker is no Butch Davis.� Geraniums. ’Canes cover 16 1/2.
FSU at Clemson: Two years ago it took Tommy Bowden beating Bobby Bowden to get a contract extension, not that we’re suggesting anything, mind you, because the last thing a father would want to do is help his son keep his job. Wait. That didn’t come out right. Bobby’s biggest concern now should be rescuing his other son (play-caller Jeff). Pops covers 1 1/2.
Memphis at Tennessee: Memphis is catching a lot of flak for scheduling these soft little in-state opponents. The Vowels have lost four straight, a wonderful segue to this homecoming game. But there is good news: If they win, they’ll still be eligible for the Independence Bowl! (Note to Phil Fulmer defenders: UT’s last SEC title was seven years ago.) Knoxville wins, but take Memphis and 18 1/2.
Kentucky at Vanderbilt: Rich Brooks gets a vote of confidence the same week Kentucky is a two-touchdown underdog to Vanderbilt. And they wonder why Bear Bryant left. Vandy covers 11 1/2.
Accounts receivable
Last week: 7-2 straight up, 5-4 against the line.
Fiscal season: 55-13 straight up, 42-25-1 against the line.
Permalink | Comments (74) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Vick not so different from a young Favre
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The Falcons have had two defining trades in the franchise history.
Brett Favre wrecked it. Michael Vick is starting to make up for it.
Vick hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet. He doesn’t have Favre’s Hall of Fame credentials yet. Largely because he’s viewed as some alien life form that the NFL hadn’t seen before, he’s certainly not as widely revered as Favre, despite a 68.6 winning percentage and coming within one game of the Super Bowl in only his second postseason.
But it’s with some irony that Favre and Vick will meet again Sunday for likely the final time.
Green Bay is 1-7. Favre is on pace to throw more interceptions than at any point in his career (he has 14 in eight games) and it seems unlikely he can rationalize it’s worth coming back for another year of Packer misery.
The Falcons are 6-2. Vick is coming off an I’ve-got-your-efficiency-rating-right-here performance against Miami, and the franchise is set up for the future.
Three years ago, we could see both coming. Three years ago in Green Bay is when it all turned. The Packers had never lost a playoff game at Lambeau Field. Vick had never started a playoff game. But he threw a touchdown pass, ran for 64 yards and the Falcons buried the Packers 27-7.
Favre was intercepted twice, sacked twice.
Vick: zero, zero.
After that game, the two quarterbacks spoke, and it’s a conversation Vick hasn’t forgotten. “He told me that I was going to be a great player in this league and that I was going to have a great career,� Vick said Thursday through a team spokesman. “That meant a lot to me, a 22-year-old quarterback, hearing those kinds of comments from a guy who had won the MVP award three times and a guy who had won a Super Bowl.�
It has been an interesting season for Vick. He has evolved from a nightly SportsCenter highlight into a polarizing figure with the public. Depending on what side you’re on, he’s either a player to embrace with awe or an abomination for all that is holy about the quarterback position, so help me Peyton Manning.
Favre would be the first to tell you he often ran around and did stupid things in his career. Of course, he usually came through in the clutch and he won. So people just looked at the stupid stuff with amusement.
Vick runs around and sometimes misreads a defense or misfires with his arm. Of course, he usually comes through in the clutch and he wins. For whatever reason, not everybody views his flaws with amusement.
After the Miami game, Vick sounded off. You know what? He had a right to. Maybe it didn’t come out the right way. Maybe he went a little over the line. But if ever an athlete deserved a platform to vent after completing 22 of 31 attempts, it was Vick.
“I knew he needed to get that off his chest,� tight end Alge Crumpler said. “He had a point to prove and he proved it, and he damn sure looked good doing it. But he’s not just going to cater to what other people want. I know that the thing Mike cares most about is winning, and he does that.
“If you go back since he’s been here, when the game is on the line, Mike usually comes through, no matter what his stats are. He loves those situations. He shines better than anybody else on the field when the pressure’s on.�
Used to say that about Favre.
Vick admitted this week he was motivated by the criticism of his passing skills. Asked about perceptions of his style, he said, “I don’t know — whatever they want to say. Whatever they want to perceive me as. Running quarterback, just a runner — it doesn’t matter. [I’m] a winner.â€?
When quizzed about far-fetched suggestions of Terrell Owens joining the Falcons, he said, “I could play with anybody. It’s all if they could play with me.�
Because Owens would have to understand, as Vick said: “This is my team.�
It is his team. If that wasn’t clear before that night in Green Bay three years ago, it was after. It doesn’t matter how Vick makes it go. As long as he makes it go.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz, Jeff Schultz
New NBA rule will rekindle fire for college game
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I still love college basketball, but I’ve come to love it differently. I used to track it year-round. I used to get excited about recruiting and who signed whom. I used to compose a different preseason Top 25 every month of the summer. Now I just wait until November to see who shows up where.
The wave of early entry to the NBA chilled my ardor. I stopped taking recruiting seriously because all the big-name recruits were going pro anyway. The college game became, for me and for I’m guessing more than a few other folks, a seasonal thing. I loved it when it was actually being played, but I didn’t obsess on it when it wasn’t.
That could be subject to further change. The NBA’s new age limit — it’s 19, though I can’t imagine it will stand up in court when the inevitable challenge comes — will drive recruits back to campus. Already I’m looking forward to Greg Oden playing at Ohio State in a way I never looked forward to Dwight Howard or LeBron James or Louis Williams playing for any school. And Oden won’t be a Buckeye until next fall.
College basketball has taken a huge hit the last decade. There was a time when we looked forward to great regular-season matchups — Alcindor against Hayes in the Astrodome, Walton against Thompson in St. Louis, Sampson against Ewing in the Capital Centre — the way we anticipated the USC-Notre Dame football game a month ago. Early entry rendered the regular season almost a moot point. How do you look forward to something if you can’t name any of the participants?
The NCAA tournament never ceased being a Great Event, but the age limit — however long it holds up — figures to give college basketball a boost at a most significant moment. The 2006-07 regular season could be the one that makes us remember that there’s basketball being played before March.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Richt making Georgia SEC’s standard bearer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
If Georgia beats Auburn, the Bulldogs will have all but qualified for the SEC Championship Game for the third time in four seasons. (Since nobody any good ever loses to Kentucky, let’s assume Georgia won’t lose to Kentucky on Nov. 19.) If Georgia beats Auburn, the Bulldogs will have clinched a tie for the East title after being the preseason pick to finish third. If Georgia beats Auburn, the Bulldogs will cease being an up-and-coming program and will have become something more:
The SEC’s new flagship.
And that would make Mark Richt the fleet admiral.
He mightn’t be the greatest offensive coordinator and he might be a spotty disciplinarian, but there’s no question that Richt is a splendid head coach. He has taken Georgia into the Top 10 every year since his first, and nothing suggests the string is about to run out.
Three months ago, it was possible to wonder how much of Richt’s success was due to Brian VanGorder’s handling of the defense and David Greene’s oversight of the offense. Those concerns have been rendered moot. VanGorder and Greene have moved to the NFL, and Georgia is still atop the SEC East. More than that, Georgia has stamped itself as the most consistently good team in a league in conspicuous transition.
Nick Saban is gone. Steve Spurrier has relocated. Urban Meyer is struggling to beat the likes of Vanderbilt. Phillip Fulmer hasn’t won a game in a month. Auburn nearly fired Tommy Tuberville two years ago. Yes, Alabama is undefeated, but this is the Tide’s first winning season under Mike Shula. Richt is winning big every year now, winning in a way Georgia hasn’t won since the era of Herschel and Hoage ended with the Cotton Bowl victory on Jan. 2, 1984.
Georgia has stopped losing to bad teams — Ray Goff lost twice to Vanderbilt — and has taken to beating enough of the big boys to placate Bulldog Nation. There are no wild mood swings about the Georgia program anymore, no week-to-week wooziness. The Bulldogs take their lead from Richt, who’s nothing if not even-tempered, and they play hard for him every time out.
Three months ago, we asked how Georgia would look with a new quarterback. We’ve learned that it looks essentially the same as it did in Greene’s four seasons. Three months ago, we asked if VanGorder was irreplaceable. We’ve learned that there’s only one indispensable Bulldog, and that’s the head man. He won’t be the SEC’s coach of the year — either Vanderbilt’s Bobby Johnson or Shula will be — but Richt has turned in another impressive round of work. He filled his team’s holes and made it seem as if nothing needed filling.
With Tennessee in disarray and Florida in transition, Georgia has emerged as the gold standard of what used to be considered the most difficult division in college football. It took the Bulldogs 10 years to reach the SEC Championship Game, and now they’re positioned to get there for the third time under Richt. (And they missed last year only by way of a tiebreaker.) The Bulldogs haven’t quite reached the point where they’re playing for a national championship, but they were excruciatingly close in 2002 and they would have been close again had D.J. Shockley not hurt his knee.
Not so long ago, Georgia seemed locked in as the third-best program in the SEC East. Now it looks like the best of the bunch. If it wins Saturday, there’ll be no doubt. If it doesn’t, it will regroup and be favored to win the East next time. The figurative lid that Richt and his men dislodged when they won at Auburn in 2002 hasn’t been allowed to re-form. That was the year the Bulldogs got going again, and they’re still gathering speed.
Permalink | Comments (91) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Just say N.O. to T.O.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Just in case those who run the Falcons didn’t get the message after the 3,154 times I’ve said this, I’ll say it again:
N.O. to T.O.
Period.
With the Philadelphia Eagles finally coming to their senses by telling T.O. to just G.O., he’s on the verge of becoming available — along with his chemistry-killing tongue — for any NFL team. Thus my need for the 3,155th time to plead with those who run the Falcons to say N.O. to T.O.
Let’s just hope that those who run the Falcons remember that tongue thing involving Terrell Owens and not all of those other things.
About those other things: Owens lives in Atlanta, and he played for the 49ers when Falcons coach Jim Mora and Falcons offensive coordinator Greg Knapp worked in San Francisco. Not only that, the Falcons need a big-play wide receiver, and did I tell you that T.O. can play a little?
All of those other things can make those who run the Falcons lose their minds and take a chance with T.O.
If that happens, the Falcons will become a mess in the locker room and DOA as a potential championship team.
Permalink | Comments (116) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Very little electricity at Philips
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Everybody was there. Current Falcons and former ones. Big Boi. Johnny Estrada. You even had North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams (hey, don’t the Tar Heels have practice or something?), Andrew Young and what remains of the Lakers mystique. Still, during one of those rare times when Philips Arena was stuffed for a Hawks game, the mood Tuesday night was strikingly mellow.
That’s a kind way to say boring. We’re talking about really boring, especially when compared to those Hawks-Lakers affairs of lore, ranging from ‘Nique and Magic to any of those involving the new Showtime group that roared to three world championships during the early 21st century. For whatever reason, the electricity (and we’re talking about literally) just wasn’t present in the house this time around.
Maybe it was because Shaquille O’Neal works for the Miami Heat these days when his ankle isn’t aching. Maybe it was because the scoreboard zonked out (we’re back to that lack of electricity) in the second quarter to leave the crowd and the players at the mercy of the public address announcer regarding the score and the time. Maybe it was because the Hawks still have a ways to go during their extremely long and unfortunately necessary rebuilding process to become interesting again.
Bad and boring. Not the best combination for an NBA team in a perennial search for others to take it seriously. So the question for the Hawks during the rest of an already rocky season is: If you’re going to continue to spend more time going north than south in the standings, can you attempt to do so with a little style?
Good news. Hawks coach Mike Woodson listened to a derivative of that question, and then he shook his head. “It’s not so much how we look right now. For us, it’s about winning,” he said, referring to a terribly young Hawks bunch that is on pace to win even less than it did last year. They had 13 victories last season compared to zero right now after the Shaqless Lakers ruined the Hawks’ opener with a lot of Kobe.
Much of the Lakers’ 103-97 romp featured Kobe Bryant and friends roaring with ease through what the Hawks called a defense to reach the hoop. “I mean, when you give up 20-plus layups, it just takes the starch out of your defense,” said Woodson, recalling just one of many problems for his 0-4 team that kept Bryant (37 points) rising as the NBA’s leading scorer. That Joe Johnson managed 26 points for the Hawks during his home debut as the $70 million man was nice, but that was about it for highlights among the slew of lowlights that dominated the Hawks’ evening.
As usual, when L.A comes to town, the stands were dominated more by purple and gold than red and white. Much of the crowd was chanting “Kobe, Kobe, Kobe” by the end of the game, and that was when he was in the midst of spending the rest of the blowout on the bench. In other words, the Hawks weren’t the most popular team in the building. Even without Mr. O’Neal, the Lakers are considered a pleasure to the eyes that the Hawks hope to become one. You know, sort of. “We looked good a lot last year,” Woodson added. “We’ve gotta win games. That’s how you win the hometown fans over. If we play hard enough and do what we’re supposed to do, they’ll eventually be on our side.”
Woodson knows all of that other stuff (the constant yapping about the Hawks’ youth, the cries for patience, the talk of the franchise sitting another summer here or there from getting that one player or two to reach that next level) — yes, Woodson definitely knows all of that gets old to a public that mostly couldn’t care less.
Until then, the Hawks franchise is hoping flash will cover up some of its lack of substance on the floor. For instance: There was a dramatic and excessive fireworks display on the top of each backboards before the game. Sparks flew, and folks scattered nearby. It likely was enough to cause those electrical problems later in the arena.
Translated: The Hawks need to stick to substance. Or at least try.
Permalink | Comments (63) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Terence Moore
Tuesday Countdown: Girls gone wild; T.O. just gone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Wow. It’s one thing for the Eagles to shelve Terrell Owens. But now even Renee Thomas and Angela Keathley are available on the open market! Love for sale.
9: Used to be in sports it was all about performance. Performance clearly isn’t the issue with Renee and Angela, so I’m assuming they’ve just become too big of a distraction for the rest of the Carolina Panthers’ “TopCats.” The NFL Cheerleaders, Twits and Therapeutic Spababes Union is expected to grieve the action.
8: NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue immediately denounced Renee and Angela’s Tampa bathroom escapades. The league then announced both will appear in a new NFL cheerleaders calendar, because one good contradiction deserves another.
7: Melissa Holden, the women who got punched by Thomas in the incident, actually said: “She [Thomas] was screaming, ‘I am a Panther cheerleader. I’m not going to get arrested for this!’” Gee. And I thought it was bad when Rod Coleman pulled the do-you-know-who-I-am? card.
6: Surprise, surprise. Penthouse magazine is courting the two.
5: And now for the clothed twit. I’ll say it again: Terrell Owens had a case for wanting his contract renegotiated. In the NFL, teams can cut you any time they want because contracts aren’t guaranteed. Players deserve the same right. BUT …
4: … never in the history of professional sports has any athlete handled a contract situation so poorly.
3: The only thing worse than Owens making a circus of things before this season started was making a circus of things after it started. Before the season, you alienate the public. After the opening kickoff, you alienate your teammates.
2: BUT … if you think Owens will never work in this league again, let me throw out some names for you: Ricky Williams, Keyshawn Johnson, Lawrence Phillips, Michael Irvin, Nate Newton. There’s always somebody willing to make room for high-risk talent.
1: And tell me again what part of the ESPN show, “Playmakers,” was exaggerated?
Permalink | Comments (20) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
They’ve got to stop meeting like this
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Only three games into this season and there have already been three starting lineups, a players-only meeting with complimentary flared tempers, benched draft picks and a “heartbreaking” loss, which followed a heart-deficient loss, which followed, well, just a loss.
Your new Atlanta Hawks come home tonight with a 0-3 record. If you expected better, then you probably have been living off of one too many Josh Smith dunk highlights, which, come to think of it, would put you in good company with Josh Smith.
The Hawks are young. When a team is this young — eight first and second-year players on a roster of 13 — talent tends to get drowned out by overdeveloped egos and underdeveloped perspective.
When a team is this young, hard working and well-meaning coaches like Mike Woodson don’t make playoff proclamations. “Can young guys win at this level with consistency? I don’t know that yet,” Woodson said Monday.
“They don’t understand the force of the game. These guys have no idea that on every night, at any given position, you can be handed your [rear] if you don’t come ready to play.”
The Hawks were blown out the other night by the Los Angeles Clippers, which is considered an NBA felony. Al Harrington, one of the few Hawks players who can see beyond a mirror, was moved to captain a team meeting. And he didn’t even play in the game because of an injury.
“We have to stop the bleeding early,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have to have another meeting after game four, but we have to figure this thing out. We have to earn some respect this year, and the only way to do that is win basketball games. We can’t just take moral victories out of every game. We did that last year. We had 69 moral victories.”
Also, 13 real ones.
The Hawks currently are on a pace for zero wins. Let’s assume that goes up.
But a team that relies on so much youth is asking for problems. Young players believe talent will carry them because that’s what worked in the playground, or high school, even college. Young players try to do too much during losing streaks, either because they feel pressured to do live up their billing or because they don’t trust the player next to them on the court. Or both.
Young players blame teammates because, well, it couldn’t be their own fault. Never has been, never will be. Just ask their agent.
Then there are cases like Josh Smith. He won the Slam Dunk contest as a rookie and the Hawks did the worst thing possible — they made him the centerpiece of a marketing campaign. That probably planted the I’ve-got-it-made seed in Smith’s head.
Now Woodson is fighting to get Smith’s attention, break him down and start over. He started the first two games, but began game three in Portland on the bench.
The Hawks lost to the Trail Blazers after a last-second disputed foul led to a tie-breaking free throw. But bad teams shouldn’t waste time complaining about foul calls because it’s just as likely the game was decided by something earlier.
“Good teams find a way to win that game,” Woodson said.
Maybe that reality sinks in. Maybe not. Or maybe it gets to the point where a second-year player has to be traded for a veteran with some accountability.
“The biggest thing [young players] don’t realize is how the little things beat you,” Harrington said. “It’s always, ‘Well, I just missed one rebound’ or ‘It was just one free throw or one assignment.’ But that one assignment can cost you the game. In college you can get by with that mistake because nine times out of 10 they were on great teams. When you’re on a great team, you can mess up. Unfortunately, we’re not that kind of team.”
No, they’re not. They are somewhere between nowhere and a work in progress, depending on how you package it. When player meetings outnumber the win total, it’s never a good sign.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Jeff Schultz
Blue Devils have reasons to feel superior
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It will be another long winter for the growing legion of Duke-haters. The Blue Devils figure to win another NCAA championship and generate another national player of the year — either J.J. Redick or Shelden Williams — and their famous coach will doubtless film another round of American Express commercials, timed for maximum March exposure.
It’s not that Duke keeps getting better. It’s that the Devils simply have weathered the NBA exodus of young players better than any other program. North Carolina, Duke’s hated neighbor, is actually the reigning NCAA titlist, but the Tar Heels lost every player of note from that star-spangled team, four of whom had eligibility remaining.
Beyond Duke, what else is there? Well, Michigan State, which ousted the Devils in the Sweet 16, will be quite good, and Texas and Oklahoma look strong in the Big 12. And Louisville and Kentucky will stage their usual battle for Bluegrass supremacy. But the story of the 2005-06 season figures to be written by the men based in Cameron Indoor Stadium, which should make the rest of college basketball more than a little crazy.
Onto the Top 25 …
1. Duke. At a time when the average fan can’t identify 10 collegiate players, the Devils have two household names — J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams — plus a passel of prized recruits. Plus a coach of some distinction.
2. Michigan State. The Spartans capped an indifferent regular season with a Final Four run. Most of the notables — Paul Davis, Maurice Ager, Shannon Brown — return. At issue is whether these guys are really as good as they looked in March.
3. Texas. Lots of talent here, plus the nation’s best point guard in Daniel Gibson. But the Longhorns have had talent all along — T.J. Ford was the nation’s best point guard in 2003 — and somehow haven’t produced a national championship.
4. Boston College. The Eagles enter the ACC at the right time. With every other major program save Duke in retooling mode, they come in loaded. The players who propelled BC to a 20-0 start last season are back, Craig Smith chief among them.
5. Connecticut. The UConn guards had a wretched summer. Freshman A.J. Price has been suspended for the season, and junior Marvin Williams won’t play until after New Year’s. But Rudy Gay is the nation’s most talented player, and Rashad Anderson is a splendid shooter.
6. Louisville. Rick Pitino has it rolling again, and the Cardinals’ arrival in the Big East should only enhance the man’s massive reputation. Player to watch: David Padgett, who transferred from Kansas and who’s a remarkably skilled big man.
7. Oklahoma. The Sooners figure to give Texas a run in the Big 12. Taj Gray and Kevin Bookout are the nation’s best frontcourt tandem, and Terrell Everett is a gifted guard. But Oklahoma has a way of fizzling in March.
8. Gonzaga. The little school with the funny name has become a basketball staple, and not just in March. Here’s proof you don’t have to play in a power conference to attract attention — or to lure a big-time talent like Adam Morrison.
9. Kentucky. The status of Randolph Morris, who tried to leave for the NBA but went undrafted, remains unresolved. The Wildcats expect him back at some point but aren’t sure when. No matter. They’ll win the SEC with their usual ease.
10. Villanova. The Wildcats would have been five spots higher, but forward Curtis Sumpter has a bad knee and might not play at all. Center Jason Fraser has two bad knees, and nobody’s sure how long he’ll hold up.
11. UCLA. Arizona is the pick to win the Pac-10, as usual, but Ben Howland is about to propel the Bruins upward. Point guard Jordan Farmar could be the league’s player of the year, and Cedric Bozeman returns after a knee injury.
12. Wake Forest. Justin Gray isn’t really a point guard, but he’ll try his hand in the absence of Chris Paul. Eric Williams isn’t really a center, but he plays like one. Still in question is whether Wake will ever make a commitment to defense.
13. George Washington. Pops Mensah-Bonsu pulled out of the NBA draft, and for that we should all be grateful. Mensah-Bonsu is a great leaper who can really run, and his presence should make GW the East Coast version of Gonzaga.
14. Ohio State. Two teams beat Illinois last season — North Carolina in the NCAA title game, and Ohio State, which was ineligible for the Big Dance. The Buckeyes are eligible now, and they’ll be a top-five team when their touted recruits arrive next season.
15. Alabama. Kennedy Winston and Earnest Shelton are gone, but freshman Richard Hendrix figures to be better than either. Chuck Davis blocks shots and Ronald Steele runs the offense. The Tide is the class of a lackluster SEC West.
16. Nevada. The mid-major Wolf Pack is another of those Gonzaga wannabes, and this could be the year Nevada actually outdoes the higher-profile Zags. Nick Fazekas is among the nation’s best centers, and point guard Ramon Sessions can run a team.
17. Arizona. The Wildcats lost Channing Frye and Salim Stoudamire to the NBA, but Hassan Adams and Mustafa Shakur will keep them competitive. But the Pac-10 is rising again, and the guess is that Arizona will be overtaken.
18. Charlotte. Under-the-radar program posts impressive results every season while drawing no attention from the locals. Curtis Withers is the best player you’ve never heard of, and four transfers should keep the 49ers in fighting shape.
19. Memphis. With Louisville, Cincinnati and Marquette gone to the Big East, somebody has to win Conference USA. Memphis is the pick. The Tigers are led by Darius Washington, whose missed free throws kept them out of the NCAA tournament last season.
20. Illinois. Dee Brown and James Augustine are nice building blocks. They were 40 percent of the nation’s best passing team, but this season they’ll need to do much more shooting. They figure to welcome the opportunity.
21. Stanford. The question here regards the health of Dan Grunfeld, son of Ernie, who wrecked his knee and essentially dashed the Cardinal’s chances last season. A fit Grunfeld would mesh nicely with point guard Chris Hernandez.
22. Syracuse. Gerry McNamara is still around, and so is Jim Boeheim. Those are two compelling reasons to like the Orange, which is without the estimable Harrick Warrick. A third reson: freshman shooter Eric Devendorf.
23. Washington. Mini-guard Nate Robinson left for the NBA, but last season’s surprise No. 1 seed isn’t about to fade into the Western woods. Freshman Jon Brockman should be a force underneath, and Brandon Roy is an effective wing.
24. West Virginia. The Mountaineers probably overachieved during their run to the Elite Eight and could be exposed in the beefed-up Big East. But shooting center Kevin Pittsnogle seems reason enough to include WVU in the Top 25.
25. Maryland. The Terps missed the NCAA and were among last season’s most disappointing teams. Gary Williams doesn’t like to be disappointed. Look for the Terps to be re-energized, or for their coach to be even madder than usual.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Bryant breaks through against PGA elite
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
For three days the headlines have made reference to a guy named Bryant, with an underlying yearning for Tiger Woods to rise up and take charge of the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club. It was almost a plaintive thing. Tiger is supposed to be making birdies, not bogeys. What right has some guy named Bart Bryant to horn in on Tiger’s territory?
Well, let me be honest here. I’m always pulling for the dark horse, the long shot. There has hardly ever been a darker horse, or a longer shot than Bart Bryant, a preacher’s son who came from New Mexico. Golf stars don’t come from New Mexico. Rodeo riders and calf ropers come from New Mexico.
At the start of the year, Bart Bryant ranked 139th in world golf. At the end of the Tour Championship on Sunday, at this course where Bobby Jones learned the game, Bryant ranked ninth on the PGA Tour, and a lot of tears were shed around the 18th green while he and his wife, Cathy, and their two daughters shared hugs and squeezes.
It was over, four days of sitting out there as the target of the day while 28 other guys fired away. Here was a guy 42 years old — in 12 days, he’ll be 43 — who had lived on the brink for the past 14 years, who had never won a PGA Tour tournament until a year ago, who had no credentials for this sort of caper.
I’d said earlier that if he held on it would be amazing. It was more than that. It was remarkable. He had led by three strokes Friday, four Saturday, and by the time the field passed the ninth green Sunday, his lead was six. That’s the way it ended. Remarkable it was, and this time the ABC network decided to stay with it until the last shot had dropped.
Bryant said he had lain in bed the night before, picturing himself getting off to a fast start. He did, birdies on three of the first four holes. Then his picturization struck its first blur. He hit just three really bad shots all day, his drive in the rough on the fifth hole, which led to a bogey; his tee shot on the peninsula sixth hole, which found the water and led to another bogey, then a wildly errant second shot on the par-5 15th, which led to his third bogey. It all added up to four days and four rounds in 263 strokes, and that’s a Tour Championship record by six.
Woods was a gracious loser, as he always is, but it was somewhat surprising when he said that it was the “best I drove it all year.� Yet, I don’t recall him hitting as many shots off the mark as he did in this round. But, face it, no one knows his game as well as he, and if he’s happy, let’s all be happy with him. And he did manage to share credit with his new partner.
“I have a foundation now with my marriage to Elin,� he said, “and that’s huge for me to have that type of support.�
As for Bryant, he’s looking at life through rose-colored glasses, from an angle he has never known.
“Things got so bad in the middle ’90s that I never even bothered going to qualifying school. As long as I was able to feed my family on what I was making on the mini-tour, I was OK.�
It was then, it seems, that his alter-conscience and coach, Brian Mogg, told him, “You are a good player. You deserve to go out and play well. You can do it.�
Doggone, if he hasn’t done it. I don’t know that I’ve covered a golf tournament with a more surprising finish. They don’t come from much farther back than did Barton Bryant, and I’ll have to say, nobody in the maudlin mob that followed him enjoyed it more than this old veteran of a lot of wars.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Vick proves his point on passing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Miami — There’s nothing wrong with Michael Vick’s arm, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with his ears. For 12 days after his halting performance on Monday night, he heard the latest volley of that old standard, “He’s Not Really A Quarterback.” On Sunday he proved he’s really a quarterback, an absolute marvel of one, and afterward he showed that, contrary to what he’d have us think, he really cares what people say about him.
“I’m trying, man,” he said. “I just get no credit, and I’m tired of it. I know what I can do, and I don’t care what people say. I’m going to get me a ring.”
As serendipitous coincidence would have it, the greatest pure passer in NFL history was handed a ring at halftime. “A Super Bowl ring?” said Vick, knowing the answer.
Uh, no. Dan Marino, never a Super Bowl winner, was presented with his Pro Football Hall of Fame ring. Said Vick: “That’s not the one I want.”
If he plays for the next 10 years the way he did against the Dolphins, Vick will wind up with both. He was superb Sunday, which isn’t to suggest he hasn’t been superb on other given Sundays. He made every throw, and his maligned receivers made nearly every catch. The Falcons won a huge road game and Michael Vick went a long way toward shutting everybody up, at least until he throws his next incompletion. And still the day didn’t leave him exactly buoyant. Forty minutes after he left the field, Vick was in the mood to vent.
“I’m not just one thing,” he said. “I can throw, and I can also run. I’ve got another way of beating you — is that my fault? … People forget I passed for almost 3,000 yards in ‘02 — I was 60 yards short [66, to be precise]. I’ve got in it me, man. But sometimes I come out and I’m not accurate, and that’s on me.”
The hot-button issue of accuracy was rendered a damp squib Sunday. Vick completed 22-of-31 passes for 220 yards, his first big passing game of 2005. (Reading the stat sheet, Jim Mora was prompted to exclaim: “We threw for 200 yards — hot dang!â€? And then the coach did a little dance.) Vick put the ball where only his receivers could grab it, and they grabbed like mad. Brian Finneran caught eight balls, Alge Crumpler six, Roddy White three.
“People say I can’t throw the ball from the pocket,â€? Vick said. “I’m not trying to prove anything to the world because I know what I can do… I feel like I answered [the question] today, and I don’t ever want to hear it again.”
If this is how Vick responds to criticism, shouldn’t he pay us media types to criticize him weekly? “Heck, no!” he said. “I don’t ever want to be criticized! I just want people to praise me. They can say something [negative] if I’m doing things wrong and we’re not winning.”
But Vick, as his many defenders correctly note, tends to win. Said Crumpler: “He’s the leader of our team, and we rally around him. We don’t think [the criticism] is fair.”
It was Crumpler who hooked Vick’s best pass of the day, maybe the best of his young and distinguished life. On the Falcons’ first series, Vick rolled left and, ducking full-bore pressure, loosed a laser to the tight end near the end-zone pylon. “The guy [Miami safety Lance Schulters] was all over me,� Crumpler said. “[Vick] put in a great spot. It was the only place I could make the catch. It was a beautiful, beautiful throw.�
Afterward, someone suggested that the great Marino couldn’t have flung it any better. “Oh, Dan might have,” said Vick, rather graciously. “He’s got a cannon.”
And so, we were reminded Sunday, does the famous No. 7. His passing might not always recall the precision of Dan Marino, but he’s not Bobby (One-Hop) Douglass, either. Michael Vick didn’t flash into the public consciousness — or make two Pro Bowls — by never completing a forward pass. He’s a real quarterback, all right, and deep down he wishes we’d notice.
Permalink | Comments (107) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Hard to say how Tech will use this win
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
This game was the latest tease for those into old gold and white. Block after block, tackle after tackle, run after run, throw after throw and kick after kick (yes, even the previously errant Travis Bell booted three field goals in three attempts), there were a slew of wonderful moments for Georgia Tech. In the end, the Yellow Jackets did enough Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium against Wake Forest to make you wonder if their rise to 6-2 for the season will evolve into something greater.
Here’s just a hunch: Look out, Virginia, this week in Charlottesville. Maybe we should say the same to Miami, along with that football team in Athens. After all, since collapsing at home to a shaky N.C. State team, Tech has a three-game winning streak going into its roughest stretch of the season.
So why did coach Chan Gailey treat talk of a renaissance for the Jackets as if he were asked to wear Buzz’s mascot outfit on the sideline for the rest of his Tech career? “I don’t know what kind of effect [this streak] will have [the rest of the way],” Gailey said quickly after the Jackets’ 30-17 dismantling of their decent foes. “Someone asked me if this would set the tone for the rest of the season. No, it’s one game. And we have to get ready to go to Virginia and play next week. Twenty-four hour rule.”
About that rule: It’s a mandate from Gailey to his players to forget about the past after victories or defeats and concentrate on the present. The mandate rarely has worked during Gailey’s four seasons with the Jackets, especially since they’ve suffered as many baffling meltdowns (Duke) as incredible upsets (Auburn, twice). Still, it’s a mandate that flashes signs of working this season after Tech followed its defensive thriller over Clemson with the Jackets’ most complete effort of the season.
Wake Forest isn’t Florida State, but Wake Forest isn’t Duke, either. If nothing else, the Jackets’ victory was enough to make you wonder why their 6-2 isn’t 7-1. I mean, did they really lose to N.C. State? Not only that, Virginia Tech is an ACC monster, but no way the Jackets should have looked so frightened in Blacksburg.
I say all of this because against Wake Forest, before a surprisingly thick home crowd at Bobby Dodd Stadium that finally didn’t need a bunch of visiting fans to populate its upper decks, the Jackets did all sorts of splendid things. Those things started in a hurry, with Reggie Ball firing a perfect pass that Calvin Johnson stretched and grabbed for a perfect catch. It went for 43 yards. Soon afterward, Tech’s dynamic duo connected on another pretty bomb of 45 yards along the way to pushing Wake Forest down by two touchdowns early in the second quarter.
Translated: Tech can throw deep, and Tech can do so regularly after spending much of the season keeping folks guessing about such a possibility.
In addition to that Johnson, there was the other Johnson named James. That other Johnson continued his rise from nowhere as a redshirt freshman when he dragged defenders 2, 3, 4 yards for a first down after one catch and made another catch of 8 yards for a touchdown. There also was P.J. Daniels rushing for 109 yards, while Wake Forest Chris Barclay, the conference’s leading rusher during the regular season for the past two years, was held to 24 yards. That was his lowest rushing total as a starter when he didn’t have to leave a game for injury.
The Barclay stifling wasn’t the only defensive highlight for the Jackets. There was Chris Reis ending potential momentum for Wake Forest near the end of the first half after he added to Tech’s slew of interceptions by making a swipe of a Cory Randolph pass. There also was Eric Henderson pounding Randolph into a key fumble in the third quarter.
Add all of that to Ball’s ongoing maturation as a quarterback who makes fewer mistakes and rarely gets sacked, and to Bell rediscovering efficiency with his right foot, and you have … what?
“We’ve got a lot of seniors on this team. We’ve got a lot of leadership on this team, and we’ve got a lot of experience,” Ball said, before delivering the clincher. “And we have the 24-hour rule.” Which means the Jackets suddenly have amnesia about the nice things they just did.
Permalink | Comments (64) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Improbable storyline unfolding at East Lake
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Three days you have been expecting the clock to strike midnight. For the wicked old witch to tell Bart Bryant his party is over, back to the scullery. That Bart Bryants don’t win the big one. (ABC, the television network, doesn’t believe in fairy tales, either. Those dudes shut off the Tour Championship Saturday just before he holed out of the bunker on the 18th hole.) Saturday a headline read, “Tiger 3 Shots Back After a 67.” Well, Tiger is now four shots back after another 67. Three days the No. 1 player in the world has been chasing the No. 40 player and the gap isn’t shrinking. And between them, there is Retief Goosen, No. 4 and the defending champion at East Lake Golf Club.
By this time they should be getting acquainted, but Bryant says Goosen doesn’t say much, and neither does he.
“He’s the nicest guy in the world, but he just doesn’t say much,” Bryant said. “He’s just a quiet fellow. I was paired with him at the Buick in Michigan and I felt very inferior to him.”
I’ll say this, that I thought we were sitting in on a shocking story in the fourth round here last year. Goosen began the day four strokes back of Woods and wound up four strokes ahead of him. It was a drop-dead round for this man of few words.
Now, this is another amazing kind of story again that East Lake is witness to. Here is Barton Holan Bryant — how’s that for a Western movie sheriff’s name, and with his moustache, he could play the part — riding herd on the 28 other highest earners on the PGA Tour this year. Until last year, he had been without a tour card since 1991, and he had his card last year only through a medical exemption.
Three times he has had surgery. He had more scars than the loser in a saloon brawl. Six times he had been to qualifying school. He was getting to be 42 years old and nothing was happening. Did he ever think that sons of a Baptist minister weren’t destined to grow up golf shooters? The family left Gatesville, Texas when he was two, and he did most of his growing up in Alamogordo, New Mexico. His older brother, Brad, has become a player and done well. Now, you’re growing into your 40’s and you’re still hacking your way through the wilderness.
It all began to change this year when he won Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament and finished the season 22nd on the PGA money list, and miracles were happening. The bunker shot that finished off the day was “fairly routine,” he said. “It was about 25 feet, I guess. It just hit the pin and dropped in.”
Now, three days in a row and you look for the bottom to drop out. This is not the easiest tournament to attack for a guy who has never been found in the front section of the PGA Tour Guide, where the rich guys live. Tiger Woods has won the Tour Championship only once — and that in Texas. He has never been a strong finisher at East Lake, 20th once, 7th once, second twice, to Goosen last year and to Vijay Singh in 2002.
“I guess there’s something magical about it,” Bryant said. “The No. 1 player in the world, and the No. 4 and I’ve got to go out there against them tomorrow. What I need to do is keep the ball in the fairway and make some putts, then I’ll have a chance. Look, I had a five-stroke lead one time yesterday, and it was gone in four holes, or something. It can change fast out here.”
I’ve been to a lot of these things and seen a lot of amazing finishes. But if Bart Bryant wins this one, it will be the most amazing of all. Just to hold the lead three days in a row, for a guy who has never been there before, that’s amazing enough.
Permalink | | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Weekend Predictions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
There have been a number of theories about why the Falcons have had a generally miserable existence and were unable to post consecutive winning seasons in their history. Ownership, personnel moves, coaching.
But it took Jim Mora to bring a truly unique and completely nonsensical perspective to this subject. And after only 1 1/2 seasons of being a head coach!
It’s so simple, you fool. Mike Kenn and Jeff Van Note — they just talked too much!
Yes, that pretty much summarizes Mora’s press conference this past week. In attempting to deflect questions about the we-no-speak practice of the Falcons’ offensive linemen, Mora inferred the reason past Atlanta teams struggled was because linemen like Kenn and Van Note were so gosh darn articulate.
Because, you know, nothing tears at the chemistry of a team quite like a quote from the center.
It’s the reason offensive linemen are such prima donnas. When the NFL put in rules to limit celebrations, it was because the tackles and centers had spun out of control. And then there’s the celebrity and hip-hop element with the left guards, and …
Ugh.
Meanwhile, back on earth, the Falcons’ linemen are run-blocking very well. So well, it would almost be worth it to talk to them. But I digress.
Atlanta leads the league in rushing (188 per game) — and, amazingly, it’s mostly because of a running back (Warrick Dunn, 104.6), not Michael Vick. Also blocking. But I digress.
Falcons-Dolphins will be all about running. And blocking. There I go again.
The line says Falcons by 2. I say they win and cover.
And if they lose, I’m blaming Van Note.
FOUR BAGS
• Colts at Patriots: Tony Dungy said this week, “It’s still Week 8 and it’s still one game.” OK, T.D. Just jeep telling yourself that. Peyton Manning may be 7-0 this season but he’s 0-7 in New England and has lost six straight to the Pats. I’ll believe a detour is coming when I see it. Take Pats and 3 — and in an “upset.”
THREE BAGS
• Panthers at Swashbucklers: The Bucs have been doing it with funhouse mirrors. They’re really 4-foot-6 but their record makes them appear 7-1. Forget running against Carolina. Or winning. Carolina covers 1.
• Steelers at Packers: Brett Favre, upgraded to probable after his walker was fitted new suction caps, makes his 213th straight start. I’m not sure but I think that offsets the advantage Green Bay would’ve had with Ben Roethlisberger being out. Pitt covers 3.
• Eagles at Redskins: Remember the season opener when those intimidating Eagles went to midfield during warm-ups at the Georgia Dome and jumped up and down? Must’ve taken something out of them. Philly has been outscored 62-14 in the first quarter and blanked in six of seven. Skins cover 3.
TWO BAGS
• Lions at Vikings: Call me goofy but Daunte Culpepper was so screwed up before his knee exploded that Brad Johnson might represent an improvement, even if he is slightly less mobile than Ironside. That said, he’ll probably be institutionalized in a few weeks. Take Minnesota in a pick ‘em.
• Raiders at Chiefs: Trent Green threw for 347 yards and two touchdowns last week — way too late to save my Fantasy League team. Chiefs cover 4.
• Bears at Saints: Tom Benson said in an e-mail to Paul Tagliabue that he won’t let the Saints play in Baton Rouge next season because Tiger Stadium is “inadequate to non-existent.” Wait. Is he talking about the stadium or his team? His cranium? His conscience? His soul? Bears cover 3.
• Bengals at Ravens: Cincy quarterback Carson Palmer has thrown 16 touchdown passes. The entire Ravens’ roster has scored seven TDs. I generally don’t like to use a lot of statistics, except when they make Brian Billick look bad. Bengals cover 3.
• Chargers at Jets: Another exception to the stat rule: LaDainian Tomlinson has as many touchdown passes (3) as four Jets quarterbacks. Bahahahaha. San Diego covers 6.
• Giants at 49ers: San Francisco’s stadium is now called Monster Park, so named for the mutation this team has become. The new starting quarterback is Cody Pickett. Wasn’t he shot off a roof top by Gary Cooper in “High Noon”? He’ll be equally dead today. It’s a big number, but Eli Manning covers 10.
• Seahawks at Cardinals: Shaun Alexander wants a new long-term deal. This would be a good week for incentive clauses. Seahawks cover 4.
DO NOT ADJUST YOUR TELEVISION
• Titans at Browns: Blast the play-by-play over a loudspeaker in Pakistan. That ought to chase Bin Laden out of the bushes. Browns win but take Tennessee and 3.
• Texas at Jaguars: Houston has allowed 681 yards rushing in the last three games, give or take an acre. Jags win but take Texans and 13 1/2.
PROGRESS REPORT
• Last week: 10-4 straight up, 7-7 against the line.
• Fiscal season: 67-33 straight up, 52-46-2 ATL.
• Disclaimer: Results pending confirmation from Jim Mora.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
“NASCARizing” golf won’t fly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the PGA Tour this week paid NASCAR the ultimate compliment. The PGA Tour wants to graft the wildly successful Chase for the Nextel Cup onto the links of this great nation, the aim being for the FedEx Cup, to be instituted in 2007, to do for men’s golf what the Chase has done for stock cars — namely, redefine the whole season.
Sorry. Won’t work.
Here’s why: Sponsors.
Sponsors control NASCAR. Golfers control golf. We Atlantans have just witnessed a vivid case study. Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second and fourth in Sunday’s Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 despite not being Chase-eligible. Phil Mickelson blew off this week’s Tour Championship at East Lake simply because he didn’t feel like playing.
The big golfers — Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh — pick and choose. A NASCAR driver runs every weekend. Jeff Gordon can’t skip a race just because he feels a little piqued. He can’t because the folks at DuPont, the company bankrolling his car, want their logo displayed before 100,000 spectators plus another hefty TV audience every time the green flag waves. Estimates put the cost for a primary sponsorship in a Nextel Cup team at upwards of $15 million. When you spend that kind of money, you expect the maximum return on your outlay.
Golfers are different. Golfers don’t have spotters and pit crews and technical designers. Golfers don’t travel in massive haulers and custom-built motor homes. Nike pays Tiger Woods to wear its clothes and use its clubs, but Nike doesn’t tell Tiger Woods where and when to play. He tells Nike where he’s headed, and company reps show up with boxes of new shirts.
The FedEx Cup is a nice idea — nice, if borrowed — in theory. “It will definitely have an intensifying effect on the last couple of months,” Stuart Appleby said Friday. “It will produce better quality fields ? [and] a lot of excitement.”
Appleby said something else: “You’re basically herding cattle toward a smaller window.”
Actually, cattle tend to travel in groups and be docile about it. Golfers are more like lone wolves. NASCAR got huge because the France family mapped a plan and everybody bought into it. The PGA Tour got bigger because Tiger Woods started winning everything he entered. And, not incidentally, he didn’t enter everything.
The FedEx Cup is designed to make the Big Names play more, but will a series of end-of-season tournaments capped by a fabricated “championship” alter the schedules of guys who adjust their calendars to prepare for the four majors above all else? Consider: Ted Purdy has played in 34 Tour events this season; Woods and Mickelson have played in 21 apiece.
As has been noted, NASCAR is different from other sports. It has its Big Event — the Daytona 500 — at the start, and then everything else is geared toward the Chase. The Chase works because Gordon and Earnhardt wanted badly to be part of it but missed the cut, not because their attentions were elsewhere.
“Do I fully understand [the FedEx Cup]? No,” Ben Crane said. “But the commissioner [Tim Finchem] has a history of doing great things for the Tour.”
Still, Tim Finchem doesn’t control golf. Tiger Woods does. And Woods, when asked Friday if he’d consider playing five or 10 more events a year to accommodate the FedEx Cup, looked at the questioner as if he were nuts. “I don’t know if my body could hold up,” Woods said. “I’ve never played in more than 21 events.”
And there’s your answer right there. Gentlemen of golf, find yourselves a different gimmick.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Golf, Mark Bradley
Mora’s right to defend linemen but delivery’s all wrong
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — He said what? Not only that, Jim Mora said it about whom?
Something’s up here. After all, two things are quite apparent about this thinking man’s coach of the Falcons: He’s bright, and he’s perceptive. So surely there was more to the story when Mora responded to that rather harmless question the other day involving former team legends Jeff Van Note and Mike Kenn by theorizing that their loquacious ways as offensive linemen contributed to the Falcons’ yearly spiral into purgatory back then.
That’s in contrast to Mora’s group of offensive linemen who have opted to spend a second consecutive year speaking only slightly more than a blade of artificial grass in the Georgia Dome.
Whatever works, which only was part of Mora’s point by contrasting the philosophy of his offensive linemen with that of Van Note and Kenn. To hear Mora tell it, the quiet ways of his guys contributed to his first Falcons team reaching the NFC championship game last season. He also suggested that it is helping his second Falcons team contend high in its division this season at 5-2. Which brings us to the primary reason why Mora said what he did regarding Van Note and Kenn (“Were they good talkers? How were their teams? Pretty good? My point exactly.�), and that is: Call him Sigmund Mora, master at preparing his players mentally as well as physically.
In other words, courtesy of this Van Note and Kenn thing, Mora has another way to support the silent wishes of his offensive linemen in general and of Alex Gibbs, their former coach and current consultant, in particular. More importantly, this is just a continuation of Mora doing what he should do, and that is to keep separating the shiny image of his Falcons from those of the franchise’s gloomy past.
The problem is, Mora does so clumsily on occasion.
“You have to understand where he’s coming from, though, which is that he’s kind of in that ‘Grrrrrrr’ mold, where he’s all about his players, and he will do anything to defend them until the end,â€? said Jamal Anderson, who gained quite a few yards for the Falcons and once ran them into a Super Bowl. That said, Anderson supports Mora’s philosophy of operating as if the Falcons’ history began on Jan. 9, 2004, the day that Mora was hired. “He’s never going to throw his guys under the bus, and he wears his emotions on his sleeve. Hey, I totally understand what he’s trying to do, and it’s necessary in order to get rid of 30-something years of mediocrity.â€?
No question there. It’s just that, well, this Van Note and Kenn thing wasn’t the best way for Mora to go. “Jeff and Mike didn’t misconstrue what I said. I talked to both of them, and they appreciated [my comments],� Mora said on Thursday after practice. “As I pointed out, they’re both nominated for the Hall of Fame. I mean, the only persons who could have misconstrued what was said were the people who weren’t in this room and heard the line of questioning. I was just responding to the question.�
Just like Mora was responding to another question regarding this Van Note and Kenn thing by saying, “I can never remember an offensive lineman being quoted, and I’ve been around a long time.�
Yeah, well. Centuries ago, when I covered the Oakland Raiders for a San Francisco paper, two of the most interviewed players were guard Gene Upshaw, now head of the NFL players union, and tackle Art Shell, the league’s first African-American head coach in modern times and currently in the NFL office. Plus, Mora was an assistant in New Orleans under his father, the older Jim Mora, for the first half of the 1990s. Those Saints had Willie Roaf, a Pro Bowl offensive lineman who was so popular that he had his own radio show. In addition to Van Note and Kenn, the list of prolific talkers among offensive linemen for the Falcons have ranged from Robbie Tobeck to Jamie Dukes to Bob Whitfield.
Anyway, Mora told me with a straight face that his offensive linemen have only one designated speaker each week for another reason: “It’s great for a guy like [backup center] Austin King to get to talk to the media. It’s a great learning process for those young guys.�
Then, after a slight pause, Mora burst into laughter.
He gets it.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Unfamiliar names make themselves known
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
So this is for the championship of the PGA Tour, and if so, where are Fred Couples, and John Daly, and Stewart Cink, and Brad Faxon, and Mike Weir? You know, the old established firms?
In their absence, there are names here you don’t expect to see in the Tour Championship. It’s not easy making this list. You develop your bank account in 2005 and you’re on the honor roll. So Phil Mickelson didn’t choose to accept his appointment, but Bart Bryant and eight other guys who had never enjoyed the hospitality of this spectacle before did. And I’ll tell you, the route for some has been a roller coaster ride.
Take Brandt Jobe, for instance. Jobe came off the golf assembly line at UCLA in 1988, but his game was still in incubation. He played the Canadian Tour. He played the Japan Tour for six years, played well and made a good living. Played well enough one year to get invited to the Masters, but it was 1999 before he finally made it home to stay. He was still up and down the exempt list until he came in 25th this year, and here he is at East Lake.
Then there are Ted Purdy, Lucas Glover, Olin Browne, Ben Crane, Sean O’Hair, and the man at the top of the leaderboard, Bryant. Now the Bryant name has been hanging around the PGA Tour for several years. Before Bart, there was his brother, Brad, more commonly known among the tour warriors as “Dr. Dirt.� Mainly, that referred to Brad’s choice of wearing apparel. He just wasn’t a clothes horse, and frankly didn’t give a darn how he rated with the sartorial eggheads.
Bart is the better player of the Bryants, and when he won the Memorial Tournament this year, he peaked. That is, unless the top of the leaderboard doesn’t change between now and Sunday. Bart’s career didn’t begin to gain momentum until he won the Texas Open last year at the age of 40. The school he came from, New Mexico State, isn’t known among the golfing elite — though it is Rich Beem’s alma mater — and he had done nothing to polish its reputation until all of a sudden.
Well, let’s see, that leaves us with Purdy, Crane, Glover, O’Hair and Browne. Crane is no stranger in these parts. He won his first tournament two years ago in the BellSouth Classic. Glover came out of Clemson swinging, and just last month blasted a shot out of the bunker in the Funai Classic that landed him here. That made him, I’m told, the first Tiger to win a PGA Tour tournament since Clarence Rose won The International.
Purdy is one of those names that popped up once and awhile on leaderboards, but never until the Byron Nelson this year had he ever threatened to win a tournament. He’s one of those who had to survive on Far Eastern cuisine awhile before he could make it back to the States. He was rookie of the year on the Asian Tour in 1997, and since that time his life has been a series of Q-schools and the Nationwide Tour, and suddenly here he is.
O’Hair is a rookie in the Tour Championship field. For the longest time it seemed he’d go through life more widely known for his wretched upbringing with his father than as a player. Then it came forth in the Byron Nelson that he had a game, and he underlined it when he won the John Deere. At his press conference this week, it was a relief that nobody asked a question about his life with father.
Olin Browne — well, it seems he has been around longer than dirt, but he’s only 46 and simply rediscovered his game. He has won on the tour, but it was a while ago, and it seemed he was moving into the twilight of his career until he won the Fall Finish, one of those auxiliaries the tour has established. And here he is, on the board at 2 under par.
Did I mention Billy Mayfair? Last year he was 140th on the tour, then he switched to a belly putter, got away from that “cut� putt stroke, and his game lives again. Oh, we shouldn’t forget that ol’ Billy won this thing once 10 years ago, a long shot but not as long as Jodie Mudd, who won it in 1990. Now there’s a name out of the archives, wherever he may be.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
College picks, minus the cleavage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Some Exclusive Resort, Fiji — You can step off my coattails any time you like, Cha-Cha.
Weekend Predictions Inc. has temporarily transferred operations from a corner table in the AJC’s third-floor death diner adjacent to the salad bar, where the standard question remains: “Is it supposed to be that color?”
Recent profits, boosted by last week’s 6-1-1 record against the line, have led me to a lounge chair under a palm, drinking something blue out of a smoking coconut. Suddenly, employment is optional.
A week ago, leaving would’ve been an easy decision. But that changed Thursday when AJC.com, whose motto is, “Come FlogBlog our writers for free!� posted a video link on its front to: “Jessica Simpson Tops Best Cleavage Poll!� It was accompanied by audio that I would consider sound explanatory journalism: “Jessica set the standard for busty bombshells with a pair of perfect double-D’s.�
I figure any media outlet that would finally ignore the BCS and recognize the rankings that really count is worth a second look. Actually, the video was worth more than a second look. But I want my wife to know I found it disgusting. All 12 times.
For what it’s worth, the poll by “In Touch Weekly� was close. Simpson’s cleavage edged out Salma Hayek, Carmen Electra and Phil Fulmer.
Which leads me to Tennessee. The Vols, fresh off the South Carolina pallet of death, drag into South Bend this week. They’ve lost three straight since beating Mississippi, which doesn’t really count. The last time they lost this many in a row, Johnny Majors was forced out. But the only way that happens to Fulmer is if he backstabs himself this time.
Tennessee ranks 108th at 16 points per game. In terms of scoring, that places them ahead of only Syracuse, Duke, Army, Middle Tennessee State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Temple, Buffalo, North Texas and several middle-aged sportswriters.
So. Is this where they cowboy up for a Music City Bowl invite? Notre Dame is giving nine. Consider it covered.
Side dishes
Wake Up at G-Tech: The Jackets head into this game as a favorite, which differentiates it from the following three games when they’re a three-course meal (at Virginia, at Miami, Georgia). Bon appétit. Tech wins, but take Wake and 8.
Miami at V-Tech: The ACC places Miami and FSU on opposite sides of the bracket to set up an annual title-palooza, and here go the Hokies ruining everything for TV executives. I like that about them. Temperatures will be low enough to kill an orange crop or an upset. Hokies cover 6 1/2.
Vanderbilt at Florida: Do you realize Urban Meyer (1-0) already has as many wins in the Georgia-Florida series as Mark Richt (1-4), Jim Donnan (1-4) or Ray Goff (1-6)? Sorry. Last shot until next year. Still, nobody should be claiming superiority after a 14-10 win. Gators win, but take Vandy and 19.
South Carolina at Arkansas: Not to alarm you, but had Steve Spurrier pulled that little upset in Athens, the Gamecocks would be in a three-way tie for first in the SEC East right now, with only Arkansas and Florida left. And if the Piggies had beaten Georgia — well, they’d still stink. Take the Roosters and four — and in a straight upset.
Alabama at Missy State: The Tide goes to 9-0, then loses to LSU or Auburn, I haven’t decided yet. (Ratings trick: Come back next week.) Bammy wins and covers 16.
Auburn at Kentucky: This normally could be a “trap� game, as Auburn has Georgia and Alabama coming up. But some Kentucky players were so giddy after last week’s win that they discussed going to a bowl. Huh? Tigers cover 22 1/2.
N.C. State at Florida State: If the Seminoles win, they clinch a spot in the ACC title game. If the Wolfpack wins, Chuck Amato is just having another hallucination. ‘Noles win, but take Pack and 13.
Temple Beth Dreadful at Virginia: The Owls (0-9) have been outscored 109-17 by three ACC teams, but Al Groh inspires little confidence with a big spread. Virginia wins, but take Temple and 35 1/2.
Accounts payable
Last week: 7-1 straight up, 6-1-1 against the line.
Fiscal season: 48-11 straight up, 37-21-1 against the line.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
I’m just thinking
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Quicker hits than usual this week:
I think the Braves will miss Leo Mazzone much more than they’re letting on.
I think Mazzone was undervalued within this organization, which, if you’re an organization built on pitching, always seemed pretty strange to me.
I think the White Sox won the World Series — and went 11-1 in postseason — because Cleveland put the fear of elimination in them the last two weeks of the regular season. Chicago wasn’t a wild-card team, but it had to play like one just to get into the playoffs.
I think Jim Mora has gotten a lecture on how not to trash the history of your own organization. And I think he needed it.
I think Georgia was unlucky to lose to Florida but isn’t quite good enough to have been thinking about an unbeaten regular season, anyway. If that makes any sense.
I think the Hawks need to guard somebody.
I think the Falcons are such a chic pick to lose in Miami — both Peter King and Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated have picked the Dolphins — that they’ll win.
I think Rafael Furcal is leaving.
Then again, I thought Tom Glavine was staying.
I think Jeff Van Note showed a lot of class Wednesday. Then again, he’s a Kentucky grad. Comes with the diploma.
I think Andruw Jones will win the MVP.
I think Vince Young is making a big run, no pun intended, at the Heisman.
I think Texas will beat Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl.
I think I’m done here.
Permalink | Comments (49) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
My five most interesting interviews
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
By popular demand, Journal-Constitution columnist Furman Bisher, author of the new book "Face to Face," gives us the five most interesting subjects he’s ever interviewed:
Shoeless Joe Jackson: Not for his personality or warmth, but for the historical significance of it. It was the only time he ever talked on record about the Black Sox scandal of 1919, the World Series “fix.” This was for a story in Sport Magazine in 1949. I’d seen him twice before, but never had a conversation with him. He was glum, low on personality, but he did let me have a swing with his famous “Black Betsy” bat.
Red Grange: I have never met a more humble immortal. He had retired to Florida, given up broadcasting, and was living modestly in one of those created resorts near Lake Wales. Coaching? "How could you coach running, when you didn’t know how you did it yourself?" He didn’t even possess an "I" sweater from his days at Illinois.
Bobby Jones: All I can say is, no man ever gave more generously of his time, and no man ever shot straighter. I never saw him swing a golf club. He was already crippled by the time I came to know him in the 1950s and got about with the help of a cane or crutches.
Pete Rademacher: "Pete who?" you say. He’s the only man who ever turned pro the night he fought for the world heavyweight championship. Floyd Patterson was his target, and he had him down in the second round. A former soldier and Olympic champion who organized his own pro campaign, raised money for the purse, was delightful, intelligent, all those things, and is still promoting one thing or another in Ohio.
Ted Williams: First met him when he was a pilot in training at Pensacola in 1945, and I was a Navy Lt. (SG) doing a story for The Sporting News. Then, 35 years later, we shared a hotel suite for a baseball blowout in North Carolina, and for three hours we sat and swapped tales. I’ll say he turned out to be a pretty good interviewer himself.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Furman Bisher
Falcons still an unproven quantity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Falcons aren’t as good as their record, but they’re better than they’ve played. They’re where they need to be, but they’re not yet what they’ll have to be. They could wind up with home-field advantage come January, but they could also miss the playoffs.
Is this doublespeak? Not really. Here’s Rich McKay, the general manager: “We’re a still-unproven 5-2 team.”
That beats the heck out of being a proven 1-6 team, but knowing what the Falcons are doesn’t tell us where they’re going. They’ve dropped hints, yes. They beat Philadelphia on the season’s first Monday night, but that’s their only victory over a team carrying a winning record. And the more they’ve played, the less they’ve impressed.
They have the 28th-best passing offense and the 23rd-ranked defense in a 32-team league. Those aren’t nearly Super Bowl numbers, and they really don’t compute. The Falcons have a quarterback with a great left arm and a defense that was supposed to be nastier than last season’s.
The Falcons are 5-2 because they still run the ball better than anyone else and because both their quarterback and their defense have made just enough plays to win. And circumstances have had their mitigating effect, as circumstances will. Michael Vick hasn’t been fully himself since the Philly opener, and the defense took a hit when Ed Hartwell was lost.
Still, you wouldn’t expect a defense that saw only four backs have 100-yard days against it last season to have been nicked for three such games already. (Or to have yielded 211 rushing yards to the Saints, who were without Deuce McAllister.) And you wouldn’t expect any competent starting quarterback to have gone into November without a 200-yard game passing, but that’s what Vick, who’s being paid to be a superstar, has done.
The most troubling sign of 2005 could be found in the narrow loss to New England. Matt Schaub threw for 298 yards that day, and his performance suggested that not everything wrong with the passing game can be pinned on Dez White. If Schaub can do it, Vick should be able to do it. While it’s right and proper to praise Vick for making plays other quarterbacks can’t, it’s not unreasonable to expect him to do the things an NFL quarterback should — like complete the occasional downfield pass.
We all proclaimed the schedule front-loaded, which goes to show how schedules can mislead. The tale of the Falcons’ season wasn’t told in the first five weeks, as we’d anticipated, but will be written in the upcoming home-and-homes against Carolina and Tampa Bay, both of which are likewise 5-2. Win three of those four games and the Falcons will be playing for the NFC’s No. 1 seed. Lose three of those four and they might not grab a wild card. To win such games, the Falcons will have to show more than they have to date.
“Internally, we know that,” McKay says. “And I like that… . I don’t think anybody in our building thinks we can play the way we have the last seven games in these next seven games.”
Vick might not be the most precise passer since Ken Anderson, but he should complete more than 52.4 percent of his throws. This defense might not be the second coming of Buddy Ryan’s Bears, but it should be able to stop the run. The nice thing about these Falcons is that, for a change, there’s no lack of wherewithal. The assembled talent simply has to play to its capacity.
“We’re a work in progress,” McKay says. “We’ve teased you with our upside, but we haven’t played to our full potential. And we’re still 5-2.”
They are. But to get to 12-4 or even 10-6, more will be required. More very soon.
Permalink | Comments (49) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
PGA shouldn’t tinker with schedule
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Gentlemen, rev up your engines. The PGA Tour is about to go NASCAR. I think, though I’m not quite sure in just what direction it’s heading, nor, one gathers from his press conference at East Lake Golf Club yesterday, neither is Commissioner Tim Finchem. “Just generally,” he said, “there will be a point system.”
And his State of the Tour commentary was peppered with such phrases as “we’re not in position to announce details,” and “that’s something we’ll be discussing,” and “we’re not through with that process yet.”
That is not to be interpreted as indecision, but that there are decisions to be made, and not dealt with frivolously.
What the commissioner is concerned about is that the PGA Tour does not have its grand climax. No World Series, no Super Bowl, no Final Four event to get the world all balled up in a big dither. That was the idea behind the Tour Championship, but truth to tell, it has become more anti-climax than climax. After years of meandering, it couldn’t have settled in a more suitable home. East Lake. Bobby Jones. Donald Ross course with a Rees Jones touch-up. And behind it, a surge of regional enthusiasm spearheaded by the vigorous Tom Cousins, backed up by Coca-Cola and the Southern Co. But it hasn’t taken off in full flight, as Finchem and golf in general had anticipated. It ran head-on into the football season, and football gobbles up television time and audiences. The purse is nice, $6.5-million for a field of 30, but not enough to attract even the full 30 this year. Phil Mickelson decided not to come here, where in 2000, he set what is still the 72-hole record for the event. Finchem was disappointed. So was Mickelson’s press chief, T.R. Reinman, who simply said, “He said he just didn’t feel like playing any more golf right now.”
This year, the NASCAR world decided to put in a sort of second season, with points to be contested. The jury is still out on that. But that’s what Finchem has in mind for the tour, a tour within the tour. If the commissioner himself wasn’t in position to explain it yet, I’m surely not able to. But what it seems to boil down to is that a series of tournaments leading up to the Tour Championship will cap off the season in September. But not so fast there. The season still wouldn’t be over yet. There would be some tournaments following, and in essence, they would be playing the end of one season and the beginning of the next at the same time. If you’re expecting more, I’m sorry. That’s about as far as I can go, but basically, Finchem is grasping for something to keep the tour from falling off the board in the fall.
Tournament golf has taken a lot of remodeling in recent years. I’m not positive that this series of World Championship events has all the continents in a tizzy of enthusiasm. It isn’t easy to get the American side zeroed in on tournaments played at Valderrama, Victoria Clube de Golf, Mount Juliet Conrad, and such venues that read like mystery titles. The World Cup, for instance, has lost its identity.
What amounts to a successful tournament in the USA is one with Tiger Woods in the field. A student of the game suggested the other day, “Why don’t they just have a Tiger Tour, just those tournaments in which he plays?” Just a few feet from me a group of people, presumably in town for the Tour Championship, are gabbing away. You know what they’re talking about? Football. Don’t they realize this is golf season?
It has been my impression that the PGA Tour already had the best point system in the world — earnings. That pretty much covers everything, it seems. You finish in the top 125, you’re in business for next year. But it’s the fall depression that has the commissioner bothered, realizing, I’m sure, that he is dealing in a world of self-oriented contractors. So Independent Contractor Mickelson stays home.
So this is it, as Finchem sees it: “It needs to be a system that encourages players to play more.”
If money isn’t enough, God knows what is.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf, Other
Better late than never for NFL to back N.O.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
It took a while, but Paul Tagliabue is doing what he should have done two months ago regarding the New Orleans (as opposed to the San Antonio or Los Angeles) Saints. That is, the NFL commissioner actually is helping rather than hurting them.
Remember? Back then, after the Saints were scattered by Hurricane Katrina, Tagliabue decided to have the Saints play a “home” game against the New York Giants on the road. It contributed to the Saints’ current slide into purgatory. If you didn’t know better, you’d have thought Tagliabue really was preparing to send the Saints elsewhere.
It also didn’t bode well for New Orleans that ruthless Saints owner Tom Benson kept hinting by his silence that he might take the team to San Antonio, where he has a home, or to Los Angeles, where the NFL makes no secret that it wants a new team someday.
Just the talk of moving the franchise hurts all of those associated with the Saints (players, executives, fans), especially given the emotional turmoil associated with the hurricane.
Now listen to Tagliabue, who said on Monday, “The Saints are Louisiana’s team and have been since the late ’60s when my predecessor, Pete Rozelle, welcomed them to the league as New Orleans’ team and Lousiana’s team. Our focus continues to be on having the Saints in Louisiana.”
Case closed. If Benson doesn’t like it, he always can sell to the highest bidder and do his famous “Boogie” out of town.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
SEC goes from All-Mighty to overrated
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Sorry to burst those bubbles the size of Steve Spurrier’s ego, but when it comes to The All-Mighty SEC in college football, there is the myth, and then there is the reality. Here’s the myth: That there still is such a thing as The All-Mighty SEC in college football. As for the reality, this is the most overrated and overhyped conference, division or league in sports.
You do have the All-Mighty ACC in college football right now. Courtesy of solid teams from Virginia Tech, Miami, Florida State and Boston College at the top and the competitive likes of Georgia Tech, Clemson, Maryland and Virginia in the middle, the ACC is what the SEC used to be, and that is a conference whose strengths aren’t exaggerated.
“Well, you know what? I think what you’re saying is obvious,” said Bill Curry, an expert on this subject. Not only is he an ESPN analyst for the sport, but he was a head coach in the ACC (Georgia Tech) and in the SEC (Kentucky and Alabama). “The SEC is going to win a bunch, but it’s not going to dominate Michigan and Texas and Notre Dame, not like it used to. It’s a conference [the SEC] that has lost its luster, and I don’t see how anybody could even begin to argue that point.”
I mean, Tennessee? Long before the Volunteers exposed themselves as frauds earlier this season, it was clear that they hadn’t a quarterback. Nobody ever will confuse Erik Ainge or Rick Clausen with anybody good. Still, courtesy of the myth, the Volunteers were ranked No. 3 by preseason polls. Now they aren’t even the best team around the Smokies. In case you haven’t noticed, historically putrid Vanderbilt has more victories (four to three) than the Volunteers. Plus, Tennessee is a Saturday trip to Notre Dame away from sliding two games below .500.
Elsewhere, after all of that whining around the SEC over the prospects of having another Auburn this season (an undefeated team without a shot at a national championship), consider two things: First, Georgia showed that it is D.J. Shockley and a bunch of talented but complementary players. Without the injured Shockley, the Bulldogs collapsed against an inferior Florida team with significant flaws, especially on offense. Second, Alabama hasn’t lost, but Alabama joins Florida and Tennessee among the many SEC teams that can’t score. Alabama averages fewer points per game than such powers as Navy, Tulsa and Louisiana Tech.
Speaking of powers that aren’t, you have South Carolina. Even so, the Gamecocks just won at Tennessee for the first time ever. The great Spurrier aside, they shouldn’t win at Tennessee. (And how good is LSU, since the Tigers choked in Death Valley to a Tennessee bunch that choked to South Carolina?) South Carolina is among the slew of athletically challenged SEC teams in most seasons.
Which brings me to more of the myth: That the reason why the traditional SEC powers have so many patsies on their schedule (LSU played North Texas last week and has Appalachian State this week for homecoming) is because the conference schedule is so brutal. There are 12 SEC teams, and the only thing brutal about half of them (South Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Kentucky and Vanderbilt) is the way that they’ve played in recent years.
So when did The All-Mighty SEC in college football vanish?
“I think it began to happen when all of that cheating became public, and after it was proven and was documented and people started to go on probation and losing scholarships,” Curry said. “Not only did that hurt the teams that were doing the cheating and got put on probation, but it hurt everybody. At that point, a lot of good football players were lost by the SEC to other conferences. That’s because parents started to say, ‘Well, gee, I don’t want you to go somewhere that has that kind of a reputation.’ “
Earlier this decade, Curry predicted such an exodus from the conference during an SEC media day. Former commissioner Roy Kramer was so furious that he demanded that Curry justify his remarks to Kramer’s security chief. “I told [Kramer] that I’d be glad to, so I started documenting things right and left, and the guy never called me back again,” Curry said.
Guess the guy knew Curry would become omniscient.
Permalink | Comments (345) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Hawks will be better, but how much?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Hawks are going to be better. That’s the good news. The bad news: They couldn’t possibly be worse. And now more bad news: Being better is a long way from winning.
The Hawks were 13-69 last season. Says Mike Woodson, their coach: “My goal is to make the playoffs.”
He believes a .500 record would do it. A .500 record would be 41-41. The Hawks would have to improve by 28 games to get to .500. And how hard is that?
In 1969 the Milwaukee Bucks drafted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar … and improved by 29 games. In 1992 the Orlando Magic drafted Shaquille O’Neal … and improved by 20 games. In 1984 the Chicago Bulls drafted Michael Jordan … and improved by 11 games.
The Hawks have added Joe Johnson, who’s a good player, and Marvin Williams, who’ll be a good player. They have more talent than at any time since the Blaylock-Smith-Mutombo-Laettner nucleus was broken up at the shank of the 20th century. But we must temper our expectations with the realization that the only NBA teams that get exponentially better overnight tend to do so by adding a future Hall of Famer — or at least an MVP-to-be, as happened last season when Steve Nash joined Phoenix and the Suns improved by 33 games — and nobody among these Hawks yet fits such a lofty profile.
“It’s all about making the playoffs,” Woodson says. “As a coach, I’m not into saying, ‘Let’s try to win 20 games.’ Anything’s possible.”
And then Woodson says: “Is anybody picking us to make the playoffs?”
He knows the answer: Nobody is. The best estimates have the Hawks nudging upward from dead last in the NBA to 24th-best among the 30 teams. And that’s not nothing. That’s improvement.
The Hawks got worse — dumping Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Antoine Walker and even Rasheed Wallace, in uniform for only one game — on purpose. They shed salary so they could have money to spend on a difference-making free agent. The Hawks are paying Johnson $70 million to make a difference. The Hawks believe he’s an established player who’s about to become an All-Star.
They believed Williams was the most talented player in the June draft, and he might well have been. But Williams, who didn’t start a game in his season at North Carolina, was the Hawks’ seventh-leading scorer in preseason, and already it’s being said that he’s too deferential. (The same was said during his brief time in Chapel Hill.) The Hawks didn’t burn their highest draft choice in 30 years on someone who’s content to be a role player. They need Williams to be a star.
“We do have some offensive weapons,” Woodson says, and that commodity has been in short supply. At issue is whether these Hawks will complement one another or simply replicate each other’s skills. Their five best players — Johnson, Williams, Al Harrington, Josh Childress and Josh Smith — are between 6 feet 7 and 6-9. The Hawks believe having interchangeable parts is the wave of tomorrow, but surely there will be moments when they’d like to have a better point guard than Tyronn Lue or a stronger center than Zaza Pachulia.
Already the season of promise has been touched by darkness. No one can say how the loss of Jason Collier will affect this impressionable team. “He was part of our family,” Woodson says. “It’s going to be tough.”
The young Hawks can honor Collier’s memory by conducting themselves with the professionalism he showed. There’s the potential for growth here that hasn’t existed since this franchise moved into Philips Arena in 1999, but growth seldom takes a direct course. The young Hawks will wobble before they walk, and the prospect of running still seems a good ways off.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
The Tuesday Countdown: Braves, Dogs, Birds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: So one year after winning their first World Series in 86 years, the Red Sox barely reached the post-season, lost in the first round of the playoffs and had their general manager leave town on Halloween night. So who wants to be the first to set an over/under on the Sox’ next title?
9: I know. I know. One year before the Braves. Speaking of which…
8: I took some abuse from the masses in the Land of the Devoted But Uninformed after daring to suggest in a recent column that losing pitching coach Leo Mazzone wasn’t anything to panic over. But just the other day, our David O’Brien drew this reaction from pitcher John Smoltz on Mazzone’s exit: “I’ve been with him longer than anybody, and he’s helped me a lot. But people on the inside understand. Maybe not from the outside; people on the outside think there is a huge void to fill. It’s not a huge void.â€?
7: No apologies necessary. Maybe a beer.
6: I personally don’t care whether DeAngelo Hall wears Nike or Reebok. Getting faked out of either pair seems like the bigger concern.
5: Not that it matters. But I still can’t figure out how Georgia falls from 4 to 11 in the rankings when it was a four-point underdog to Florida without D.J. Shockley — and lost by four points. Are they being ranked with Joe Tereshinski or with Shockley? The Dogs suddenly find themselves behind LSU (6-1), UCLA (8-0), Notre Dame (5-2) and Penn State (8-1).
4: In this week’s Tuesday Countdown Celebrity News, things are getting nasty in the Kim Basinger-Alec Baldwin split. Baldwin says Kimmy has a “pathological need� to turn their daughter against him. Kimmy says jerk-face has “severe emotional problems.� Clearly, both are telling the truth. But I’ve gotta side with who looks better in stilettos.
3: Roger McDowell, Mazzone’s replacement, was famous in his pitching days for practical jokes, including using gum to stick a book of burning matches to a teammate’s shoe. That certainly would’ve made mound visits interesting this season.
2: An online betting service has posted odds on what baseball player from a playoff team supposedly secretly tested positive for steroids. Gary Sheffield is listed as the favorite among 12 players at 2-1. No Braves were listed, which means either that they’re clean or everybody has stopped paying attention to them in October.
1: Thrashers. Hawks. Bird flu?
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
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