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September 2006
Jackets proclaim new trend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Blacksburg, Va. — A year ago, the schizophrenic team that was Georgia Tech traveled to Miami and, with the backdrop of a maligned head coach, a worn down athletics director and an infuriated fan base, stunned the Hurricanes.
What happened Saturday was bigger.
It’s one thing to end a winning streak of a traditional national power. It’s another for a team to extend its own winning streak and act like that’s the norm. It’s one thing to ruin the week of a favorite. It’s another to set a new direction.
What happened Saturday at Virginia Tech was bigger because this wasn’t merely about an opponent falling back. It was about Georgia Tech stepping up. The biggest victories don’t come late in a relatively lost season, after you’ve already lost to N.C. State and Virginia. The biggest wins set a tone early.
The Yellow Jackets scored 21 points in the first 11 minutes Saturday against a team that pounded them 51-7 the year before in this same death trap of a stadium. In doing so, they numbed an entire state and maybe a conference.
The 38-27 win over the Hokies banged a tone seldom heard on The Flats.
This makes four straight wins since the season-opening loss to Notre Dame, a game that told coach Chan Gailey as much about this team as any that have followed. He remarked in the aftermath Saturday how impressed he was that the Jackets hung with the Irish in a physical game on national TV.
“We didn’t win, but I told our guys after that game, ‘You gained respect,’?” Gailey said. “Now what you do with the respect depends on the rest of the year.”
It follows that Georgia Tech’s season depends on how it handles success. Suddenly, it’s up the Jackets. There isn’t an opponent on the rest of the schedule they can’t beat.
Yes, it’s bigger than the Miami game. It’s the biggest win in the Gailey era. It’s a win that enables a team to look ahead with possibilities. Late-season upsets only let you look back with regret.
“This puts us in the lead of the conference,” linebacker KaMichael Hall said. “At the same time, it’s bad because now you know everybody in the ACC will be gunning for you.”
Teams gunning for Georgia Tech. That may take a while to sink in.
Gailey had struggled against the conference powers at Tech. He was 0-2 against Virginia Tech, 0-2 against Florida State and 1-1 against Miami. This game possibly ignites a program makeover.
It was an unusual week leading up to the Virginia Tech game. Gailey said the “rah-rah atmosphere” (his words) that preceded the Notre Dame game was absent. Things were more businesslike.
Certainly, the Jackets acted Saturday like this is where they were supposed to be. They led 21-0 after 11 minutes. As plots go, this one was unfolding as fantasy for the Jackets, horror for the Hokies and absurdity for everybody else. The Hokies had outscored Tech 85-27 in two previous ACC meetings. As a general rule, teams that get outscored 85-27 don’t take early 21-0 leads, at least not without hallucinogens.
If the Jackets wanted to make a point, they did so early. On the first play of the game, Reggie Ball completed a 59-yard pass to a non-Calvin Johnson (James, the other wide receiver). Four plays later, Ball connected with the more famous Johnson for a 3-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead.
Virginia Tech was 51-7 at home in the last 13-plus seasons. Usually, it’s the visitor that suffers the meltdown. But consider what followed. Virginia Tech’s punter shanked a punt 16 yards. Moments later from midfield, Ball ran play-action and completed a short toss to Calvin Johnson, who broke loose for 53 yards and a 14-0 lead. (This makes two weeks in a row Johnson scored twice as a “game time” decision. Ah, the wonders of medicine — and fabrication.)
Johnson’s second score was followed by a blocked punt. The blocked punt was followed by another Tech touchdown. On the sideline, Hall wondered if he was in REM state.
“It was a crazy feeling,” he said. “I looked up and thought, ‘Dang! We’ve got 21 points. And they don’t have any!’ It says a lot that we could do this.”
It’ll say even more if it continues.
Permalink | Comments (83) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Better team won in Ryder debacle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Kildare, Ireland — From the moment their very first shot was struck (Tiger Woods’ tee ball found water) the 36th Ryder Cup was on the way to becoming an American disaster. The final score was a repeated embarrassment, but it would have been worse had not Paul McGinley, the amiable Irishman, generously conceded a 20-foot putt to halve the 18th hole with J.J. Henry, a stern finishing hole commonly known as the “Hooker’s Graveyard.” Chris DiMarco left his last two fairway shots in the water there.
After lengthy review and much probing analysis, some conclusions became obvious: That the better team won; that the Americans just don’t bond like the Europeans; that the Ryder Cup is of deeper meaning to the Europeans than to the wealthy, spoiled Americans; that the President’s Cup is a fly in the American ointment, strange though that the USA has a better record against the World team than against the Europeans; and, Larry Nelson, thank your lucky stars you weren’t the captain of this team.
No reflection on Tom Lehman here, God knows, he did everything but warm their bottles and tuck them in each night. Captains don’t win Ryder Cups, nor do they lose them, and I cite Hal Sutton and Ian Woosnam here. Sure, Sutton paired Woods and Phil Mickelson at Oakland Hills, but instead of putting forth one for the team, they paired like contankerous brats. As for Woosnam, don’t give the little Welshman too much credit, for he is hardly a psychological giant. Who can forget the front-page pictures of him the morning after with champagne spouting out his nose? The spirit of the European team was centered around the three Irish members, Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley, though the ranking Harrington, hometown son, found himself on the defensive after his half-point performance.
Once upon a time there was a notion projected that the competition should be tour vs. tour, Euro vs. USA. That’s outdated now because the tours are so intermingled. So scratch that one. One point of confusion arose on the second day when the Americans showed up in blue shirts. Blue is the Euro Union colors, so you had confusion at times, trying to determine which was which. No explanation was ever made, and the switch of hues brought the American side no change of luck.
The question of Tiger Woods, yes, he finally improved his Cup performance. Yet, at times, it was almost as if he was captain without portfolio. Lehman gave him the privilege of choosing Jim Furyk as his partner, and neither of the rookies were given a chance to pair with the No. l. Furyk carried Woods in the Friday four-ball, then they lost two of the next three matches. On Sunday, pure luck of the draw, Woods drew Europe’s weakest player, Robert Karlsson, the Swede. In the end, you wondered what had Brett Wetterich or Vaughn Taylor, or Zach Johnson or Henry in common with Woods, except golf is their job.
Tell you one thing, if ever there was any doubt, the Irish proved they know how to put on a party. This Ryder Cup was beautifully done, daily crowds of 45,000 managed smoothly, the water-logged K Club in professional condition in spite of the fractious weather, and if there was any unrighteous behavior, it never made print. This gave The K Club a boost unimaginable. The Irish Independent reported Wednesday that in the 36 hours since the tournament, $250,000 worth of bookings had been made at the course.
There was one other mellow piece of conjecture doing the rounds, and broadcasters were speaking of it in terms of fact: That the next two captains will come from the broadcast booth, that Abbott and Costello team of ABC, Paul Azinger to lead the USA and Nick Faldo to lead the Europeans. Sounds like a promotional natural, though the PGA of America quite often appears to take delight in shooting down the brightly conceived obvious.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Furman Bisher
NFL injury report involves creative writing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Twice a week, every NFL team is required to make public an amusing little item called “the injury report.”
It runs in the sports section — at least until I can start a movement to throw it into “Entertainment,” along with the comics, UFO sightings and presidential inauguration speeches.
This week, the Falcons list defensive end John Abraham as questionable with a groin strain. This will make three straight weeks Abraham’s groin is “questionable.” Maybe he should start wearing “Riddler” boxer shorts, with little question marks.
Abraham hasn’t touched his helmet since late in the Falcons’ season opener at Carolina, when he keeled over and dropped into the fetal position like a Thrashers goalie. There was nothing questionable about his status then.
Let’s apply a little logic here. If Abraham is really “50-50,” as is the definition of questionable, for game No. 4 this week against Arizona, it’s safe to assume that he was significantly worse than questionable for game No. 2 against Tampa Bay, particularly if he was moving like he’d just fallen off a moving train.
But such is life in the NFL injury report’s gray zone. It’s like trying to measure the horizon.
Why have an injury report at all?
“The problem is if you go the other way, you’ll get the out-and-out lying,” said Rich McKay, the Falcons’ president and general manager and a member of the league’s competition committee.
“If you decide you’re not going to have any report, then you’re not going to get any information. Then what you’re going to get is the next step, which will be no access to practice. You’ll promote the idea of: ‘I will get an advantage because nothing will get out.’ That’s what we don’t want.”
So instead, we get the Wednesday half-truths, followed by the Friday updated incomplete truths.
I’m not really sure what the point of the updates are. It’s like giving a clown shinier exploding shoes.
This isn’t to suggest the Falcons are wrong for resting Abraham — they’re not. It’s early in the season. Why push it?
But how many NFL games are decided an hour before kickoff — which essentially is when opponents see injured players in street clothes.
“I don’t think any of us on the team side view that it has any competitive impact,” McKay said.
Sure. Tell that to a coach. If you polled 32 NFL coaches about injury reports, every one would have them abolished. Also, practice fields would be no-fly zones.
Coaches are convinced listing a player as questionable instead of doubtful or probable might make the difference in a game. Never mind the dropped pass in the end zone.
“Everybody in the league tries to meet the minimum requirement,” defensive end Patrick Kerney said, smiling. Kerney wants to be a high school English teacher one day. He couldn’t have put more emphasis on the word minimum if he had used a megaphone.
The Falcons certainly aren’t alone in this endeavor. They’re not even the worst. The New England Patriots have elevated non-disclosure to an art form under Bill Belichick. They have gone through an entire game week without listing an injured player, only to suddenly have him show up on game day with, like, cracked ribs and a missing kidney. The Pats have won three Super Bowls. It follows that the franchise’s deception practices became the standard.
The injury report was created to dissuade gamblers from trying to unearth “inside information” and eliminate speculation. I can’t vouch for the former, but it certainly hasn’t prevented the latter. It’s six days of speculation followed by a game-day inactive list.
McKay insists things have improved. Two years ago, the NFL mandated that teams disclose whether or not a player practiced. But he acknowledged that there is only so much the NFL can mandate.
“We can only give it so many teeth,” McKay said. “Every doctor’s opinion and coach’s opinion of whether a guy is doubtful, questionable or probable is different, so it’s hard to regulate.”
A hockey player once asked me not to write that he had a concussion. I told him that since everybody saw him get hit in the head and get helped off the ice, that would be impossible. Of course, the coach said he might play the next game. He didn’t.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Dogs, Falcons win; Jackets stumble
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
First, a disclaimer: An unfortunate allergic reaction to three Flintstone chewables and a bowl of Cocoa Puffs led to a misrepresentation by the Weekend Predictions spokesperson about the Falcons-Saints game last week.
It was never my intention to suggest the Falcons would win the game by several hundred points or that I would pull a Thelma and Louise off a nearby cliff if things went the other way because I have at least 13 things to live for.
Actually, make that zero.
My dog just finished the M&Ms.
This week’s feature attraction finds Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech, a game highlighted by the fact it doesn’t feature Terrell Owens, a VW stuffed with 37 clowns or a single dancing elephant.
Owens this week became the first player to be listed as: “questionable: possible depression, suicidal tendencies, pending further redaction in Dallas police statement.”
Hey, if Owens is depressed, it’s no wonder. The man employs both Drew Rosenhaus and Kim Etheredge. I’m assuming the Iraqi minister of information directs traffic in the driveway.
Etheredge is paid to present a positive image. But she looked like she had just left Johnny’s Hideaway at 4 a.m. and was in search of a Waffle House. She referenced Owens as “a man of his statue.”
That was surpassed only by claiming police completely made up everything she told them about Owens swallowing a bottle of pills (of course, what else would they have to do?).
That was surpassed only by when she said, “Terrell has 25 million reasons to be alive.”
It’s difficult to be both comically nonsensical and cast your boss in the worst possible light in three seconds. But she pulled it off.
My head hurts. Anybody have a painkiller?
Back to Tech-Tech. The Hokies will be minus two suspended starters, a receiver and a defensive end. Taking a cue, neither player has held a news conference.
This is the Jackets’ chance to prove they belong among the ACC elite, although we’re not sure what that means anymore.
But Va-Tech is a big step up from just plain Va. It won’t be 51-7 again, but it won’t be close, either. Pass on the nine. Hokies cover.
A few keggers
Trembling Chihuahuas at Old Ms.: Georgia made Colorado look dangerously close to competent. Don’t know who’s playing quarterback, but would it matter? A win? Yes. But I’ll feast on Col. Yahoo and 18.
Alabama at Florida: Chris Leak has 12 TD passes and a 173.77 rating, but he was booed last week at home. So if the shine already is off the Urban Meyer era, how will fans feel if they lose to Bammy, given the next three: LSU, Auburn, Georgia? Fear not. The 13 1/2 is covered.
Missy St. at LSU: This 99-game series dates to 1896, when LSU won 52-0. The five-year building plan in Starkville is a little behind schedule. Tigers cover 32 1/2.
T.O.-free NFL six-pack
Cardinals at Falcons: The emotional Dennis Green waited 48 hours before deciding to start Kurt Warner again. Um, so this was the lucid decision? Expect Matt Leinart to arrive fashionably late. He’s so Paris Hilton. Falcons cover 7.
Saints at Panthers: Warm and fuzzy is in the rear window. So is the chance that the Saints will again play 12 miles north of their ability level. In my mind, I’m going with Carolina to cover 7 1/2.
Patriots at Cellblock 12: Six Bengals have faced criminal charges this season. Chris Henry has been arrested four times, convicted twice, and last week puked out of the car of Odell Thurman, who blew a 0.18 on the drunk-oh-meter. Thurman hopes to find work as a blowtorch. Take the Pats and six — and in an upset.
Raiders of the Lost Hope: Cleveland is 0-3, but Oakland is a three-point home ‘dog. Anybody check if Al Davis is mixing supplements and painkillers? But: Raiders in an “upset.”
Jaguars at Redskins: Joe Gibbs not surprisingly has struggled with salary-cap and personnel issues in his return. But who figured the ‘Skins would lead the NFL in penalties? Joe: There’s still time to make it to Talladega. Jax covers three.
Seahawks at Bears: Seattle lines up Darrell Jackson (40 career TDs), Deion Branch (14), Nate Burleson (13) and Bobby Engram (29) at wide receiver. Sense any depth chart-envy in Flowery Branch? Even minus Shaun Alexander, take Seattle and the gift three.
Close but no hydrocodone
Last week: 9-3 straight up, 6-6 against the line.
Quarterly report: 32-10 straight up, 25-17 against the line.
Permalink | Comments (80) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Relief and regret over Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Tell the truth. You’re relieved you won’t have the Braves to kick around in October. You won’t have to stay up late watching these excruciating postseason games. You won’t fall into the annual trap of getting your hopes up and then having them dashed. This way you can get on with your so-called life without performing the yearly ritual of calling for Bobby Cox’s firing.
Tell the truth. The first five or six postseasons were fun in a wrenching sort of way, but the last half-dozen have been recurring bad dreams. The Braves would lose a game they should’ve won and you’d wash your hands of them forever. Then they’d win a game they should’ve lost and you’d convince yourself that this was again Their (and Your) Year. Then they’d lose Game 5 in Round 1 and you’d hate yourself for getting fooled again.
Tell the truth. You’re not that sorry to see the great run end because, as great as the run was during the six-month regular season, it turned into something unpleasant every October. Everything you were seeing, you’d seen already. Some closer (Reardon/Wohlers/Ligtenberg/Farnsworth) would yield a killing homer to some hitter (Sprague/Leyritz/Caminiti/Ausmus), and there’d go your whole autumn straight down the Dumpster.
Tell the truth. The Braves’ failures in October were sapping your quality of life, same as the Red Sox had come to do to dour New Englanders. Only the Red Sox actually broke through and won it all in 2004, and the Braves had stopped even coming close. (One series win since the 1999 NLCS.) You’d done the unthinkable. You’d begun to envy Red Sox fans.
Tell the truth. You’d come to dread October, and a part of you had begun to wonder if the Braves didn’t feel the same. Well, here’s your answer: They didn’t. Here’s what Cox said Thursday about the prospect of the first postseason since 1990 without a club to manage in it: “It wasn’t a very good feeling the day [Sunday in Colorado] we were officially gone. [October] is what you live for.”
Tell the truth. You as a fan had stopped seeing October the way Cox and his men did. When the great run began, you were out there on the front lines, buying up tickets and waving your foam tomahawk, but the mounting reality of so many Octobers without a break had a numbing effect. You hated it when national observers made fun of Atlantans for not filling Turner Field for the playoffs, but you couldn’t quite rouse yourself to get out there for every Game 1. You’d watch on TV, sure, but it wasn’t quite the same.
Tell the truth. You weren’t exactly rooting for the great run to end, but now that it has, you’re not shedding any tears. You’ve got the month to yourself now.
Tell the truth. You’re glad it’s over. You’re glad some other team has to worry about its playoff rotation and the danger lurking in Round 1. You won’t miss it a bit.
Now tell the whole truth. A part of you will miss it terribly. Here’s Tom Glavine, who was part of every postseason from 1991 through 2002 as a Brave, who as a Met missed each of the next three but who will start Game 2 for New York next week: “The pressure [of the playoffs] is not an easy thing to deal with, but when you look back on it, it’s something you’d rather be a part of than not.”
Tell the truth. You’re glad. But you’re also sad. You were ready for it to end, but you hate that it ended. You’re a fan, and it’s your inalienable right to hold diametrically opposing points of view.
Permalink | Comments (55) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Owens is doomed to repeat himself
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The lead-in to Wednesday night’s “SportsCenter” posed the question: “Is Terrell Owens becoming a distraction?”
The answer to that, as we know, is a resounding “no.”
Terrell Owens isn’t BECOMING a distraction. He has BEEN a distraction for years. And he will always BE a distraction so long as “SportsCenter” is around to chronicle his every move. (The joke in media circles is that, having already spawned ESPN2 and ESPNU, the self-important Worldwide Leader In Sports will soon announce its newest spinoff — ESPN-TO.)
I don’t know if Terrell Owens tried to kill himself. (I kind of doubt it, but what would possess the police to embellish their report?) I do know that he ruined a Super Bowl team with his antics last season and seems well on his way to wrecking the Dallas Cowboys. And I do know that the next team to employ his egocentric services — this being pro sports, there’s always a next team — will suffer the same foolish fate.
Talent is a great thing, and Owens is a great talent. But being a good teammate is more important in the grand scheme, and Owens is about the worst teammate in the world. He tears down those around him, and when you do that often enough, you wind up destroying yourself.
If he tried to kill himself, then he needs help. Even if he didn’t, some sort of intervention is way past due. You’ll never hear this on “SportsCenter,” but Terrell Owens is the latest installment in that saddest of sagas — the man who had it all, but threw it all away.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Golden opportunity for Jackets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
If those associated with the Georgia Tech football program wish folks to take them seriously again, they must win Saturday in Blacksburg, Va.
Period.
End of story.
Actually, if the Yellow Jackets do slay Virginia Tech, they could add several more chapters to their book entitled “How to leave mediocrity for the first time during the Chan Gailey regime.” Later, they could survive a trip to Death Valley. Then they could whip their daring choice for a homecoming guest (Miami). Then they could evolve into the kings of Tobacco Road after visiting Raleigh and Chapel Hill. Then they could end all of that barking Between the Hedges. Then they could reach the ACC championship game before securing a berth in a BCS game.
It’s possible. Well, much of it is, because the Jackets have an offense with Calvin Johnson, their all-everything wide receiver, and they have a defense ranked among the nation’s elite in virtually everything. There also is something else about the Jackets, according to linebacker KaMichael Hall, their second-leading tackler. “We’ve always had talent, but I just think this is the most together Georgia Tech team that I’ve played for,” Hall said. “It’s just the way that we get along, and the way that we work well together, and the way that we put all three phases of the game together.”
The Jackets showed as much during their season opener at Bobby Dodd Stadium against Notre Dame. In fact, they were better than Notre Dame. They lost after Tech coaches punted away common sense by refusing after the first half to keep unleashing Johnson against a clearly overmatched secondary.
That said, the Jackets did what they had to do against inferior Samford and Troy. They crushed them. They also did what they occasionally haven’t done when facing the meek of the ACC by smashing Virginia last Thursday during a nationally televised home game. Tech coaches even threw early, often and late to Johnson against the Cavaliers. It made you wonder if they finally discovered what the rest of us already knew, and that is you keep going to Johnson no matter what. He’s among the nice collection of players with the ability to take the Jackets away from their blah existence toward whatever bliss they’ll reach with a victory against historically potent but slightly vulnerable Virginia Tech.
Although the Jackets were a second half filled with Johnson (you know, their Notre Dame fiasco) shy of becoming pretty great at 4-0, they still are pretty good at 3-1. They just slid into the Top 25 at No. 24. If nothing else, they are on course to do as well as Gailey’s other Tech teams that concluded each of the past four seasons with seven victories. It’s just that another such finish for the Jackets is unacceptable.
Unless mediocrity is acceptable for these Jackets. Which it isn’t, according to Hall, who has joined teammates and coaches in stressing the need to seek and reach The Next Level. “That’s our ultimate goal — to be able to get over the hump and to be able to win nine, 10, 11 games,” said Hall, whose Jackets were sprinting that way last season after a 4-0 start produced a No. 15 national ranking. Their next game was in Blacksburg, where they managed seven points to the Hokies’ 51. Worse, Hall admitted before this season that more than a few Tech players actually quit during the game.
So, with Blacksburg back on the horizon for the Jackets, and with No. 11 Virginia Tech missing a couple of starters after struggling last week against pitiful Cincinnati, these Jackets have a chance to show the guts that those other Jackets lacked. “We just came out last year, and one thing after another happened, and it kind of escalated after that,” Hall said. “You think about that, and it’s motivational, but at the same time you don’t want to think too much about it. If you think too much about something like that you won’t focus on the goal that is at hand.”
For the Jackets, that goal involves going to the Virginia foothills and doing nothing less than the last two words of their Ramblin’ Wreck song: Fight, win.
Permalink | Comments (81) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Falcons a work in progress
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
There are two ways you can look at the Falcons’ slaughter inside of the Superdome on Monday. You could say nobody was going to beat the obviously inspired Saints that night. After all, they eventually dedicated the game to the people of New Orleans for enduring Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
Or you could say: According to many, this was a Super Bowl atmosphere, and championship teams execute despite the heightened emotion and hype associated with such a big game. In other words, the Saints played like world champions (offense, defense and special teams) while the Falcons played like world chumps (offensive, defense and special teams).
That would mean the Saints are a championship team and the Falcons still have a long ways to go.
Hmmmm.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Quick Hit
Woods’ run evokes streak of ‘45
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: I saw an unusual golf magazine the other day. Tiger Woods wasn’t on the cover. His loss to Shaun Micheel in match play in England aroused this question: Did Byron Nelson, who died Tuesday at age 94, have a match-play event included in his record streak of 18 straight in 1945? No, but one event was the Miami Four-Ball, in which he was partnered with Jug McSpaden. … And whatever became of Eddie LeBaron?
• Around the PGA Tour, Loren Roberts is commonly referred to as “Boss of the Moss,” referring to his prowess on the green. Actually, he hasn’t won the tour putting title since 1994. Champion last year: Arjun Atwal of India, at 1.71.
• That brings up another PGA Tour-related item. At one time this year, 17 countries were represented among the top 125 earnings leaders. To find your fortune, take your bag to America, young man.
• When the baseball-addicted attorney Abe Schear talked with Darrell Evans in one of his interviews, he asked, “Where were you when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run?”
Said Darrell: “I was on first base.”
• Here’s a neat one: When Joab Lesesne retired as president of Wofford College after 22 years, he became an assistant on the football coaching staff. He has now moved up to head of football operations, proving that there’s always a future for a guy who wants to get ahead. Actually, a man finally doing what he loves.
• Ever hear the name Matt Cassel? One season he was backup to Carson Palmer, Heisman Trophy winner, and another to Matt Leinart, another Heisman winner, at Southern Cal. Now he backs up Tom Brady with the Patriots. How’s that for patience?
• Peyton Manning has contributed a million dollars to the Tennessee athletics department to upgrade its sports center. One way or another, it seems these Manning kids are reflecting a good upbringing.
• Mike Scully, the golf pro at Medinah, where the PGA Championship was recently played, was an offensive lineman at Illinois and played one season with the Washington Redskins. In the process, from football grunt to golf pro, his weight has dropped from 325 pounds to 253.
• I went into a quaint little eatery the other day. It had a boothside jukebox, two plays for two bits.
• After 33 years as one of the leading referees in college football, Jimmy Harper finally found the job he didn’t like. He retired after a couple of years upstairs in the booth, as what is known as “communicator” on one of those instant replay teams. Speaking of one of his favorite associates on the field, he said, “He didn’t know the rules, never read the book, but after he threw a flag, he’d say, ‘I don’t know what it is, but he can’t do it,’ and he was always right.”
• So they say:
Lee Corso: “Of all the places in America, the best place to be on a football Saturday is Lincoln, Nebraska.”
Chan Gailey (on poll voting): “I don’t see Texas Tech, I don’t see Oregon State or Stanford. I may see a few clips of them on TV, but I don’t see enough teams across the country to vote with any conviction.”
D.J. Shockley: “I was patient, but it wasn’t easy [waiting his turn behind David Greene at Georgia]. We had a great relationship. He was such a good guy, and we liked each other.”
Corso again: “There’s nothing like walking out on that field on Saturday afternoon with the stands full and rocking. That’s why both Jim Donnan and I would like to be coaching again.”
• Name of the Week: Ashley Lelie, exotic dancer? Hardly, the Falcons’ new receiver. … Selah.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Furman Bisher
Falcons unmasked at Saints’ party
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — I hate to ruin the moment here. I mean, it’s so easy to get caught up in the warm embrace of the New Orleans Saints’ return home the other night, especially with ESPN slamming it over your head every 12 seconds. But you might have missed something:
The last time the Falcons looked this embarrassing on a Monday night, Arthur Blank felt compelled to issue apologies three years ago to ABC, the fan base and anybody who ever walked into Home Depot for a role of duct tape.
Has that been lost on everybody?
Every conceivable Falcons’ flaw that was masked in wins over Carolina and Tampa Bay was unmasked in New Orleans.
It was like seeing the “before” picture of Jessica Simpson in that Proactiv commercial.
The offensive line couldn’t pass block — again. Receivers couldn’t get open and dropped passes when they did — again. Michael Vick overthrew and underthrew and lacked any sense of rhythm — again. For the third straight week, a field goal was blocked, as was a punt. The Falcons already have two special teams coaches. Maybe now they need to add a field goal protection guru.
If the Falcons aren’t necessarily the team that managed only two first downs and three punts on their first four possessions against the Saints, they’re certainly not the wrecking ball that rushed for 558 yards against Tampa Bay and Carolina. Dude, they have issues.
This doesn’t mean they won’t make the playoffs (they will). It doesn’t mean the Saints will make the playoffs (they won’t). (Clip and save.)
But how this bunch reacts to being made to look so pedestrian — and a pedestrian under a bus — will help define this season.
Jim Mora said he told his players in the aftermath of the 23-3 loss to the Saints: “There will be a lot of people who will offer you up excuses.” About the environment, the fact the rest of the globe was pulling against them, etc.
He also told them not to fall into that trap: “We’re still responsible to play to a certain standard, regardless of the circumstances. We’ve got to play better. That’s what mature and successful teams do.”
Things fall apart, and everybody looks for the easy answer. Romantics get swallowed up by the Saints’ return to the Superdome. Short-sided knuckleheads fall back on the standard: It’s all Michael Vick’s fault.
Vick wasn’t faultless Monday. But Y.A. Title couldn’t have made a difference behind that offensive line and with those receivers, who were long on thumbs and short on separation. So let’s not even play that Matt Schaub-is-better card, OK?
Vick doesn’t block. He doesn’t catch. (In that respect, he fit in with everybody else.) But his 12-for-31 performance reinforced suspicions that he has little to fall back on when his legs can’t carry him out of trouble.
Clearly, this is still an offense in transition, and nobody is certain what the finished product is supposed to look like. Last week, when we all were praising the running game, Mora said: “Teams will adjust, and we will be forced to adjust again.”
He then went out of his way to compliment the passing attack, even though the Falcons had thrown for only 232 yards in two games, and added: “There is going to come a time when we are not going to be able to run the ball for 200 yards a game and we are going to depend on the passing game, and I feel confident that it is ready to go.”
But it isn’t. It wasn’t. And suddenly we see the flaws. Questions about the offensive coordinator, Greg Knapp, will resurface, and should. The week before, Knapp was credited for adding the wrinkle of the option to the Falcons’ offense. But Monday he failed to find a way to counter whatever the Saints were doing.
A football team doesn’t lose 23-3 because the world is rooting for a nice story. Twenty-point losses aren’t about one subplot or one quarterback or one dropped pass in the end zone by the tight end.
A team loses 23-3 when several flaws all show up at once. Somehow, that got lost in New Orleans in the postgame glow.
Permalink | Comments (76) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Odell Thurman’s career is doomed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: More on this later today, after I’ve had a chance to survey the wreckage in Flowery Branch. But there was much more to the Falcons’ loss than, “Gee, everyone wanted New Orleans to win.” Emotion counts for only so much.
9: To put it another way: It’s amazing how one loss can unmask a team’s every conceivable weakness.
8: We lost the Ryder Cup. Am I supposed to care? Golf is the ultimate sport of individualists. And this isn’t the Olympics, so let’s get off this whole patriotism thing.
7: For all of those people who blasted me with e-mail and phone calls after I criticized Georgia and Mark Richt for not being tougher in dealing with Odell Thurman, I have a question: Where are you now?
6: Thurman’s a knucklehead and he always has been. Yes, he had a tough home life growing up. I know. I’ve heard it ad nauseam. But he was surrounded by enablers at home and in Athens. It’s as if nobody ever said, “Odell, you can’t do that.” So he did that. Often.
5: Thurman, who already was serving a four-game suspension when he was arrested for DUI the other night, probably is gone for the season. He might want to take the time to practice this line, “Would you like to Super Size that?” Because that’s where his career is headed.
4: Thurman is drinking and partying his way right out of the NFL. He was an immature kid at Georgia. What did anyone expect was going to happen once he turned pro, he had money in his pocket and he didn’t have a class schedule?
3: If you were the Cincinnati Bengals right now, how much would you pay to put David Pollack’s head on Odell Thurman’s body?
2: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers maintain that Chris Simms may return this season. Is that the good news or the bad news?
1: It’s just another late-September Braves-Mets series that doesn’t mean anything.
Permalink | Comments (81) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Falcons in a no-win situation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
New Orleans — Somebody had to draw the short straw. Somebody had to oppose the Saints on their first night back in the Superdome, and it wasn’t as if no Atlanta team had ever served as the designated somebody.
The Braves played the Mets at Shea Stadium on Sept. 21, 2001, in the first sporting event staged in New York after the Twin Towers fell. It was a rousing night, awash in tears but brimming with patriotic pride, and it ended the only way it could have ended — with Mike Piazza crushing a two-run homer in the eighth inning off Steve Karsay to give the stricken city something to celebrate.
Five years later, nobody remembers that the Braves were the losing team that star-spangled night. Five years from now, nobody will recall that the Falcons were the guests for the game dubbed “the rebirth.” That will be just fine with the Falcons, who, on a night to remember, gave a performance to forget.
To be fair, nobody outside Atlanta wanted the Falcons to win. To be fair, Monday was treated as a civic holiday here, as evidenced by the throngs clogging Poydras Street five hours before kickoff. To be fair, the Saints were jazzed for this night in a way no team will again be jazzed.
“My [pregame] tears were for the fans,” said Joe Horn, the receiver. “My tears were for the kids who might have been staying in the Superdome [after Katrina] but who now had a chance to see their team play.”
The Saints took the field to a roar that had been building for 13 months, their arrival heralded by the combined efforts of U2 and Green Day — for this occasion, one platinum-selling band wasn’t enough — and words written for the occasion by Time magazine’s 2005 Man of the Year. “The Saints are coming,” Bono sang, and here they came.
Perhaps Bono should consider doing pro bono work as a special teams coach. Somebody neglected to alert the Falcons to the Saints’ Steve Gleason, who burst up the middle to snuff Michael Koenen’s punt and hand the returning heroes a touchdown not 90 seconds into the rebirth. It was stirring stuff for the locals, who need a lift in the worst way. It was stirring for everyone save the Falcons, who acted more shaken than stirred.
The rest of the half went thusly: Michael Vick threw twice as many incompletions as completions; Alge Crumpler dropped a gilt-edged touchdown; Morten Andersen had his second kick of his second stint as a Falcon blocked; Kevin Mathis was called for shoving Joe Horn, the penalty enabling the Saints to kick a field goal at the first-half horn. That made it 20-3, soon to become 23-3, and by then it was clear the football equivalent of Mike Piazza in the bottom of the eighth wouldn’t be required.
This being an Atlanta newspaper, the custom is to laud an Atlanta team when it wins and rip it when it doesn’t. There can, however, be no ripping after this one. This was, in the starkest sense, a no-win game for the Falcons. They were villains coming in and foils once the first kick was blocked, and losing badly in such charged setting tells us nothing about their immediate future. They’re better than this, and they’ll never play in another game quite like this. Let’s hope there never has to be another game like this.
And when this one-of-a-kind game was done, Saints owner Tom Benson broke out a parasol and resurrected the Benson Boogie to communal glee, the same Tom Benson who is still locally believed to be plotting his team’s move out of town.
On this one night, all was temporarily forgiven. On this one night, all of the Crescent City boogied along. Before the game, Benson’s granddaughter Rita Benson LeBlanc had said: “Tonight at kickoff, we win.” That simplistic sentiment captured the feeling from sea to shining sea. This was always going to be the Saints’ night of nights. They and their city had waited 13 months.
They and their city had it coming.
Permalink | Comments (216) | Categories: Falcons / NFL
Passion at play tonight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
New Orleans — Having played on Friday nights in Parkview High’s Big Orange Jungle and having labored long — and ultimately successfully — to bring Georgia its long-sought SEC championship, Jon Stinchcomb knows something about being part of a team that’s more than a team. That said, he concedes tonight’s Falcons-Saints game has an enormity unto itself.
“I’ve never been part of a team where the fans are so attached,” says Stinchcomb, the Saints’ right tackle. “That’s not lost on us. We have a vivid picture of thousands of people being jammed into our stadium [as Hurricane Katrina evacuees], and that wasn’t a happy thought.”
Stinchcomb’s team, as you know, will play the Falcons in the game that marks the Saints’ return to their city and the reopening of the Louisiana Superdome. Much has been levied on this hugely anticipated night, and what’s apparent above all is the place the always-beloved Saints have come to occupy in the psyche of this battered city.
“We’re in a time where the people of this city have needs,” Stinchcomb says. “And they need us.”
This isn’t a case of an employee parroting the party line. Stinchcomb is a perceptive analyst, able to grasp both the reality (it’s just one game) and the emotion (it’s the biggest game in franchise history). On Thursday the Saints practiced in the Superdome for the first time since Katrina, and afterward coach Sean Payton gathered his men in the locker room and dimmed the lights and had, Payton said, “a little session” on the meaning of Monday night.
Says Stinchcomb: “It was pretty emotional. I wasn’t in tears, but it did bring back the pictures of what New Orleans has been though. And it reminded us that this is not just a football game and the Saints are not just a football team.”
Nothing could prepare you for what Katrina did to this city, but having served as a Bulldog at a time when it seemed Georgia might never again win the SEC gave Stinchcomb some notion of what it means to have a Higher Goal. It was Stinchcomb who hollered at his teammates when trailing by 11 points at the half that cold day at Auburn. (“I spoke with emotion,” he says now, smiling.) Then he went out and threw himself on the ball when David Greene, his roommate, fumbled into the end zone on a quarterback draw. (“I didn’t block anybody on the play, but I got wide open.”) And that touchdown, the only one the lineman has ever scored, ignited the epic comeback that yielded the 2002 SEC East title.
Drafted by the Saints in 2003, he has only now become a starter. He missed last season with a torn patellar tendon, giving him a scar on his right knee to match the one on his left, the earlier injury having occurred in 1997 when he was a senior at Parkview High School. Becoming a Saint meant Stinchcomb joined the one NFL team that can be said to mirror a big-time college program in terms of serving as a magnet for utter passion. “It’s the same collegiate atmosphere,” he says.
The Saints expect themselves to play professionally tonight, and that won’t be easy. “We have to stay focused on the fact it’s a football game. We can’t start listening to the media. This is a division opponent, and it’s an important game with the Saints-Falcons rivalry. We have to stay focused however many pregame concerts there are.”
But can any team be so intense as to ignore U2 and Green Day and the coin-tossing presence of George Bush (the elder, not the younger)? Stinchcomb isn’t sure. “I’ll give [the importance of the night] some thought when I first get to the stadium, and then I’ll try to fine-tune my focus.”
Good luck with that. Good luck with trying to block Patrick Kerney when Bono’s in the house and the whole world is watching.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Mark Bradley
Cox’s passing leaves QB situation up for grabs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Athens — Among quarterbacks in the Bulldog Nation, you have the incumbent Joe Tereshinski, and then you have the anointed Matthew Stafford. Now you have the clutch Joe Cox.
You also have Georgia’s Mark Richt doing the unusual by refusing to run a post pattern (like the one Cox threw for a touchdown to slay Colorado on Saturday at Sanford Stadium) away from a question that most coaches despise.
The question: Given Cox’s perfect rainbow of 20 yards to Martrez Milner in the final seconds to seal what was a stormy afternoon for Georgia, is your quarterback situation up for grabs? Richt caused the graves of old football coaches to quake with his blunt answer: “Oh, yeah. It’s hard to say exactly what we’ll do for sure. Joe Cox threw his hat in the ring pretty good.”
All Cox did was seal Georgia’s 14-13 victory that will help the 4-0 Bulldogs during tight moments the rest of the season against Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, Georgia Tech, maybe a foe in the SEC championship game and who knows what? What we do know is that with Colorado still holding a six-point lead, and with the clock ticking inside the final two minutes, and with 93,000 folks trying to keep their hearts from pounding out of their chests as Georgia moved from the Colorado 43, Cox smiled when he wasn’t laughing.
“You know, you think it would be so nerve-racking,” said Cox, a redshirt freshman from Charlotte, looking as calm in the aftermath as he did near the end of the third quarter after he replaced Stafford, the struggling true freshman. “That was the most fun time that I ever had in my life. I mean, we were just talking in the huddle, and there was no breakdown of confidence or anything like that.”
How strange that there was peace for a Georgia bunch that trailed 13-0 through the third quarter after dropping four passes, getting stuffed twice on fourth-and-4 attempts in the red zone and watching Colorado resemble the best winless team in history.
For the longest time, with much of the crowd substituting booing for woofing, the only buffalo that those associated with Georgia managed to contain was Ralphie, Colorado’s 900-pound female mascot. The only thing Ralphie did after making a rare road trip by traveling 1,505 miles in a customized van from Boulder was have a bunch of cowboys race her out of the tunnel to lead the Colorado players onto the field before the game and after intermission. Then Ralphie was back in her van and off to the Rocky Mountains.
Those other Buffaloes stayed behind, and they kept running and passing at will against what supposedly was such a potent defense that Georgia’s two previous opponents failed to score. This time, the Buffaloes had such an efficient option attack that you’d have thought they were the West Virginia Mountaineers or something.
“Oh, no. They weren’t West Virginia, because that was an eye-opener right there,” said Georgia linebacker Danny Verdun Wheeler, recalling how West Virginia used a couple of blurs named Pat White and Steve Slaton to baffle Georgia in last season’s Sugar Bowl. Although Colorado’s Bernard Jackson and Hugh Charles weren’t traveling at the speed of light compared to those Mountaineers, the Buffaloes still had the same kind of zigs and zags at will against Georgia defenders.
This made no sense. Although we’re talking the lesser offensive likes of Western Kentucky, South Carolina and UAB, Georgia entered the game ranked fifth in the country in total defense. Plus, only four of the NCAA’s 119 I-A teams were ranked lower than Colorado in total offense and passing offense. That said, Colorado tight end Riar Geer had just three catches before the Georgia game, but he managed seven during it. If you combine that with Jackson and Charles playing the games of their lives — and definitely of this season in which Colorado opened with a loss to I-AA Montana State — Georgia needed something good to happen in a hurry.
That something good didn’t happen to Georgia for a while. The Bulldog Nation didn’t mind the wait. Neither did Cox, who promptly threw Georgia’s quarterback situation into the air again — just like his game-winning throw.
Permalink | Comments (165) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
One game can’t mask misery of New Orleans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
New Orleans — The man in the blue suit stands in the end zone of the refurbished Louisiana Superdome and affixes the prevailing spin. “We’re here,” said Mark Nicholls, the president of Sportexe, which has installed the new synthetic turf, “to witness the rebirth of a city.”
The three men sitting alongside St. Claude Avenue don’t feel like expectant fathers. They’re selling barbecue sandwiches from a trailer parked in an abandoned strip center just beyond the bridge over the Industrial Canal. Business is slow. St. Claude is one of the main arteries in the Lower Ninth Ward, but the cold truth is there are no main arteries is this devastated district.
Thirteen months after Katrina hit and the levees broke, the desolation in Lower Ninth Ward remains beyond belief. Thirteen months on, Harold Black says, “you expected more.”
Says Lance Edwards: “For this to happen in America …”
“You said it right there — in America,” Black says. “It’s like a third-world country in the United States.”
The media has descended on this city to witness the reopening of the Superdome and the accompanying Saints-Falcons game, and chamber-of-commerce cheerfulness holds that Monday night will enable New Orleans to put the ravages of Katrina in its rear-view mirror. Harrison Smothers, the third man in the St. Claude parking lot, is asked if a sporting even can make such a difference.
“A difference in what?” he says. “It’s a football game. It’s not doing much for the people of the city. It might do something for the politicians.”
According to Superdome flacks, FEMA is paying 90 percent of the cost to rebuild the stadium. (Total price tag, not all of which comes from the federal government: $185 million.) According to Smothers, FEMA still hasn’t come through with the trailer he has awaited for 11 months. He pats his shirt pocket. “They’ve never called this phone,” he says.
It’s too much to ask any team, even one named the Saints, or any ballgame to override the trauma that befell this famously good-natured city. But those who tune in Monday to watch Reggie Bush and Michael Vick and Bono — can’t have a big American event without the preachy band from Ireland, can we? — might be fooled into believing New Orleans is far down the path to recovery. It isn’t. It might never be.
The Hyatt Regency, essentially the host hotel for events at the adjacent Superdome, remains closed. (The Hyatt became Mayor Ray Nagin’s headquarters after the storm.) The French Quarter attempts to frolic on in signature style, but foot traffic is down to the point where it’s possible to drive a car down the formerly jammed streets. What merriment there is seems forced. You can’t see the statue of Fats Domino at Musical Legends Park on Bourbon Street without cringing over the memory of the man himself having to be rescued by boat after his home in the Lower Ninth Ward flooded.
“The people aren’t around,” says Jeffrey Diket, who’s playing his clarinet for tips on the corner of Toulouse and Royal on a sleepy Saturday morning. “What can I do? I can’t make them come.”
But what about the game? Will it convince anyone New Orleans is again the place to come and work and play? “I don’t know,” says Diket, who left town before Katrina hit and didn’t move back for three months. “So much is gone, and so much has to be brought back it’s not funny.”
The Superdome itself looks as nice as it possibly could inside — the building’s exterior remains stained and faded — but that’s one tiny part of a sprawling metropolis. A drive through the Lower Ninth Ward yields a rather different slant. Nearly every window is broken. Nearly every structure is damaged and vacant. An animal-rescue center has the word “relocated” spray-painted in red across its front. A sheriff’s substation has a chain over what used to be its door. Says Edwards: “If we don’t get something done quick, the rats are going to get us. … They’ve redone the dome by throwing money at it. See what money can do? Throw some over here.”
The football game? “All that’s good,” Smothers says, “but that’s not going to help anything down here.” And then, thinking globally: “Here we are to trying to build a city in the desert [in Iraq], and we’ve got a city to be rebuild right here.”
He shakes his head. “Why would you build a city in the desert?”
Permalink | Comments (41) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Cox in dugout is your best bet
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Nothing against Joe Torre, the latest Pride of the Yankees when it comes to managing, but he’s no Bobby Cox. And, yes, I know about that little difference between the two regarding world championships. While Torre has four, Cox has one.
Worse for Cox, with the Yankees streaking toward October courtesy of overwhelming talent, and with the Braves stumbling out of the playoffs for the first time since 1990, that World Series-clinching gap between Cox and Torre is only a Halloween away from becoming five to one.
It’s just that the Pride of the Braves when it comes to managing has the advantage everywhere else.
For instance: Cox would have done as much (you know, win four world championships) as Torre in the past 11 years with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and George Steinbrenner’s open wallet. Conversely, if Torre had spent the past 11 years in Atlanta with corporate ownership, along with a constantly revolving cast around John Smoltz and the two Joneses (Chipper and Andruw) that included 18 rookies last season, the Braves’ record streak of 14 consecutive division titles would have ended about 876 blown saves ago.
Just guessing. Then again, take it from Brian Jordan, the Braves’ reserve infielder and outfielder, who is an expert on Cox and Torre after playing for both. He compared and contrasted the two managerial heavyweights of 25 seasons each, starting with the differences.
“Well, the biggest difference is, Bobby has had to pick and choose through the years to make up a bullpen in order to keep winning,” Jordan said by phone Friday from Denver before the Braves faced the Colorado Rockies. Added Jordan, who played for Torre’s St. Louis Cardinals in the early 1990s, “Bobby also has had to make a lot more decisions because of a lack of talent, at least by comparison. Whereas I think that Joe has had the benefit with the Yankees of having a lot of MVPs on his team. But, I mean, it’s really hard to say that now, because I look at Joe’s current bullpen and at his [overall] year, and it’s been a tough situation.”
So tough that the Yankees spent the early summer chasing the hated Red Sox after lengthy injuries to sluggers Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield. Other regulars also were hurt for a while, and then there was Randy Johnson throwing like the old pitcher that he is at 43. The A-Rod soap opera didn’t help the Yankees’ cause, either, with Alex Rodriguez forgetting how to hit, field and throw for long stretches. Still, Torre helped the Yankees survive no matter what, and now they are challenging the Mets for the game’s best record.
Ho-hum. Cox has been there and done all of that during the Braves’ wonderful streak that was. Remember the significant aches and pains of Smoltz, Javy Lopez, David Justice, Kevin Millwood, Rafael Furcal, Chipper Jones, Andres Galarraga and Sheffield? Remember the soap opera of full-time reliever and part-time sociologist John Rocker? Once, Cox lacked three-fifths of his starting rotation. Even during this lost season, Cox wouldn’t allow the Braves to dream of an early vacation after falling 13 games below .500 in late June. As a result, they entered Friday’s game needing to finish only 7-2 the rest of the way to sit above .500.
Through the good and the bad, Cox hasn’t changed. “And that’s where Bobby and Joe are exactly alike: They are laid-back, and they are players’ managers in that they let you go out and play,” Jordan said. “They are not ones who will flip over the food table when they get mad. Not yellers or screamers. If you do something bad, they’re going to address it, but they’re going to do it in a professional way and in a one-on-one situation. They both make great decisions when the time is right.”
Here’s another difference, though: Cox turned the lowly Toronto Blue Jays into perennial winners between his two stints with the Braves. Despite also managing for 14 years with the New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals and the Braves, Torre won big only with the Yankees.
Advantage, Cox.
Again.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Jackets live up to role as favorites
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It’s safe to assume that the degeneration of ACC football this season has been met with some amusement on the Flats. I mean, how often does the coach at Georgia Tech enjoy more job security than the one at Miami? Or N.C. State, or Maryland, or half the conference?
The Yellow Jackets did what they were supposed to do Thursday night. They stomped an opponent, Virginia, that seemed to be begging for more footprints on their foreheads.
Now, it may be a little early to start talking about season-defining victories. But it says something that Tech actually followed a blueprint. There has been this problem in the Chan Gailey regime of inexcusable losses drowning out the occasional upset win. That’s how you end up with a case full of Humanitarian and Emerald bowl trophies, and a fan base that wants to chuck flaming slide rules when it hears the coach got a contract extension.
Thursday, the Jackets looked a cut above their past in their ACC opener, a 24-7 win over the Cavaliers. Now there’s a switch.
“It was paramount we do this — paramount,” defensive tackle Darryl Richard said. “I know there were people out there — no question — that were betting that we were going to let down and lose this game. That’s one of the things we talked about constantly this offseason. We’re tired of those types of things happening to us. We took it to a new level.”
This is what a college program is supposed to do. There was never any hint of an upset Thursday, though it always helps when the opponent doesn’t show any hint of a pulse. The Cavaliers trailed 24-0 four minutes into the third quarter.
As will be the case all season, NFL scouts turned out to watch wide receiver Calvin Johnson. Despite a double-secret leg injury, he seemed to do OK. He had touchdown catches of 58 and 66 yards, and his six catches covered almost as many yards (165) as Virginia’s offense (166).
This was the test game for the Jackets. They gave Notre Dame a run but lost, which figured. They dumped Samford and Troy, which also figured. But what Team Tease did against Virginia would begin to define its season. A win, and the Jackets could at least entertain thoughts of an upset next week in Blacksburg, Va. A loss, and it was back to flaming slide rules.
“I think everybody expected this to happen on our side,” Gailey said when asked about expectations. “But you’ve got to go do it.”
When asked if he had any uncertainty about his team opening conference play, Gailey said: “I was more concerned about the team we were playing. That’s a big, physical football team, and we’ve been playing dink and dunk teams with speed.”
The Cavaliers might be big, but they’re degenerating at a faster rate than the conference. Before the season, school officials gave coach Al Groh a new six-year deal and jumped his annual pay to $1.7 million. So what was the backup investment — 8-track tapes?
Under Groh, the Cavaliers are 21-20 in ACC games, including 2-11 against Miami, Florida State, Virginia Tech and Boston College. Had Groh gone 3-10, Virginia officials might’ve been moved to throw in a small resort in the Bahamas.
The Cavs were booed during a home loss to Western Michigan last week. That followed a narrow win over Wyoming, which followed a 25-point loss to Pittsburgh. Put it this way: Virginia is now so lightly regarded that it was the same level of underdog to Tech as Troy was the week before (17 points).
To the Jackets’ credit, they didn’t play down to that level. For now, it appears Tech is going one way while much of the conference is going the other.
“We’re trying to get to Jacksonville,” Richard said, a reference to the ACC title game.
Next week, Tech goes to Blacksburg. Defeat Virginia Tech and suddenly a trip to Jacksonville loses its ring of absurdity. Defeat Virginia Tech and suddenly the Jackets will feel quite comfortable in the ACC.
Permalink | Comments (72) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Al-Jazeera covers game, Falcons cover spread
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It has been a big week outside the NFL, which is never good news because the NFL doesn’t like to be upstaged and therefore may buy the planet one day and put an end to this.
First, Reggie Bush vehemently denied a report that he, his family and his Labrador’s three servants received over $100,000 in cash and benefits from agents, commenting: “I did not inhale. Wait, wrong statement.”
Then Tiger Woods vehemently denied a report that his wife, Elin, had ever posed nude, and I’ve got to back him up on this because, I mean, my neighbor knows a guy who has been Googling for months. (What are you looking at?)
Then came Wednesday, when Venezuela President Hugo Chavez called former Texas Rangers owner George Bush “the devil,” perhaps not realizing Bush was gone before the Rangers gave Alex Rodriguez a $252-million contract, which of course led to the downfall of both the Rangers and this country.
Which leads me to the Falcons-Saints game. (Attention, aspiring journalists: Transitions are for wimps.) The teams meet Monday night in the first game in the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina.
Over 1,000 media credentials have been issued, including, and I’m not making this up, one to Al-Jazeera’s Washington bureau. Can’t wait to read his lead. “Michael Vick and his band of Falcon infidels destroyed other cowards named Saints. But we still don’t like Greg Knapp.”
The Saints are 2-0. That’s nice. But they’ve beaten the Browns and Packers, the Rice and Temple of the NFL. Falcons-Saints games tend to be close. But three points? Please. Go ahead and inhale. Falcons cover easily.
Thank you sir, may I have another?
(What is this? Punch a clown week?)
• Buffs and Bowsers: Colorado used to be really good. It was right about the time Bill McCartney was preaching morality while his players were having keg parties with his daughter and playing pingpong in Hades. Now, the team is 0-3 and boring. Might as well be Mississippi State. Georgia wins. But forget covering 27.
• Buffalo (the city) at Auburn: I have a preseason annual that ranked Buffalo 119th in the nation. I’m assuming that 9-3 opener over Temple doesn’t change much, but I’m a sucker for a double whopper spread: 42! No cover for Auburn, either.
• Kentucky at Florida: The Gators will be without defensive tackle Marcus Thomas, who tested positive for marijuana. On a related note, Florida plans to locate the 12 students who aren’t getting high. Gators cover 23 1/2.
• Florida Atlantic at South Carolina: FAU has been outscored 147-14 in three games. This is like an HGH smoothie for Steve Spurrier’s ego. The 29 is covered.
• Tobacco Road Kill: Do N.C. State, UNC(le) and Duke still play football? Or are Chuck Amato, John Bunting and Ted Roof just warming the crowd for the dancing elephants? Duke is off this week, but here’s a Daily Double: Clemson (16 1/2 over Heels) and Boston College (7 over Wolfies) both cover.
NFL five pack
• Panthers at Bucs: One team is going to be 0-3, assuming they don’t collide during the opening kickoff and lapse into simultaneous unconsciousness, the odds of which have dropped to 5-2. Carolina covers 3.
• Titans at Dolphins: Kerry Collins had a 1.3 rating in last week’s 40-7 loss to San Diego. That’s nothing. He blew a 1.4 during a traffic stop once. Miami covers 11.
• Packers at Lions: Is it just me or was Brett Favre better when he was addicted to Vicodin? (Sorry. Old line. New fall schedule starts next week.) Detroit covers 6.
• Bengals at Steelers: Ben Roethlisberger didn’t look ready to play Monday night. The rolling IV cart was a dead giveaway. Take Cincinnati and 2 — and in a straight upset.
• Giants at Seahawks: Deion Branch makes his debut in a Seattle uniform, which is really key because, like, he’s on my Fantasy League team. Seattle by 79.
Financial report • Last week: 8-4 straight up, 6-6 against the line.
• Gross: 23-7 straight up, 19-11 against the line.
• Weekend Predictions Book Club: Buy three selections and win either a unicorn or a copy of, “Tiger Woods’ Great Locker Room Pep Talks At The Ryder Cup.”
Permalink | Comments (27) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Chipper’s rapid decline, Falcons’ ascent
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
By not-so-popular demand, here’s another in the continuing “I think” series. I think some of you will like this one. I think others won’t.
I think the Falcons will be playing a playoff game at home come January.
I think, given the weather they faced in Chicago last season, the Falcons had better hope the Bears don’t get the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
I think signing Bob Wickman is a good start to a pivotal offseason for the Braves.
I think baseball is the strangest of all games, and here’s why: On Monday the Dodgers hit four consecutive home runs to send a game to extra innings and won in the 10th on a walk-off homer. Momentum, right? Uh, no. The Dodgers have since lost two in a row to the woeful Pirates.
I think the Twins would have won the World Series had Francisco Liriano not gotten hurt. I think the Yankees will now.
I think the Phillies will reach the World Series if they qualify for postseason.
I think that, with almost every call being reviewed anymore, there’s no need for on-field officials.
I think the Falcons are finally — finally! — figuring out how to use Michael Vick. What’s the use of having the fastest man in the NFL if all you’re doing is letting him throw 7-yard passes?
I think the Ryder Cup is the most intriguing golf event because it involves golfers playing for something other than money and self.
I think Chipper Jones is really unlucky. I also think he’s aging at the most alarming rate of any great athlete I’ve ever seen, and that includes NFL running backs.
I think — actually, I know — I was wrong about Georgia Tech beating Notre Dame. But I think I deserve partial credit for calling the Irish overrated. They were. They still are.
I think Louisville is not overrated. Loses its two best players and still runs the best offense in college football.
I think somebody ought to try to hire Bobby Petrino away from Louisville. (Oh, wait. Everybody already has.)
Permalink | Comments (68) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Reality kicks in for mistaken Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — Before clearing the stage Wednesday for the Morten Andersen/George Burns comedy hour (“I had blood taken this morning. Dust came out.”), a very subtle thing happened.
The Falcons admitted a mistake. Sort of.
Nobody ever puts “We goofed” in words. (It’s against the NFL bylaws.) They just take away somebody’s job after two games and give it to a 46-year-old who hasn’t kicked in 20 months and has been practicing at a park until the youth team shows up (because, well, the kids had the field reserved).
This is nothing against Andersen, who may very well have enough strength remaining in his left leg and certainly has the strength in his cranium to help get the Falcons to a Super Bowl. But could this team possibly have botched such an important decision any more?
The Falcons dumped a kicker, Todd Peterson, who made 23 of 25 field goals because they say he kicked the ball too low. So they gave the job to Michael Koenen, who kicked them high. And wide.
For some reason, Peterson was viewed as a plague in Flowery Branch, though nobody outside the building can figure out why. He had a field goal blocked in a late-season overtime loss to Tampa Bay, and suddenly it was as if that was the only reason the team missed the playoffs. Forget the injuries, the previous personnel blunders, the coaching lapses. And never mind about those other seven losses.
No, said the Falcons: We can make this work! We have this great kid! We have a kicking guru! We’re going to save money and get younger!
Forget that kicking isn’t about youth. You want speed and vitality at outside linebacker. A kicker can look like a schlep and do his job. Drug test them for anything but Cool Whip. Kicking is about mental toughness. It’s about coming through in a close game with a tough crowd (road or home). It’s what makes guys like Adam Vinatieri such a rarity. Koenen might have a Hall of Fame leg, but he has oatmeal for a psyche. One 30-yard miss last week and he crumbled. Then he missed three more.
The Falcons never verbalized that they goofed. They maintain that he won the job and deserved it. But he had never been a full-time kicker at the major-college or NFL level. And if the Falcons exuded so much confidence over him, why did they work out Andersen in June and tell him he was Plan B?
“We hatched this in June or July,” general manager Rich McKay said.
Confidence in Koenen? The Falcons had been supplying Andersen with new footballs since the summer to practice with.
Andersen had been hounding his old pal, Jim Mora. He phoned him Sunday night after Koenen’s Oh-fer. (Nothing personal, kid.) The Falcons brought him in Tuesday. Andersen made seven of eight kicks, missing only a 55-yarder off the upright. The Falcons signed him. Presumably, they gave him the kicking guru’s parking space.
“I’ve got my endurance, I’ve got my Geritol. Good to go,” Andersen said.
It was ha-has all around. Patrick Kerney pulled Andersen’s poster off of the wall in “Legends Hall” in the team facility and stuck it in Andersen’s cubicle. A sign mocked: “Morten Andersen, kicker, 1966-2000, 2006.”
A trainer posted a medical newsletter highlighting the dangers of spinal osteoporosis.
Andersen led the jokes. He’s comfortable with all of this. He was just thrilled in June when he discovered he wasn’t the oldest kicker the Falcons were trying out. Also there: Eddie Murray, who was two months from turning 50.
He is all about clutch. In 1995, Andersen made a winning kick in overtime against Carolina in his first game as a Falcon. He had another OT winner two weeks later in New Orleans. Of course, he made the biggest kick in franchise history, the OT winner in Minnesota in the NFC title game.
Now he’s back with the Falcons, and his first game is against a former team, the Saints, in the Superdome on Monday Night Football. Could there be a better script?
“I’ll let you know Tuesday morning,” he said.
Just a guess: He won’t look like a mistake.
Permalink | Comments (55) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Tough luck for Oklahoma
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Thank goodness, Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg has more sports sense than University of Oklahoma president David Boren. I mean, did the officiating crew and the instant replay officials botch a couple of obvious plays last Saturday to help Oklahoma’s football team lose to Oregon?
Definitely.
So should Weiberg do what Boren wants, and that is have the Big 12 powers that be seek to twist the arms of those at NCAA headquarters to have Saturday’s results eliminated from the record books?
Puhleeze.
If Boren gets his way, then more than a few other things should happen. For instance: The NFL should acknowledge that the “Immaculate Reception” was an illegal play and give the Oakland Raiders a belated victory over Franco Harris’ Pittsburgh Steelers.
Georgia Tech should be declared undisputed national champions for 1990 since Colorado was given five downs that season to survive Missouri down the stretch. Courtesy of umpire Don Denkinger’s botched play, the St. Louis Cardinals should replace the Kansas City Royals as winners of the 1985 Worlds Series.
Weiberg said that he won’t do what Boren wants, by the way. Weiberg knows that when bad calls occur to cost a particular team a game, that team should do what teams always have done in these situations.
Kick. Scream. Fume.
Then move on.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Auburn can make SEC run, take BCS shot
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It’s important to have the team, sure, but in college football it’s also essential to have the schedule. Having reached the first checkpoint of the SEC season, it’s becoming clear which schools have which. Herewith, our field guide to the One True League in the One True Sport:
Hasn’t the team or the schedule: Alabama. Another soft (and unimpressive) opening will yield to cold reality. The Tide could be somewhat better than it is and still not win in Gainesville, Fla. (Sept. 30) or Knoxville (Oct. 21) or Baton Rouge, La. (Nov. 11). And ‘Bama, which hasn’t beaten Auburn the past four seasons, is destined to lose one for the thumb.
Has the schedule but not the team: Tennessee. With two more points Saturday night, the Vols would have been in shape to win the East even with a loss at Georgia next month. Their tough games after that — Alabama and LSU — are both in Knoxville, and a split of those could have allowed Tennessee to take its division with two conference losses. Losing to Florida means the Vols are apt to finish 5-3 in the league, meaning: Hello, Chick-fil-A Bowl.
Has the team but not the schedule: LSU. The second-best team in the conference will have no place to play come Dec. 2. The annual Auburn-LSU collision has become to the West what Florida-Tennessee was to the East — an elimination game. Unless you think Auburn will somehow lose twice, LSU is hereby barred from finishing first. Note to Les Miles: Throw the ball into the end zone next time.
A little shy on both schedule and team: Georgia. Because South Carolina has been exposed as the worst 2-1 team in the land, the Bulldogs will enter October virtually untested. That’s good for the record, bad for getting a read on just how good you really are (or aren’t). Georgia should beat Tennessee in Athens on Oct. 7 and be 8-0 when it heads to Jacksonville, but better Georgia teams — in 2002 and again in 2005 — were likewise pristine before being undone by lesser Florida assemblages than this. A visit to Auburn comes two weeks later. As happened last season, Georgia will go from undefeated to twice-beaten quicker than you can say, “Aromashodu.”
Has the team to override the schedule: Florida. Beating Tennessee clears the way to the Georgia Dome for the best bunch of Gators since Steve Spurrier exited. Florida could win the East with two losses provided it beats Georgia and the Bulldogs lose to Auburn. No SEC team faces a more difficult four-game span than the Gators — starting Sept. 30, they play Alabama, LSU, Auburn and Georgia — but the one-point win in Knoxville leaves wiggle room.
Has the schedule and the team: Auburn. With their next glamour games — Florida and Georgia — well-spaced and at home, the Tigers are positioned to play not just for the SEC title but for the national championship. Auburn is inexplicably No. 3 in the coaches’ poll, trailing Ohio State and Southern Cal, but surely no bloc of voters and no database would dare leave an unbeaten SEC champion behind an unbeaten USC this December. (The Trojans’ biggest remaining games are against California, which laid an egg in Knoxville, and Notre Dame, which lost to Michigan by 26 points.)
Either Auburn gets the chance it was denied in 2004, or Tommy Tuberville sics the noxious booster Bobby Lowder on everyone and everything associated with the BCS. You’ll recall that Terry Bowden ran afoul of Lowder a year after coaching Auburn to the 1997 SEC title game. You’ll also note that Bowden hasn’t coached again, not even for his dad. And his dad could use the help.
Permalink | Comments (98) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Much ground to cover
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
See Michael run. See Michael run and run and run. See Warrick run. See Jerious run.
I went to a Falcons game the other day and a track meet broke out. The Falcons offense gained 382 yards, only 76 by air, which would naturally bring to mind all the jawing that came up as last season wound down to a sorry end. Should Michael Vick continue to be a freelance quarterback, or should he become like those old high top-shoes quarterbacks who dropped back, surveyed the field and delivered the pitch? Which would be like restricting Andruw Jones to bunting.
In a sense, Michael Vick is public property, belonging to anyone who owns a slice of Atlanta. And a richly rewarded piece of property he is. (What was it, $130 million that Arthur Blank budgeted him for? I have trouble following these sporting investments of people like Arthur Blank and George Steinbrenner.) Anyway, every citizen with a ticket to the Dome, and thousands without, feels it’s his/her right and privilege to an opinion about whether Vick should confine himself to the passing game and run only when desperate. Or otherwise.
In the final stages of the season past, his running dwindled down to a precious few yards. In fact, in the last game against Carolina, he had only one carry, and whatever it was, it was for zero yards. Now, is this a switch-a-roo? When Mike wants to, Mike runs. “It all depends on Mike,” the headline said.
It’s stuff lifted from college playbooks. Nothing fancy. Nothing new. Vick and Dunn line up in shotgun formation, Vick takes the snap, he gives it to Dunn, then takes it back and takes off, or leaves it in Dunn’s hands. The old fake-a-roo. Vick accumulated most of his yardage against Tampa Bay off that fake, and only one time did the defense nail him. Ronde Barber waited in place for him and threw him for a loss, but the next time Vick ran it again, they bit and he turned in another gain.
Fourteen times Vick kept it and hoofed it for 127 yards, beginning with the first play from scrimmage. Somehow, it seemed he was running for a lot more than that, but, of course, he’s not always moving forward. He’s in and out of traffic like a sports car darting between 18-wheelers. He completed 10 passes for just 97 yards. It seemed more than that, but then you factor in those 83 penalty yards and that cuts into the total.
Then you consider the score. All those yards, 306 on the ground — that breaks a Falcons record that has stood since 1972, before the Buccaneers had even been created. All those yards, you’d think, should have produced more points. Mainly, what it did was give Monte Kiffin, the Bucs’ Einstein of defense, a furrowed brow and a hurting.
“We look at it one play at a time,” Vick said, not necessarily contributing to the vernacular of sport. “It just shows you we can do it all [when you confuse a Monte Kiffin that bad].”
Having delivered his edict, Vick stepped away from the podium and was embraced by Blank, who is an affectionate boss. So, too, did Dunn get a hug after his appearance. You will see an awful lot of the owner in Falcons pictures, gathering up television time. This is along the order of Jerry Jones, which is contra to the man who preceded him as owner of the Cowboys. Clint Murchison, who could have bought and sold Jones, was a background guy. Rarely ever in camera range. Tex Schramm and Tom Landry were the faces of the Cowboys of those times.
The Falcons’ new uniforms? Well, I’ve seen worse, that undocumented shade of Oregon green, for instance. Most addling because the Tampa Bay players in white looked like the home team and I kept confusing numbers. And why all the talk about a new stadium, by the way? It boggles me. I consider the Georgia Dome the “new” stadium. There are surely no better sight lines in the NFL, and especially the view from the press box. Try that thing in St. Louis or Detroit. Since I don’t expect to be around for the next new one, that’s for another generation.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Falcons / NFL
Much ground to cover
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
See Michael run. See Michael run and run and run. See Warrick run. See Jerious run.
I went to a Falcons game the other day and a track meet broke out. The Falcons offense gained 382 yards, only 76 by air, which would naturally bring to mind all the jawing that came up as last season wound down to a sorry end. Should Michael Vick continue to be a freelance quarterback, or should he become like those old high top-shoes quarterbacks who dropped back, surveyed the field and delivered the pitch? Which would be like restricting Andruw Jones to bunting.
In a sense, Michael Vick is public property, belonging to anyone who owns a slice of Atlanta. And a richly rewarded piece of property he is. (What was it, $130 million that Arthur Blank budgeted him for? I have trouble following these sporting investments of people like Arthur Blank and George Steinbrenner.) Anyway, every citizen with a ticket to the Dome, and thousands without, feels it’s his/her right and privilege to an opinion about whether Vick should confine himself to the passing game and run only when desperate. Or otherwise.
In the final stages of the season past, his running dwindled down to a precious few yards. In fact, in the last game against Carolina, he had only one carry, and whatever it was, it was for zero yards. Now, is this a switch-a-roo? When Mike wants to, Mike runs. “It all depends on Mike,” the headline said.
It’s stuff lifted from college playbooks. Nothing fancy. Nothing new. Vick and Dunn line up in shotgun formation, Vick takes the snap, he gives it to Dunn, then takes it back and takes off, or leaves it in Dunn’s hands. The old fake-a-roo. Vick accumulated most of his yardage against Tampa Bay off that fake, and only one time did the defense nail him. Ronde Barber waited in place for him and threw him for a loss, but the next time Vick ran it again, they bit and he turned in another gain.
Fourteen times Vick kept it and hoofed it for 127 yards, beginning with the first play from scrimmage. Somehow, it seemed he was running for a lot more than that, but, of course, he’s not always moving forward. He’s in and out of traffic like a sports car darting between 18-wheelers. He completed 10 passes for just 97 yards. It seemed more than that, but then you factor in those 83 penalty yards and that cuts into the total.
Then you consider the score. All those yards, 306 on the ground — that breaks a Falcons record that has stood since 1972, before the Buccaneers had even been created. All those yards, you’d think, should have produced more points. Mainly, what it did was give Monte Kiffin, the Bucs’ Einstein of defense, a furrowed brow and a hurting.
“We look at it one play at a time,” Vick said, not necessarily contributing to the vernacular of sport. “It just shows you we can do it all [when you confuse a Monte Kiffin that bad].”
Having delivered his edict, Vick stepped away from the podium and was embraced by Blank, who is an affectionate boss. So, too, did Dunn get a hug after his appearance. You will see an awful lot of the owner in Falcons pictures, gathering up television time. This is along the order of Jerry Jones, which is contra to the man who preceded him as owner of the Cowboys. Clint Murchison, who could have bought and sold Jones, was a background guy. Rarely ever in camera range. Tex Schramm and Tom Landry were the faces of the Cowboys of those times.
The Falcons’ new uniforms? Well, I’ve seen worse, that undocumented shade of Oregon green, for instance. Most addling because the Tampa Bay players in white looked like the home team and I kept confusing numbers. And why all the talk about a new stadium, by the way? It boggles me. I consider the Georgia Dome the “new” stadium. There are surely no better sight lines in the NFL, and especially the view from the press box. Try that thing in St. Louis or Detroit. Since I don’t expect to be around for the next new one, that’s for another generation.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Furman Bisher
Tuesday Countdown: ESPN blind to LaRoche facts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: I liked ESPN a lot better when it revolutionized coverage of the NCAA tournament, gave us highlights of every game and didn’t mutate into 24 hours of screaming and mindless debates.
9: I’m now going to give you a little peak behind the scenes in the ESPN world, in light of Adam LaRoche’s irritation about the way the sports channel portrayed his use of medication for A.D.D. File it under, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
8: A week ago, I was contacted by ESPN, asking if I would appear on “Outside The Lines,” to comment on how I felt about players being allowed to use drugs that are on the baseball’s banned list, and how things like Ritalin fit into the category of performance-enhancing drugs. Initially, I balked.
7: I was told the story was linked to LaRoche’s admitted use of medication and the impact on his statistics. The first thing I did was contact our Braves writer, David O’Brien, to confirm the veracity of all I had been told by ESPN. In short, David relayed what LaRoche had said previously: That he couldn’t be certain how much his improvement at the plate could be attributed to medication or the simple fact that he was now playing every day. The two started at the same time.
6: Some background: LaRoche was diagnosed with A.D.D. in high school. He tried Ritalin one year in winter ball and hated it. It made him jittery. He only started using it during this season because he found his mind drifting to thoughts of hunting while he was playing first base. So he decided to try medication again, but this time in smaller doses.
5: So, back to ESPN. Before scheduling me to appear, a producer said he had to know what my opinion was. I told him that I thought throwing prescription medication like Ritalin into the same category as performance-enhancing drugs like steroids and HGH was lame, especially if an athlete has a medical condition - like A.D.D.
4: The next day, I received an e-mail saying my appearance wasn’t needed.
3: OK, full disclosure: I didn’t watch the special the other day so I can’t sit here and bash the entire production. But judging from media accounts and LaRoche’s reaction, it appeared to pin LaRoche’s statistical rise exclusively to Ritalin. It should be noted that the player had agreed to be interviewed with ESPN weeks ago only because he wanted to get out the message of kids living with attention deficit disorder.
2: None of this is to suggest that adults - including athletes - aren’t obtaining prescription medication on false pretenses. We’ve all heard the stories. It’s also probable that Ritalin and the like is helping baseball players who believe they’ve lost an edge since the league banned amphetamines. But to penalize an athlete who has been diagnosed with a condition and is taking prescription medication - which may or may not have anything to do with his batting average going up 20 points - borders on absurd.
1: A.D.D. is a medical condition. Medication corrects that condition, just as glasses correct blurry vision. I suppose a case could be made that glasses and contact lenses are performance-enhancing. Maybe we should ban them, too.
Permalink | Comments (47) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Falcons running toward harm’s way
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — Fresh off the Falcons spending a second consecutive game executing the spread-option college attack of Texas and West Virginia so well that they could meet Ohio State for the national championship, offensive coordinator Greg Knapp wasn’t available for comment on Monday. Perhaps he was breaking down old films of Red Grange and the Four Horsemen.
This running thing for the Falcons is getting a little creepy.
There isn’t a thing wrong with running, running and running some more. In fact, from the Pop Warner level through that of the pros, running is preferred. Running wins championships, whether we’re talking about Steelers (as in The Bus and Willie Parker for Pittsburgh), Longhorns (as in Vince Young destroying USC) or Vikings (as in Lowndes, Georgia’s Class AAAAA high school champions for two years).
Not only that, during the NFL season’s opening two weeks, the Falcons used a lot of Michael Vick, even more of Warrick Dunn and a little of Jerious Norwood to chew through the historically run-suffocating defenses of Carolina and Tampa Bay for 252 yards and 306 yards, respectively. The Falcons also are undefeated. Plus, in each of the two seasons during the Jim Mora regime, the Falcons led the league in rushing for a trip to the NFC championship game that first year and a flying start the next before crashing shy of the playoffs. That’s all fine, but this potentially isn’t: Unlike any team in recent NFL history, the Falcons are prospering on the ground with a heavy emphasis on this option stuff.
It’s an offense that is splendid for colleges, where most defenses aren’t solid across the board regarding size and speed. So, with an efficient option attack at that level, you can exploit a weakness or three of your opponent. Conversely, it’s an offense that hasn’t longevity in the pros. Defensive coordinators eventually figure these things out, and they also have enough prolific linebackers to make your quarterback wobble instead of sprint along the way to the injured reserve list.
That said, Mora praised Vick for avoiding mighty blows during his various zigs and zags on Sunday. It’s just that at this staggering rate of carries for Vick, those mighty blows are only a sprint away. With the option to run, pass or hand off on many plays against the Buccaneers, Vick nearly ran (14) as many times as he threw (15) for 127 yards rushing. Then there is Dunn, the NFL’s top rusher with 266 yards. The thing is, he’s averaging 25 carries per game, and he entered this season averaging 15 carries per game during each of his previous nine years in the league, and he’s 31, a dinosaur age for running backs.
Not good.
Well, that’s me talking.
“It’s a unique offense that we have right now, but I just think it’s unique for us, because we have an exceptional player at quarterback who can run and throw,” Dunn said. “We also have backs that this system really fits. We have receivers who can block and catch. We have an All-Pro tight end. We have the talent to drop back and throw it, but we also have the talent to run. We complement each other. That’s why it’s so unique.”
Unique can get you killed in a league that hasn’t had a team attempt to run like this in decades. Literally. I worked in Cincinnati in 1978 when the Kansas City Chiefs came to town, and I was sent to write about their new coach, Marv Levy, resurrecting the wing-T from the dead. The offense featured a wingback operating as a second tight end while running inside counters, snatching curls and blocking like crazy. According to Levy, owner of a master’s degree from Harvard, he wished to keep what statistically was the worst defense in history at the time off the field. In other words, Levy was desperate, and those Chiefs averaged 41 carries per game.
These Falcons aren’t desperate, with a defense that is the antithesis of the one for Levy’s Chiefs. Still, these Falcons are averaging four more carries per games than those Chiefs. Definitely not good. Still, unlike those Chiefs, these Falcons are winning, which is the bottom line.
Until somebody gets hurt.
Permalink | Comments (219) | Categories: Terence Moore
Falcons pulling away from the past
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Four decades of misery tend to make one gun-shy. Four decades tend to make you look at a 2-0 start and think, “OK. But did anybody buy the extended warranty because I think I just heard a loud bang coming from the transmission.”
But how do you minimize this?
The Falcons have opened the season with two wins over teams that had made a habit of holding them upside down off rooftops. In two games, they have yet to allow a touchdown. In two games, they have rushed for 558 yards.
This wasn’t Oklahoma pounding the Stillwater School of Art and Design to warm up for the Nebraska game. This was an NFL team, with fragile tendencies, running over Tampa Bay, a week after running over Carolina, a season after being run over by both.
“Statement,” Warrick Dunn said Sunday. “You always want to make a statement about who you are. To have people talk about the way we were last year as a football team, the way we didn’t finish. People will know now that we’re a pretty good football team.”
We know the past. We know about the collapse that followed 6-2 last season, and the absence of consecutive winning seasons, and all the rest.
But last week, the Falcons battered Carolina, which had won last season’s two meetings 68-17, give or take a major organ. On Sunday, they dominated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whose season highlight video was often crammed with two NFC South games against the Falcons.
Tampa Bay, which had won nine of the previous 11 meetings, was smacked Sunday. The Falcons outrushed the Bucs 306-40. The scoreboard didn’t scream rout (14-3), but everything else screamed uncle.
Dunn says the Falcons are pretty good. It’s only two games, but they may be more than that. They tried every conceivable way to let the Bucs back in the game, but they didn’t fold.
We know the past. In the past, they lose this game.
They won despite the fact their grand one-foot-does-all experiment blew up in their face. Michael Koenen was booed. How often does a kicker get booed running onto the field for a field goal attempt — and during an apparent win? Koenen was so bad that you half-expected holder Matt Schaub to channel Lucy and pull the ball away. Three field goal attempts drifted wide and another was blocked. He is now 2-for-8 on the season. The good news: He punted twice and didn’t miss the ball either time.
We know the past. But the Falcons won despite botching five would-be scoring drives — the four missed field goals and a fumble by wide receiver Roddy White after being separated from the ball and consciousness at the Tampa Bay 21. They also dropped two interceptions begging to be returned for touchdowns. At least two other Chris Simms passes were nearly picked off. The defense had to settle for only three interceptions.
There have been times in the past when the Falcons sulked after losing players to injures. Resolve often has been a four-letter word. But on Sunday they rattled Simms early and batted down passes, despite missing their best pass rusher, John Abraham, and playing a relatively one-armed Patrick Kerney.
“It’s always good when you can get your hands in a guy’s face and you constantly have people at his feet,” linebacker Michael Boley said. “He gets kind of timid. When a quarterback gets tired of getting knocked around, they’re looking to get rid of the ball faster.”
We know the past. Everybody knows the past. It’s why so many looked at the Falcons’ talent but thought: third place, no playoffs.
“It fuels guys, yeah,” linebacker Keith Brooking said. “You turn on the TV and all you hear about is Carolina and Tampa. It lights a fire under you, no doubt about it.”
They’re 2-0 and saying all the right things. Brooking was upset the result wasn’t more lopsided (“When we have opportunities, we need to freaking go for the jugular”). DeAngelo Hall was upset he didn’t return an interception for a touchdown.
“It’s that constant quest for perfection,” coach Jim Mora said. “You never arrive.”
No. But they are two steps away from the past.
Permalink | Comments (99) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Auburn looks like a champion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Auburn, Ala. — Two years ago the coach of an unbeaten team was forced to beg for votes that never came. Come this afternoon, the same coach will have all the votes he and his Auburn Tigers need. And this time Tommy Tuberville doesn’t have to say a word.
Asked Saturday his reaction to No. 2 Notre Dame’s crashing loss to Michigan, the coach of the nation’s No. 3 team said: “Tell me they didn’t [lose].” And then, prodded for a more incisive comment: “I can’t believe they lost.”
And then he smiled.
Funny how things work out. The 2004 Auburn Tigers couldn’t rise above No. 3 because Southern Cal and Oklahoma wouldn’t cooperate. Now Auburn is 3-0 and as good a bet as any team — Ohio State and Southern Cal included — to wind up No. 1. The Tigers’ epic victory over LSU, itself one of the nation’s five most talented teams, tells us all we need to know about this bunch.
The final score — Auburn 7, LSU 3 — looks unassuming. Looks deceive. “It was hard and physical, and that’s why it was 7-3,” Tuberville said. And then: “There was more speed in that game than I’ve seen in a long time.”
LSU plays great defense. Auburn played even better D Saturday. There being no Vince Young or Reggie Bush in college football this season, defense figures to settle the issue of who’s No. 1. If you can hold LSU without a touchdown, you can measure up against anybody anywhere. You can beat Florida and Georgia and Alabama, all of which remain on the Tigers’ schedule. You can win the SEC championship in the Georgia Dome. You can win in Arizona on Jan. 8.
What transpired here Saturday was a classic of the old-school strain. Auburn needed 19 minutes just to make a first down. LSU outgained its opponent by 127 yards but — forget about crossing the goal line — snapped the ball only once inside the Auburn 20. (And that play was nullified by a false start.) Said Auburn quarterback Brandon Cox: “The way our defense was playing, when we scored [on a sneak] I really thought [one touchdown] could win.”
One touchdown won, one touchdown and two huge plays by one strong safety. Eric Brock’s tip of JaMarcus Russell’s fourth-down pass inside the final three minutes caused officials to wave off the pass-interference penalty they’d assessed against teammate Zach Gilbert, and Brock’s thunderous tackle of Buster Davis drove the receiver to the turf at the Auburn 6 as time expired.
And that was that. LSU coach Les Miles was left to fuss about the refs, wondering why the interference call against Gilbert was overruled but a similar one against his side was allowed to stand. But that’s what a losing coach in a game of this magnitude does: He gripes about the officiating. (Meanwhile, Tuberville — who, as Mark Richt can attest, likes to give coaching advice — said of LSU’s final drive: “I’m surprised they didn’t throw it in the end zone a couple of times.”)
Miles might not be a championship coach. (His predecessor, Nick Saban, demonstrably was.) Tuberville, by way of contrast, seems destined for that exalted level. He and his assistants worked a lovely game Saturday, sticking with the run and the estimable Kenny Irons even when early returns weren’t promising. Irons finished with 70 yards rushing — “Like 150 on another day,” Tuberville said — and was the engine that powered the drive to the only touchdown.
That one touchdown stands to change the face of college football 2006. Auburn will surely be No. 2 in the new polls, and if you can stay No. 2 you’ll eventually get your shot at No. 1. Two years later, Tuberville and his Tigers are finally where they need to be.
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Mark Bradley
Dogs need no Houdini escape this time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Athens — Usually, if somebody among the little guys of college football is on the verge of shocking one of the big boys, there is quick evidence of a slingshot. Well, David was only a figment of many people’s imaginations Saturday at Sanford Stadium. At least regarding this possible Goliath, with Georgia showing the only thing that could defeat Georgia on this sun-splattered afternoon was Georgia.
Certainly not UAB, a little guy that finally met its match after Georgia showed too much depth, too much running, too much special teams, too much defense, too much everything.
Georgia also showed too many errors against UAB before the Bulldogs did exactly what they needed to do, and that is, they returned from a sloppy first half to blow their overmatched visitors back across the Alabama state line with a 34-0 victory. It took awhile. Soon after Georgia sprinted to a 7-0 lead within the game’s opening three minutes, the Bulldogs looking as bored as those who bothered to show up (large sections of empty seats at kickoff) and leave early in the fourth quarter. There was UAB stuffing Georgia’s mighty running game on fourth-and-1 in the red zone. There was that drive for the Bulldogs that featured A.J. Bryant dropping an easy pass, freshman quarterback Matthew Stafford fumbling after getting smacked, and a bad snap leading to a Stafford sack.
In other words, the Georgia offense remains a work in progress, but the defense is already there. For instance: The good stuff came later in the game for Georgia, primarily triggered by a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown and that defense that kept torturing what supposedly is a decent UAB offense. Not only is that consecutive shutouts for the 3-0 Bulldogs, but they’ve allowed their foes a combined 12 points.
So why was Georgia linebacker Danny Verdun Wheeler shaking his head in the aftermath? “Uh, the two shutouts? We’re just OK on defense,” he said, with the solid 6-foot-2, 248-pound senior daring anybody in his sight to disagree. “Not being bashful or nothing, I really think that we’re just OK. Not taking anything away from South Carolina or UAB, they’re great teams, but I really think we have to play a whole lot harder and a whole lot faster when we get into the SEC struggle.”
Verdun Wheeler actually speaks the truth, especially since Tennessee sits a mediocre Colorado and an average Ole Miss away on Georgia’s schedule. Then again, given recent history, the Blazers would qualify as a pretty good Ole Miss if they played in the SEC instead of Conference USA. During the season’s first week, UAB nearly shocked Oklahoma on the road. The Blazers upset LSU and Mississippi State within the past six years, and they almost handled Tennessee, Pitt, Kansas and even Georgia during their last trip to town.
That was three years ago, when Georgia escaped with a 16-13 victory, and when running back Thomas Brown watched from his home in Tucker. “I was still in high school, and I really didn’t know much about UAB, and I was pretty much like most fans were by saying, ‘Oh, they should blow them out,’ ” said Brown, among those who helped Georgia do just that this time. He joined Kregg Lumpkin and Danny Ware as an efficient three-cogged machine that chewed through UAB’s defense on the ground for 146 yards and two touchdowns.
Georgia passed only when necessary for a couple of reasons. First, with Stafford making his first collegiate start, Bulldogs coach Mark Richt preferred a mostly vanilla game plan on offense. Second, despite UAB’s history of scaring folks, we’re still talking about UAB, which means Richt is saving his tutti-frutti stuff for the likes of Tennessee, Florida or Auburn.
Added Verdun Wheeler, reflecting on UAB again, “I mean, it’s almost impossible for somebody to come out and try to take those guys lightly. They were good. Maybe [fans and outsiders] may not have seen that, but just being on the field, you can ask anybody in this [locker] room, and they’ll tell you that their offense is really good.” So good that it didn’t score. Or maybe Georgia’s defense is so great.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Overmatched Troy never quit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
These Trojans came without enough horses, but they brought one helluva band. Now, to get back to football, it must be said that the men of Troy University, sandwiching Georgia Tech in between Florida State and Nebraska, found that the Yellow Jackets were not exactly their kind of meat. But it took awhile before the bumbling hosts brought about enough offensive muscle to lessen the discomfort of the occupants of the pews at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Matter of fact, the Trojans made an issue out of it into the fourth quarter. You check the score and you might get the impression that it was a rout. The truth is, going into the final quarter, the score was tied 14-14 and those gourmands who feed on upsets were rubbing their hands with glee. But not for long. On the third play, fourth-and-1 and a yard away from the end zone, Reggie Ball flipped a short pass for the man who usually blocks for him, fullback Mike Cox, and you could almost hear a huge sigh of relief rise above this arena, or at least the nervous Georgia Tech devotees among the 45,637.
The margin would expand to 35-20, but as the shadows fell across this hallowed old corner of North Avenue and Techwood, Chan Gailey was holding auditions once he got comfortable. The Trojans had come to town with their six-shooters armed and ready. After all, once you have spent a Saturday night in Tallahassee as the intended appetizer, why should a sunshiney afternoon in highly civilized Atlanta unnerve you?
The Trojans had little chance to exercise their bravado early on. Ball cranked up the offense early, and by the time he directed another one of those reverses, with Rashaun Grant circling addled Trojans on a 26-yard haul into the end zone untouched, Troy had managed to get off only two offensive series. Tech made it 14-0 in the second quarter, and this was beginning to look easy.
But not so fast, my friend, as the coach-turned-pundit Lee Corso is wont to say. Omar Haugabook, the Trojans’ quarterback, finally got some air in the ball and by halftime cut the margin to 14-7. And the rest, by this time, is history.
It had been the guess of many, I’d suppose, that any team that could hold Florida State to 45 yards afoot might be a serious problem to solve. And in ways they were.
Get this: Can you imagine a team holding Calvin Johnson to 9 yards on two catches and losing and Tech wins? Can you imagine that the same Ball you saw against Notre Dame would set an all-time Tech record for rushing quarterbacks, 130 yards against Gary Hardie’s 122 yards against Tulane in 1977?
And if you were waiting for Tashard Choice to move into P.J. Daniels’ vacated shoes, this would be the day. He doesn’t have Daniels’ bullish power, but give him some daylight and he’ll give you some yards.
With the lead in hand, Gailey began testing the depth of this crop. Several fresh and unsullied uniforms began to appear on the field, and some of these names might be filed away for future reference.
Greg Smith, a freshman, caught a couple of passes. Jamaal Evans, another freshman, picked up 40 yards after Choice took a rest. Another freshman who isn’t even in the book, Tyler Evans, got considerable action on special teams. He was a late walk-on from Kennesaw. And junior Gary Guyton intercepted a pass, and on it went.
But say this for the Trojans: They never quit. Once they saw an opening they still were landing punches. Say this, most of us were expecting something tough and ugly. Troy probably expected its chances were limited against a team that lost to Notre Dame by only four points, but you’ll never find out until you throw everything you’ve got at ‘em.
And if anybody was keeping score in the band division, the Trojans, silver helmets glistening under the sun, won in a wipeout. Unfortunately for Troy, score is kept only on the grass.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Beatings benefit small schools financially
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath. Those who run the NCAA take the Hypocritic Oath. They condemn the power of sports programs and preach academic reform, but grab the money from TV networks, approve 12-game regular seasons and help create the monstrous blob they claim to disdain.
It follows that there are several athletics directors who are more than willing to sell their soul — and offer members of their student body up for sacrifice — when piecing together a football schedule.
Already this season, we have seen Florida Atlantic accept a 54-6 beating from Clemson, which was nice enough to leave $500,000 on the night stand. Northwestern State added to its building fund to take whippings from Kansas (49-18) and Baylor (47-10).
Nebraska is into the flip side of this. The Cornhuskers have beaten Louisiana Tech and Nicholls State by a combined 105-17. It was worth the coin.
“Yeah, poor David,” said David Walker. Louisiana-Lafayette’s interim athletics director could’ve been referring to himself, but in this case, it was a Biblical reference. As in: Yikes, down comes Goliath’s foot.
When the college season resumes Saturday, Georgia plays UAB, and Georgia Tech faces Troy. Both opponents were scheduled to pad win totals. Walker is happy to report that Louisiana-Lafayette has a bye.
In the first two weeks of the season, the Ragin’ Cajuns had the living “bam” knocked out of them. They lost to LSU, 45-3, and Texas A&M, 51-7.
For this, they were paid $1.2 million.
Was it worth it?
“Unfortunately, it’s not a matter of, ‘Is it worth it?’ It’s not worth it,” Walker said by phone. “But the problem is it’s very much needed. Many of us in the Sun Belt [Conference] have to play big guarantee games. Those kinds of scores are never worth $600,000. Coaches want a more competitive game. Our athletes are up for those games. No amount of money is worth that.”
Walker said the money goes into the general athletics budget. This year, it helped find scholarships for summer school students and fifth-year seniors.
The other players: They got Band-Aids and ice bags.
If you’re a student-athlete, is the humiliation of getting served for lunch to a Division 1-A power worth whatever pregame glory might be evident?
“It’s kind of like high school, if you had a 1-A team going against a 6-A team,” said Tech cornerback Jahi Word-Daniels. “It doesn’t benefit anybody.
“I don’t really like it because teams are just putting weak teams on their schedules so they can end up with 10-win seasons. Teams with harder schedules may win six or seven games, but that doesn’t mean they’re much worse than the 10-win teams.”
Word-Daniels grew up in Hoover, Ala., near Troy. He said he personally wouldn’t mind playing a national power if he attended a smaller school because “it would be a way to showcase my talents and see where I stand against those players.”
But he added, “To be honest, I would think most players would think, ‘OK, we’re about the get killed.’ “
Chan Gailey has been the hors d’oeuvre. His head coaching career has taken him through Troy (1983-84) and Samford (1993). In 1992, Samford lost at Auburn 55-0. And in Gailey’s season?
“It depends on who you talk to,” he said. “If you talk to us at Samford, we played great for a half and then depth got us. You know, and all those other things you say. But in the end, it was pretty lopsided.”
Actually, 35-7 isn’t as bad as 55-0. Or as bad as Texas over North Texas, 56-7; Georgia over Western Kentucky, 48-12; West Virginia over Eastern Washington, 52-3; Louisville over Temple, 62-0; TCU over UC Davis, 46-13.
Medic?
Gailey believes most players look at it as a worthy challenge.
“If you go through it eight times, that’s one thing,” he said. “But to go through it once or twice [is OK].” Sure. He’s on the sideline.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Weekend predictions: Falcons won’t need Abraham
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Kremlin — For anybody who might have missed it, Falcons coach Jim Paramoira disclosed again Thursday that John Abraham is questionable for this week’s big game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which is to assume there is a game, or a team, or a league, or intelligent life on Earth, none of which the team would confirm.
The Falcons insist they are not trying to mess with the mind of Bucs coach Jon Gruden or circumventing NFL disclosure policies. Because really, in the big picture, who isn’t questionable?
“Since practice was closed today, I’ll tell you that Elvis looked really good at left tackle,” Paramoira said. “Thanks for coming out. Would you like a cookie? A neighbor gave them to me but I suspect they’re filled with tiny computer microchips. I’m not going to fall for that one again. Why are you looking at me like that? SECURITY!”
Just a guess here. (But I guessed 11 times against the line last week and got it right 10 times. You may bow now.) It won’t matter if Abraham is napping on Neptune on Sunday.
The Falcons are better against the run than a year ago, when they were just north of comatose and Carnell Williams ran for 266 yards and two touchdowns in two games.
The Bucs’ only other option is quarterback Chris Simms, whose totals against Baltimore included three interceptions, two sacks and zero scoring drives. Also, his father disowned him.
Straight from the source: Falcons win. But 5 1/2 is a bit rich. No cover.
Indentured students UAB at Georgia: Interesting confluence of events. Three Bulldogs return from suspension and Mark Richt was honored by making the cover of the Wheaties box. Specially marked boxes include a miniature defense attorney. (Hey, it’s T-ball.) Bowsers cover 17.
Troy at Tech: You know a coach (Chan Gailey) is well-traveled when he faces former employers two weeks in a row (Samford, Troy). Sorry, this is it. Air Force and Birmingham Fire survivors didn’t make the schedule. Bees win, but take Troy and 17.
Cat Fight: LSU beat Auburn in overtime last year because the Tigers’ John Vaughn missed five field goals. Of course, LSU is upset because that’s all anybody will talk about. I love when teams play the no-respect card. Not really. Auburn covers a field goal (oops).
Reality at Tennessee: Received some smack e-mail after Coach Pumpkinhead’s win over Cal. Guess Vowel fans have learned to get the bragging out of the way before the Florida game. Take cover and punt 3 1/2. Gators, Gators, Gators.
Miami at Louisville: I hate stats, but Miami has won seven of its past nine against ranked teams on the road. (Research? Hey, it happens.) Take Windbags and 5 — and in a straight upset.
N.C. State at Southern Ms.: Chuck Amato loses and complains that Akron lets in “non-qualifiers.” I don’t know what the big deal is. N.C. State lets non-qualifiers onto its coaching staff. (But take State and the 2 1/2.)
Clemson at FSU: The Seminoles needed two touchdowns in the last six minutes to beat Troy. Remember in the Stone Age when the JV could have scored two touchdowns in any six minutes? FSU wins, but take Clemson and 4 1/2.
Pros and Ex-cons Giants at Eagles: Philly is the best team in the East Division. I’m not sure the Giants are even the best team in East Rutherford. Philly covers 3.
Saints at Packers: Koren Robinson was arrested on DUI charges after a high-speed police chase, pretty much obliterating terms of his probation. Then he signed with Green Bay and was praised as a high-character guy by GM Ted Thompson. Jackie Sherrill is suing for copyright infringement. Saints cover 2.
Redskins at Cowboys: Dan Snyder’s decision to underwrite Tom Cruise’s films is not all about their friendship. It turns out that Baby Suri moves better than Mark Brunell. Joe Gibbs — Daytona is calling you. Dallas covers 6.
Raiders at Ravens: Randy Moss complains that Art Shell is too tough. Jerry Porter laughs during a loss. The NFL Network just found its first reality show. Ravens win but won’t cover 11 1/2.
Last week: 10-1 straight up, 10-1 against the line.
Season grossout: 15-3 straight up, 13-5 against the line.
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Falcons too deep to falter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Everyone got excited when the Falcons opened the 2005 season by beating a team that had just played in the Super Bowl. Everyone is excited now because the Falcons have begun the new season by beating a team that was supposed to play in the Super Bowl. Last season, as we know, didn’t pan out. This one will.
This 1-0 is different from last year’s 1-0 in that these Falcons are built to last. This 1-0 is different in that last season’s seemingly epic victory came in the Dome against a Philadelphia team that was — even though we didn’t know it at the time — primed to implode. This 1-0 wasn’t the function of a frothing Monday night home crowd and a team amped to the ozone. This 1-0 came on the road and was a cold-blooded demonstration of power and precision. It’s easy to imagine this team replicating that clinical effort in November, and in January. This is the NFL, where emotion fades but talent endures.
And that’s the chief difference between last year’s 1-0 and this one. The Falcons’ biggest acquisitions from the winter/spring of 2005 — Ed Hartwell, Ike Reese, Roddy White — had negligible impact on the 2005 season. The acquisitions of Offseason ‘06 already have cut a swath and will, with time, cut even wider. Ashley Lelie hasn’t done anything yet, but he will soon. Jerious Norwood will rush for as many yards in spot duty as T.J. Duckett ever did. This defense will get better the longer it works together, as opposed to last season’s, which got only worse.
The Falcons went to school on last season, which saw them go from 1-0 to 6-2 to 8-8. “You learn more about yourself when you’re losing,” says Rich McKay, the president and general manager. “It’s harder to be intellectually honest when you’re winning. There’s a tendency to say, ‘We’ve done pretty well with this deck of cards — let’s not shuffle the deck.’ “
The 2004 Falcons had gone 11-5 and played in the NFC championship game, so the belief heading into 2005 was that continuity mattered above all. That feeling was dashed when Brady Smith kept getting hurt and the Falcons were left with two rookies — Chauncey Davis, who’d been a linebacker until his senior year in college, and Jonathan Babineaux, who’d started his collegiate career as a fullback — to play right defensive end. Neither was quite ready, and the effect rippled across the entire defense.
Patrick Kerney, the other end, wasn’t as effective because opponents could double-team him more. The up-front run defense wasn’t as stout, leaving the soft safeties exposed. By November, every opposing back was gashing the Falcons, and the front office decided then and there such a thing wouldn’t happen again.
And it won’t. Even if John Abraham, the imported right end whom the Panthers conspicuously couldn’t block, doesn’t play against Tampa Bay on Sunday, there’s cover available. “Chauncey Davis has been trained in the system now,” McKay said. “And we’ve added [in the ample form of Grady Jackson] to the interior of the line, and that will help us stop the run.”
Things will go wrong, sure. This being the NFL, things always do. But the Falcons’ inspired infusion of talent should enable them to ride out the jolts. Barring a season-ending injury to Michael Vick, nothing should keep these guys from the playoffs. It’s always nice to be 1-0, but it’s nicer still to know that you’re too skilled and too deep to fade when the leaves begin to fall.
Permalink | Comments (84) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Andruw’s trade value dropping
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The run of 14 division titles officially ended early Wednesday morning. Any shred of wild-card hope died Wednesday night. And there’s something else about the Braves that is dwindling as we speak:
Andruw Jones’ trade value.
After a breakout season in 2005, he’s back to being pretty much the same guy he always was — he plays a great center field and he hits for power but not for average. And yes, that’s good enough to make him an All-Star, but it isn’t quite enough to make him one of the five best players in the majors.
And if he’s not one of the five best players in the majors and he’s probably going to walk at the end of the 2007 season as a free agent, the Braves would be well advised to trade him for starting pitching over the winter.
Thing is, if you’re a team looking to shore up your outfield — the White Sox, say — do you note Jones’ sorry second half and say, “We can get somebody 75 percent as good at half the price”?
There are only two ways to get really good in neo-baseball: You can spend big the way the Yankees do, or you can find yourself some young starting pitchers, the way the Twins and the Marlins keep doing. The Braves, whose great run of 14 began with starting pitching and ended due to the lack thereof, need to find some young arms. Trading Jones seemed the best immediate vehicle, and maybe it still does. But it might help the long-term development of this franchise if the center fielder went on a tear these next 2 1/2 weeks.
Permalink | Comments (29) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Howard HR mark soiled by others
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Bobby Cox is among the significant few who remember what Ryan Howard and the growing many don’t: “61” as one of baseball’s magic numbers. It’s just that Roger Maris’ old mark for most home runs during a season actually was buried long ago by the bats of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds.
Well, sort of. You know, if you ignore that little matter of baseball’s Tarnished Trio using more juice than muscle to shovel “61” deeper into the record books.
Cox shrugged Wednesday at Turner Field, where the Braves manager reflected on Howard’s rush out of nowhere with the Philadelphia Phillies this season to 56 home runs before the start of a doubleheader along the way to wherever. “It’s still magical if you can hit 60 [homers],” said Cox, referring to Babe Ruth’s record that stood from 1927 until Maris did his thing 34 years later for the Yankees.
Added Cox, “When Howard does it, I’m going to shake my head and say, ‘I don’t know how he did it.’ Like I do all of them. That just seems impossible.”
It’s so impossible that folks have two schools of thought regarding Howard’s brilliant sophomore season (.316 batting average and 138 RBIs with those major league-high 56 homers entering Wednesday’s action) after he did so much as a freshman to become the National League’s rookie of the year.
Thought One: The only juice Howard uses involves the five basic food groups. He’s big. He’s naturally big. In fact, the 26-year-old slugger from Wildwood, Mo., is 6 feet 4 and 252 pounds. That’s opposed to those among baseball’s Tarnished Trio who awoke one day during their waning years in the game and went from Olive Oyls to Popeyes. So, if Howard rips a 62nd homer, supporters of this thought say that he would become the first “legitimate” slugger to surpass Maris’ record.
Thought Two: As is the case for the rest of Howard’s peers from Generation S(teroids), he is guilty until proven innocent. After all, the game still doesn’t test for human growth hormone. Not only that, the reason the BALCO folks were around before the feds got involved was to develop as many ways as possible to help athletes cheat without anybody knowing about it. Supporters of this thought say, no matter what Howard does, he’s just like the rest of them.
Here’s my thought: I don’t know. I do know that baseball’s Tainted Trio has ruined it for everybody.
“It’s a little bit disheartening to … somebody can’t go out and do something well without kind of having all of that [steroids, HGH, etc.] brought up,” said Howard, a pleasant soul with a potent bat and a nice glove. That was a decent enough combination to allow the Phillies to trade the accomplished Jim Thome to the Chicago White Sox in the offseason. Added Howard, “Even though we’re at that point where [steroids, HGH, etc.] still will be brought up, hopefully, that cloud will go away.”
Not likely. The truth is, the sun won’t shine for the longest time in baseball when it comes to the bulk of the public believing that somebody just ate all of his vegetables to do all of those incredible things with his bat, glove, arm or legs.
Fortunately, for Howard, the Phillies are among the many in what is becoming a race for the ages regarding the NL wild card. That, along with his team-first philosophy, is enough to keep his focus away from the slew of suspicious eyes that are creeping into his world. Not because of anything he has done, but because of the Tarnished Trio.
“I mean, me, personally, I’ve just never seen the purpose for [taking performance-enhancing drugs]. Me, personally, I’ve never did it, and if somebody else does it, that’s on them,” said Howard, who confessed to knowing little about Maris or his tortured march to 61. “If I could get to 60 [homers] or somewhere around that number, that would be fantastic, but I know people are going to have their own opinions about this, that and the other.”
Yes, people will, and Howard will have baseball’s Tarnished Trio to blame for having doubters when it comes to this, that and the other.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Terence Moore
Tech lose? Perish the thought.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
So what happens if Georgia Tech really does lose to Troy on Saturday? Should the Yellow Jacket Nation scream or shrug, especially given the following that you’ve no doubt heard by now:
Troy almost beat Florida State last Saturday at Florida State.
Troy did beat 17th-ranked Missouri two seasons ago.
Troy once was coached by Tech’s Chain Gailey, who turned the Trojans into a Division II power after winning a championship.
Yada, yada, yada.
The answer is, Tech has no business losing to a Troy. Period. Then again, Tech also had no business losing to a Duke or to a Wake Forest, which the Jackets have done during the Gailey regime.
Permalink | Comments (106) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Lots of reasons why it ended for Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
When you finish first 14 times over 14 completed seasons, you assume every year is your year. For the imperial Braves, this one finally wasn’t. The Mets made it official Tuesday night, winning in Florida to eliminate the Braves from the NL East race. In that break-the-mold spirit, we offer a tutorial.
It’s not your year when:
• Only three members of your seven-man Opening Day bullpen are on the active roster in September — and all three have been pressed into service as starters.
• Franchise linchpin Chipper Jones, having yet to find a position afield where he can’t hurt himself, keeps hurting himself while batting • You trade Wilson Betemit, the linchpin’s dependable backup, on the night the linchpin hurts himself yet again.
•Willy Aybar, one of the players you receive for the linchpin’s dependable backup, breaks his hand in his Atlanta debut while trying (and failing) to steal second base with two out in the ninth and his new team four runs behind.
• Danys Baez, the other player you receive for the linchpin’s dependable backup, goes on the disabled list with appendicitis.
• The Florida Marlins, with a team payroll roughly equal to what Mike Hampton is earning for not pitching, are ahead of you in the standings.
• Adam LaRoche has a breakout season but will be remembered mostly for not hustling to first base on Nick Johnson’s grounder on Mother’s Day and for bunting on his own — into a ninth-inning double play, no less — against the Marlins.
• You fall seven games behind wild-card-leading Cincinnati, which promptly collapses, and then you fall seven games behind new leader San Diego.
• Horacio Ramirez gets hurt four different ways.
• John Smoltz, your best starting pitcher, halts a four-game winning streak, a two-game winning streak and a three-game winning streak — all since Aug. 31.
• You’re swept in a September doubleheader by two Mets’ starting pitchers who were in Class AAA in August.
• Jorge Sosa goes from 13 wins to 10 losses faster than you can say, “We let Leo Mazzone leave without a counteroffer?”
• Andruw Jones, the near-MVP of last season, makes his biggest noise of 2006 by squawking about being put on waivers.
• You don’t find your closer until July 20.
• Your imported closer blows only one save for his new team, but the one misfire costs you the chance to sweep a doubleheader in Philadelphia over Labor Day weekend.
• You choose to use a 38-year-old starting pitcher on three days’ rest to keep from falling 10 games behind — on May 7.
• Your manager, who’s renowned for backing his players come what may, is moved to say of LaRoche and his aforementioned bunt: “I don’t know what the [heck] he’s doing.”
• Dayton Moore, your director of baseball operations, leaves for Kansas City and you proceed to lose 20 of your next 23 games.
• The franchise linchpin’s dependable backup reports to his new team and helps it win 15 of its next 16 games.
• You employ more full-time announcers than bona fide pitchers.
Permalink | Comments (117) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
It was just a feeling in the spring
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Say it ain’t so, John. Yogi Berra says it ain’t over till it’s over, but actually, it has been over for the Braves since somebody strained the first oblique. I sensed it during spring training. Couldn’t exactly put it in words, or maybe I didn’t have the guts.
It wasn’t that there was something missing. I guess it was something internal, like your stomach growling, the feeling that no way could John Schuerholz keep pulling rabbits out of his hat. Every move he made in 2005 had worked out, and I know I repeat myself, but he was a magician. Kids who were just new to shaving, and some who looked as if they never had, came in the fastest way they could get here from Richmond or Pearl, Miss. Emergency call. Most of them packing for two or three days, expecting to head back to the farm.
Jeff Francoeur never looked back. Then Brian McCann. They were the keys, and we’ve been through all that before. They’ve carried on without a hitch. My All-Star catcher for years to come is McCann. Excuses usually don’t impress the fans, but the Braves must have led the league in pulled hamstrings, groins, tendons and rotators, and back spasms and ankles and wrists and some joints I didn’t even know people had. Are they brittle or out of shape? Then there was a heavy load of the wounded on the payroll, Mike Hampton in particular, Brian Jordan, John Thomson, and later, Horacio Ramirez, again.
It got so bad they were pulling guys in off the street. Ken Ray. Chad Paronto. Tyler Yates. Wayne Franklin. They went as far as Australia trying to find a live arm, the pharmaceutical salesman, Peter Moylan. The earned-run average wasn’t that bad in a season of ERA depression. But when John Smoltz got jolted again the other night, that was the sound of the last shoe dropping.
The infield at times was made up of guys who might have just got off the bus. Chipper and Marcus Giles couldn’t put many healthy games together. I won’t contend that Edgar Renteria was a disappointment, but he didn’t measure up to that particular brand of shortstopping established by Rafael Furcal. Made a lot of errors as well. He was happy to get out of Boston, but I’m not certain it was reflected in his season here. In the long run, the deal that sent Wilson Betemit to the Dodgers looks worse by the day, with Chipper Jones in and out of the infirmary.
There were some bright sides. Adam LaRoche, for instant, who showed up every day. Chuck James gave Atlanta a fresh impression of Mableton. He became the one starter they could count on, winner of nine of 12 decisions. Macay McBride established himself in the bullpen. I don’t know that anybody expected a .337 season out of Matt Diaz, including him, but he eventually became the left fielder. Oscar Villarreal got a few breaks that jacked up his record, but when you check in with a 9-1 record you don’t have to apologize for a 4.15 earned-run average.
If you care to have a look at a sort of ‘06 edition of the ‘05 Braves, turn south, brother. The Marlins charged onto the scene with a second baseman named Uggla, a pitcher named Anibal, an outfielder named Abercrombie, and there in the middle of the crowd, old Wes Helms, another one the Braves traded away. They picked up an outfielder named Cody Ross who had been turned away by both the Dodgers and Reds. He whacked two home runs in a game against the Braves, then three more against the Mets, a guy from nowhere.
The Braves get a chance to let some of their air out of their balloon later in the week, but small consolation that will be. On the other hand, who’s to wail and moan? Nothing is forever, even the AFLAC duck.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Countdown: Spurrier, Favre need do-overs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Steve Spurrier and Brett Favre were both shut out this past weekend. Welcome to the year’s first reality check.
9: When Georgia blanked South Carolina, 18-0, it was the first time a Spurrier team was shut out since 1987 when he was at Duke, which doesn’t really count. In the bigger picture, it illustrated the recruiting problems he is going to have in Columbia, much like he had at Duke, which doesn’t really count.
8: Spurrier can coach. But he’s not going to win any recruiting border wars with Georgia, and he’ll only get players out of Florida who aren’t wanted by Miami, Florida or Florida State. He should do OK against Central Florida and Southern. That means few stars and little depth. What Spurrier did last season was great, but 7-5 might be as good as it ever gets there. And at this stage of his life, I’m guessing he doesn’t have the patience for many six- or seven-win seasons.
7: Favre thought about retirement. He should’ve done more than think about it. He had two interceptions and no touchdowns in the opener against Chicago, a division rival that has held him to no touchdowns and EIGHT interceptions in the last three meetings. Brett Favre, meet Randy Wright.
6: On a good team, Favre might still be decent (but not great). But in Green Bay, he’s done in part because the Packers are done. They might be the only NFL franchise with a heart instead of a head. Why couldn’t they just say, “Goodbye”?
5: The 49ers told Joe Montana they were going to go with Steve Young. Is there some reason Green Bay couldn’t do the same thing with Favre? They need to move on and start building around Aaron Rodgers — or at least see if the kid can play.
4: Anna Kournikova, meet Maria Sharapova. (Wait. You mean you can be hot but not a fraud?)
3: From the Dept. of Bad Timing: John Smoltz is 0-3 with an 11.08 ERA and a groin pull since airing frustrations about his option for next year not yet being exercised. (That said, he still has a point.)
2: There apparently are some people who are upset that Tiger Woods appeared to be cheering for Roger Federer over Andy Roddick in the U.S. Open. Excuse me, but is Federer a Swiss arms dealer or something? Get a life, folks.
1: Guess Mark Richt didn’t think it was important to hide the identity of his backup quarterback this week (Joe Cox).
Permalink | Comments (54) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Countdown: Spurrier, Favre need do-overs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Steve Spurrier and Brett Favre were both shut out this past weekend. Welcome to the year’s first reality check.
9: When Georgia blanked South Carolina, 18-0, it was the first time a Spurrier team was shut out since 1987 when he was at Duke, which doesn’t really count. In the bigger picture, it illustrated the recruiting problems he is going to have in Columbia, much like he had at Duke, which doesn’t really count.
8: Spurrier can coach. But he’s not going to win any recruiting border wars with Georgia, and he’ll only get players out of Florida who aren’t wanted by Miami, Florida or Florida State. He should do OK against Central Florida and Southern. That means few stars and little depth. What Spurrier did last season was great, but 7-5 might be as good as it ever gets there. And at this stage of his life, I’m guessing he doesn’t have the patience for many six- or seven-win seasons.
7: Favre thought about retirement. He should’ve done more than think about it. He had two interceptions and no touchdowns in the opener against Chicago, a division rival that has held him to no touchdowns and EIGHT interceptions in the last three meetings. Brett Favre, meet Randy Wright.
6: On a good team, Favre might still be decent (but not great). But in Green Bay, he’s done in part because the Packers are done. They might be the only NFL franchise with a heart instead of a head. Why couldn’t they just say, “Goodbye”?
5: The 49ers told Joe Montana they were going to go with Steve Young. Is there some reason Green Bay couldn’t do the same thing with Favre? They need to move on and start building around Aaron Rodgers — or at least see if the kid can play.
4: Anna Kournikova, meet Maria Sharapova. (Wait. You mean you can be hot but not a fraud?)
3: From the Dept. of Bad Timing: John Smoltz is 0-3 with an 11.08 ERA and a groin pull since airing frustrations about his option for next year not yet being exercised. (That said, he still has a point.)
2: There apparently are some people who are upset that Tiger Woods appeared to be cheering for Roger Federer over Andy Roddick in the U.S. Open. Excuse me, but is Federer a Swiss arms dealer or something? Get a life, folks.
1: Guess Mark Richt didn’t think it was important to hide the identity of his backup quarterback this week (Joe Cox).
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Time for an early gut check
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — John Abraham’s groin hurts. Nobody can be certain how much it hurts because he was locked in the Falcons’ training room Monday and predictably was unavailable to hovering media vultures, whose job — and I’m ashamed to admit this — partly is to obsess about other people’s groins.
Now, I’m forced to go out on a limb here, because NFL teams tend to embrace vagueness in their injury reports. So expect the Falcons’ injury report this week to list Abraham as “questionable” with “an ailment somewhere south of his nasal cavity.”
I’m going to make a reasonable guess that Abraham isn’t going to play. That’s pure speculation, based on a lifetime of watching athletes with pained expressions after something went wrong in areas south of the nasal cavity.
And if Abraham does miss the game? In a sense, the season starts this week.
Injuries happen. Adversity happens. The Falcons are 1-0 following a dominating performance in Carolina. But that’s no more impressive than the fact they were 1-0 after an emotional win over Philadelphia last season. We soon learned about the significance of that game and a 6-2 start.
Suddenly, the whole franchise seemed doubled-over with groin issues.
Abraham is hurt. Patrick Kerney is iffy. Ed Hartwell has been absent (although he’s pretty much been only a rumor since the Falcons got him). Welcome to the test. What better time to see what substance this team is comprised of?
“Some teams say woe is me,” Lawyer Milloy said, “and some teams keep moving.”
The Carolina Panthers were all about woe Sunday. They were missing Steve Smith and responded as if somebody robbed them of several vital organs.
The Falcons were floating in woe for much of the second half last season and in the final week went under. Milloy wasn’t here a year ago, but he has seen things unravel before. The flip side: He also played for the New England Patriots, whose collective resolve, toughness and discipline have done more to lead that team to three Super Bowl titles than any single player on the roster, Tom Brady included.
So it follows that when Milloy was asked about how significant injuries can sometimes create doubts in a locker room, he responded like somebody questioned his manhood: “Does it look like I care?”
Well, no. And please don’t punch me.
“Obviously we want [Abraham] out there, but if he’s not we’ve got guys ready to go,” said Milloy, who’s rapidly becoming the pulse of the defense. “This league is a league of opportunity. The real stars go in when the starters go down. Drew Bledsoe goes down and Tom Brady has probably the best five years in NFL history. That’s part of being a pro. You don’t sit back and eat popcorn and watch John Abraham sack the quarterback. You should be sitting back and watching some of his moves in case things like that happen. If you perform well, you might have his spot.
“We’re a unit. Injuries happen. That’s part of the makeup of a champion.”
In his first game with the Falcons, Abraham only had one of the single greatest performances of any defensive player in franchise history. He had two sacks, two forced fumbles and constantly was around the quarterback and/or the ball. The Falcons’ defensive line might be the best in the league. When healthy.
Great players can’t be replaced. But neither can a team react like it’s a kitchen table with a leg cut off. Falcons coach Jim Mora doesn’t know that his team’s resilience is bulletproof yet, but believes they’re getting there.
“It’s a mind-set, but a mind-set born of maturity,” he said. “It doesn’t just happen if you’re playing five rookies. It takes more than a year. It takes more than a game. I don’t want to say we’re there, that no matter who plays we can overcome. But we’re headed in that direction.”
This might be the week to gauge how close they are.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
So far, so great for Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Charlotte — Minutes, or maybe milliseconds, after the Falcons opened the season on Sunday by splattering the supposedly mighty Carolina Panthers across the floor of Bank of America Stadium, Jim Mora did the right thing. He told — or shall we say ordered — his players to forget about it. “I can’t recall if he’s ever done that before,” said tight end Alge Crumpler, referring to the wisdom of the Falcons’ third-year head coach.
This is the same Mora who recalled the Panthers crushing his team by a combined score of 68-17 during a two-game sweep of last season, developed amnesia during the week and told his players to do the same by not watching those game films.
Now Mora would prefer that his players ignore the impressive replays (and there were a slew of them for the Falcons) of what happened this time. “We’ll take [the victory] and get out of here as fast as we can before we have to play them again,” said Mora, who doesn’t have to worry about that until Christmas Eve, when the Panthers visit the Georgia Dome.
Then there was safety Lawyer Milloy, a rookie to this defense but a veteran when it comes to the NFL in general and to flashing a champion’s mind-set around a locker room in particular. Microseconds, or maybe nanoseconds, after the Falcons sealed their absolutely suffocating 20-6 victory before the hissing packed house of 73,522, Milloy was searching for something or somebody that had the score of Tampa Bay’s game against Baltimore.
The Falcons’ next game is against Tampa Bay, you see. And as trite as it always sounds, teams along the way to significance or beyond really do, well, let Milloy tell you what you know is coming. “If we keep taking it one game at a time, we can start putting a string of these good games back to back,” Milloy said, with a résumé from his New England Patriots days that features two trips to the Super Bowl, including a world championship. “I always think we can play better. This is just one game. We can continue to do well as long as our team stays healthy and [we] stay humble.”
Uh-oh. As for the healthy part, the only thing that could stop John Abraham from knocking the growl out of the Panthers throughout the afternoon was his groin injury near the end of the blowout. Prior to that, he spent his Falcons debut joining Milloy in suggesting early and often that these aren’t the defensive patsies with birds on their helmets from last season. To the Panthers, he was omnipresent and omnipotent. “I mean, what’s amazing to me is, everybody’s asking me like this just happened, but I’ve been doing this my whole career,” said Abraham, who finished with five tackles (it seemed like 50), two sacks that forced two fumbles and a deflected pass. “If you watched me in New York [with the Jets for six years], it would be the same way.”
Hopefully, this won’t be the same: In 2003, Abraham played only seven games for the Jets. Why? He was placed on the injured reserve list — with a groin injury.
Unlike Milloy and Abraham, splendid defensive end Patrick Kerney has been with the Falcons for a while. Those involved with the organization hope he’ll be with them a while longer without missing any games this season after damaging his triceps near the same surgically repaired right elbow of two weeks ago.
As for the humble part that Milloy talked about, the Falcons are a work in progress as long as they have cornerback DeAngelo Hall, not exactly shy about sharing his thoughts on personal greatness to all the planets and whatever you call Pluto. Most recently, there were Hall’s apparent friendship-severing words this week about Steve Smith, the Panthers’ wide receiver whose injured hamstring spared him from participating in his team’s disaster that included the Falcons rushing for a ridiculous 252 yards. If you add the Falcons’ prowess on offense and defense to their efficiency on special teams, you have a team that could become full of itself without the right perspective.
So far, so great. “We’re a long way from perfect, because I put my hands on my helmet a couple of times, because I felt like I could have sprung Warrick [Dunn, who rushed for 132 yards] if I just held on to the block,” said Crumpler, shaking his head. He sighed, before adding the clincher that suggests that the Falcons just might be fine, “It’s still eating at me.”
Permalink | Comments (54) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
It’s Stafford’s job now
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Columbia — It was an interesting week in Athens. Mark Richt became the first coach in history to announce a starting quarterback but leave the identity of his backup undisclosed, as if it posed some national security risk.
Ah, the mind games of paranoid football coaches. Imagine Steve Spurrier was up all week, worrying “Is it Barnes? Is it Cox? It’s not Stafford, is it? Naw. Can’t be Stafford. My head hurts.”
So at least one good thing happened Saturday night: The end of “Who’s behind door No. 2?” now and for some time. Barring injury or unexpected calamity, Matthew Stafford almost certainly will be the Georgia starter from this point on. (Only the families of the other quarterbacks on the depth chart will be concerned about the rest of the order.)
Richt would not concede anything after Georgia’s 18-0 win over South Carolina. There must be something in the coach’s handbook about not disclosing the obvious, as in: “I’ll comment on the sunrise only if and when I see it.”
Starter Joe Tereshinski played only one series before leaving with a seemingly significant ankle injury. But Richt held off declaring this Stafford’s team, saying of Tereshinski, “If he’s healthy right now, he’s the starter.”
OK. Whatever.
Stafford showed why this likely will be his job to lose for as long as he is in Athens. He wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t always on target. He didn’t always make the right decision. (One statistic that confirms all of the above: three interceptions.)
But he showed the talent all knew he possessed and remarkable cool for any young quarterback, let alone one making his SEC debut in one of the conference’s loudest stadiums. He audibled to a touchdown run. He showed more mobility than some have given him credit for, with scrambles of 23 and 11 yards. He threw for 171 yards, even if on only 8-for-19 passing.
And afterward, he said all the right things: “It’s been a little crazy. But, you know what, I’m just doing the best I can. I’ve got a ton of work to do. I personally didn’t play well enough for this team to win. Our defense did an amazing job. Special teams did a great job. The offensive line, the running backs — great. I didn’t get the ball where I was supposed to a couple of times. Those are mistakes I’ve got to cut out. But overall I had a great time out there.”
Ever just get a feeling about a player? You get that feeling with Stafford.
It’s a wonder he hasn’t gotten motion sickness the last few weeks. He went from hot shot recruit to tied for third on the depth chart to probably redshirt to playing in the fourth quarter against Western Kentucky to double-secret backup. (And now to double-secret starter.)
Stafford said he never felt rattled — this, in a stadium where Georgia often struggles, and against the Bulldogs’ legendary tormentor. “You can’t be [rattled],” he said. “When things go bad, or go good, you just have to let it go. It’s always about the next play.”
He’s 18 years old — and already programmed.
In the first quarter, Georgia was backed up to its own 11-yard-line. But on second-and-14, Stafford let go his first pass, a 25-yard bullet over the middle to Martrez Milner. In the second quarter, after driving to the South Carolina 9, the Dogs faced third-and-goal. Stafford stepped up to the line, looked at the safeties, then checked to an inside handoff to Danny Ware, who ran through a gap for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead.
Stafford: “It’s a play where I have a blank slate and pick a play.” He picked correctly.
He ran play-action to perfection with a 39-yarder to Mohamed Massaquoi. He scrambled 11 yards on third-and-9 from the Dogs’ 17. None of the three interceptions backfired. One wasn’t his fault — a 4-yarder that first bounced off Massaquoi’s shoulder in the end zone while the receiver seemingly was being held. Another traveled over 50 yards in the air and was thrown up for grabs, the other an underthrow.
Stafford: “I can’t make bad decisions like that.”
Richt considered redshirting Stafford but changed his mind after he showed significant improvement in practice before the opener. We’ll never know if that was the case, or if Richt really planned on this evolution all along. But things are finally as they should be.
Permalink | Comments (87) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Tech staff fumbled away Ball’s vast promise
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Reggie Ball had a nice enough Saturday. He threw two touchdown passes (and only one interception) and presided over an offense that scored three touchdowns in the first half against Division I-AA Samford. Then he was given the second half off. He’d done his job.
But anyone who recalls the dauntless Ball first glimpsed in 2003, the one who beat Auburn in his maiden home start, would be forced to confess that more was expected by this stage, much more. Back then, the belief was that Ball would grow into a quarterback to rival Shawn Jones and Joe Hamilton. Three years later, Ball is viewed by many Georgia Tech watchers as a fourth-year starter whose on-field liabilities continue to offset his conspicuous strengths.
Yes, that says something about Ball. But surely it says more about Ball’s coaches.
He’s a talent, no question. If he weren’t, Chan Gailey wouldn’t have demoted A.J. Suggs and redeployed Damarius Bilbo to make the true freshman his starter four Augusts ago. And we saw in that first season why Gailey, who isn’t known for being rash, entrusted his program to a rookie. Ball could make plays. Sometimes he’d override the good with the bad, but you expected such inconsistency from a teenager. What you didn’t expect was that Ball would get no more precise with the passage of time.
Somehow he completed a higher percentage of his passes as a freshman than as a sophomore or a junior. Somehow the mistakes, if not quite so frequent, have come at worse times — the fourth-down throwaway against Georgia as a sophomore, the red-zone interception against Georgia as a junior. Somehow the aptitude inherent in Ball hasn’t yet been developed.
Here it is 2006 and Tech acts as if it still doesn’t know what to make of the guy who has started every game (save one) since Aug. 28, 2003. Such confusion was never more blatant than when the Jackets had the chance to take a 14-point lead on Notre Dame but seemed to settle for a field goal rather than let Ball throw into the end zone.
Patrick Nix, the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, insisted Saturday that, appearances aside, Tech does feel comfortable with Ball and his choices. “He’s got experience,” Nix said. “He knows how to handle the ball. We’ve got a lot more confidence in him, and he’s got a lot more confidence in us.”
That said, there was no reason for Tech — with Ball and Calvin Johnson and P.J. Daniels — to finish 103rd in the nation in scoring offense last season. There was no reason for the Jackets to muster only 259 yards against an Irish defense that had hemorrhaged 617 yards in its last outing. There’s no reason except this: Tech’s offense, even in its newly tweaked manifestation, is poorly imagined.
Sometimes Tech tries to run the ball. Sometimes it throws a bunch of dinky passes. Sometimes it remembers Johnson is on the roster. Sometimes it asks Ball to execute a quarterback draw. But there’s never a signature to it, and there’s only one play — the fade to Johnson — that can be described as bread-and-butter Tech.
Is it Ball’s fault that he’s asked to oversee such a mixed bag? Is it Ball’s fault that his fundamental flaws — throwing off his back foot, to name the most obvious — have gone uncorrected? Is it Ball’s fault that his coaches haven’t polished this rough diamond or, failing that, recruited somebody better to take the job?
Asked Saturday where he has improved most since 2003, Ball said only: “Couldn’t tell you.” Part of that answer was surely Ball displaying his raging distrust of the media, but a bigger part was perhaps instructive. Maybe he couldn’t tell us because he knows he hasn’t.
Ball isn’t paid to play college football. (He gets a scholarship but not a salary.) His coaches are. It’s their professional responsibility to make the most of what they have. What Tech has made of the gifted Reggie Ball is, sad to say, closer to being the least.
Permalink | Comments (109) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Farewell to Grand Champions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Ball Ground — (Forgive me, I just had to use that dateline one time.) The kind of ball they’re playing up here has dimples in it, the players move about with studied caution and a kind of measured dignity. Most have put aside the rancor and raging fire that go with life in the trenches of the PGA Tour and moved gracefully into what Gil Morgan once branded the Mulligan Tour, others the Second Chance Tour. And if that applies, then this would be the Third Chance Tour, otherwise known as the Georgia-Pacific Grand Champions, contested out here over the velvety roller-coaster contours of Hawks Ridge Golf Club. And for the last time.
Give the PGA Tour hierarchy little credit for this. It was Georgia-Pacific, Atlanta-based, a major player in the world of timber and building supplies, which decided that as the Seniors Tour players aged, the older guys deserved a league of their own. So, as they reached age 60, the Grand Champions division gave them their own tournamnt within a tournament, the winner decided after the first 36 holes of the regular event. Then it was decided they should have their own Tour Championship, with a field of 16 leading finishers among the 60-year-olds. So it was that they came to Hawks Ridge this weekend, and it would be last call, for Georgia-Pacific has been sold to a private ownership which has no interest in carrying on.
While Tim Finchem, the PGA Tour commissioner, has made a sweeping attempt to invigorate the regular tour, as witness the Fed-Ex Cup format coming up next year, little has been done for the Seniors, except to change the name to Champions. Nice connotation but hardly a shot in the arm.
“We’ve always felt like the stepchild,” Raymond Floyd said. He is one of two former Ryder Cup captains who qualified for this G-P Grand Champions Championship, Dave Stockton the other. “I once had a businessman who wanted to sponsor a Seniors Tour event, and I took him in to meet with Tim Finchem. Next thing I knew, his company was a sponsor on the regular tour.”
A few days ago, this item came across news channels, alarming to the Champions Tour. It was purported that the LPGA is now outdrawing the Champions in television ratings. The women have had a few bump-ups, such as the dominance of Annika Sorenstam and an occasional shot in the arm from Michelle Wie, when she isn’t letting her ambitions run amok. But to outdraw a tour that offers Tom Watson, Tom Kite, Hale Irwin and the unorthodox but winning style of Allen Doyle?
Here’s another thing. Loren Roberts, Jay Haas, Fred Funk and Peter Jacobsen have been recent additions to the Champions roll, but hardly a gate-buster there. Not only that, but they can’t seem to break the regular tour habit. Funk played one Champions event, then went back to his old haven.
“And who’s coming along next?” Floyd said. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to play this tour. I’d had a pretty good career, but I decided it would be giving something back. That has all in the world to do with it. Greg Norman became eligible, but he’s having back problems. Seve Ballesteros, but his game has disappeared, Nick Price, Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie, but nothing like a Nicklaus or a Palmer of old.”
And who’s to suggest that the Champions Tour can wait another 20 years for Tiger Woods, should he even give thought to extending his career at that level. The regular tour suffers a body blow when Woods isn’t in the field as is. The Canadian Open is watered down this week. Sergio Garcia is playing in Europe, Adam Scott and Ernie Els in Asia, and Phil Mickelson, Davis Love and Chris DeMarco sit it out.
Bob Charles, the elder statesman in this field, suggests another matter needs addressing, and that’s ball structure. “If something isn’t done soon to control ball flight, they’ll find the game has one tough battle on its hands,” he said.
Well, everybody’s got problems, but none like some players had out here last year. As they arrived on a certain hole and walked up to putt, a child’s voice cried out, “Miss it!”
Finally, an official was dispatched to the house abutting the green and a lady came to the door.
“Madam, when our players start to putt on this green they say a child calls out, ‘Miss it.’ Would you mind getting him under control?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but we have no children,” the lady said.
Turns out she did have a parrot, and while I can’t swear to the veracity of that yarn, I’ll let it go at that.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Furman Bisher
40 seasons of erratic flight for Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
In June 1965, the same month of the first U.S. spacewalk, this city was awarded an NFL franchise.
Perhaps it was this confluence of historical events and things taking flight that prompted some fans to suggest “Falcons” in a name-the-team contest. It stuck, after a Georgia schoolteacher wrote in part, “The falcon is proud and dignified, with courage and fight. It never drops prey.”
Of course, 40 seasons have taught us many things. It turns out that Falcons can drop not only prey, but also the ball. No Atlanta franchise has been such a tease. No other earthly franchise has endured four decades while failing to string together consecutive winning seasons.
No other NFL team manages only two playoff wins in 32 years, then goes to a Super Bowl and lights a city on fire, only to crumble to 9-23 in the next two seasons. No other team opens the season with a Monday night win over the team (Philadelphia) that figures to be its biggest obstacle for a Super Bowl trip, starts the season 6-2, then implodes in the second half, as the Falcons did last season.
It is September again. A new season with new hopes. Expectations have never been higher. Unless you count last season.
The Falcons’ owner, Arthur Blank, mandated improvement. The president and general manager, Rich McKay, orchestrated more moves to strengthen the roster than any other GM. The coach, Jim Mora, feeling some heat, pushed the pedal in training camp. The quarterback, Michael Vick, has seemed more comfortable with the offense.
So why do we keep looking up, expecting a piano to fall?
“Since Arthur has owned the team, we’ve done a very good job of establishing with the fans that we’re going to do whatever it takes to win,” McKay said. “The second phase of that is, you have to win. It’s incumbent upon us to win on the field to prove that our commitment is something we can deliver on. I do think this is an important year because last year was a disappointment. We need to show that year was an aberration.”
Big time.
This is Atlanta, the most fickle of sports markets. As a general rule, fans can concentrate on only two things at once: 1) Georgia football; 2) Something else. The second is forever changing, depending on what’s hot or hip. Disappoint the masses again, and the Falcons will start to slide off the hot-or-hip landscape here.
It is that fragile of a market. It takes something to keep people interested. A star. A style. Dare we say, a championship. After years of baseball misery, this became a Braves town in the early 1990s. Then division titles ceased being viewed as hot or hip. Attendance went down and buy-one-get-one-free nights went up.
The Thrashers were born. They were hot for five minutes. Now they have to win.
I heard the Hawks were hot once. But I’ve only lived here for 17 years, so someone will have to enlighten me.
Jerry Glanville excited the Falcons fan base (even if the disturbed part) in 1991. Then, predictably, the team evolved into a punch line.
Some franchises get the benefit of the doubt. Not this one. History tells us that when something good happens one week, the forecast switches to gray skies and falling meteors. The heart can take only so much stomping.
“You don’t have a lot of people in Atlanta who were born here or grew up here,” Warrick Dunn said. “Those guys are not die-hards. When you win, everybody jumps on the bandwagon. So it’s the talk of the town and everybody wants to be a part of it. But to be a winner and have everybody on your side, you have to be consistent and play winning football. You have to do it week in and week out, year in and year out.”
The Falcons had a good offseason. They acquired one of the game’s premier defensive ends, John Abraham, to boost the pass rush. They imported two veteran safeties, Lawyer Milloy and Chris Crocker, who actually pose a threat of making a tackle. They drafted a tall cornerback with an attitude, Jimmy Williams, and a running back with speed, Jerious Norwood.
Wayne Gandy should be a serviceable left tackle. The late-camp signing of nose tackle Grady Jackson and a trade for wide receiver Ashley Lelie plug two holes.
On paper, things look good. But it’s sort of like folding that paper into an airplane, not knowing whether it will fly straight, bank left or go nose down.
We’ve seen too many drops.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Russell taught athletes how to be men
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Erk Russell didn’t fit the mold. He was a football coach, “a hard-charging disciplinarian,” as Vince Dooley once said, but he trained athletes to be men, and if they made the grade, then they could play football for him. Coaches are rough and tough, and some bark like prison guards, and some make a game sound like doomsday. This is the truth: Erk never raised his voice, he never caused a scene, and in the words of Loran Smith (as in “Loran, whatta yuh got”) “he was the most unbelievable person I ever knew.”
Once that has been said, there would seem to be little need for moving on. But you’re not going to get off without my having a say at this time of his shocking, sudden death in an automobile. Just the other day I sat in a restaurant in Fernandina Beach, Fla., and a portrait of Erk looked down from a wall. Since he had no hair to turn gray and an expression that was always tuned into the same channel, he seemed ageless.
Dooley hired him at Georgia because Erk let him know how much he wanted the job. “If you had the chance to go from Vanderbilt to Georgia, wouldn’t you?” he said. “I was delighted.”
In fact, when Dooley didn’t hire him right away, Erk dialed his number and told him how much he wanted to come to Georgia. They had worked on the Auburn staff at one time or another, Erk preceding Vince. “It was a wise decision that Vince made, bringing Erk to Georgia,” it is so written in the book “The Dooley Years.”
“What a coach, what an unforgettable character,” Dooley said. “I would be unfair if I didn’t pay special tribute for the exceptional contribution he made to the Dooley era at Georgia. He was the cornerstone of our coaching staff for 17 years.”
He left his label, “Junkyard Dogs.” It’s the term he gave his defensive players in 1975, and it still sticks years later.
He carried his coaching beyond merely professoring. He would often stick his bald head in the middle of a scrimmage and came away from practice several times with blood streaming down his face. Once his wife protested, he quit. When the defense began to lose ground afterward, he went back to butting in, and his defensive side stiffened again. Or, so they say. There are pictures in evidence of his bodily damage.
But, that’s only the beginning. What followed at Georgia Southern is a near fairy tale in college athletics. It was remarkable. Football had been dormant on the Statesboro campus for years, and Erk was bold enough to tackle the situation. Once he got organized, the Eagles won two straight Division I-AA championships. But not without some of Erk’s trickery. There was a drainage stream running by the practice field that Erk first gave the name “Beautiful Eagle Creek.” Then he bottled some of the “magic water” and had players spread some of it on the playing field before road games.
When he arrived at Georgia Southern, enrollment was about 5,000. Today it is said to be 15,000, and you ask loyal Eagles, they’ll give credit to Erk Russell.
Once he left coaching, he could always be found standing by the Eagles’ goalposts during home games. He became almost statuesque. The relationship sprung a leak after his son was fired as an assistant coach, and for the longest time, Erk never showed his face on campus. This is ironic: On Thursday afternoon, at the invitation of Brian VanGorder, the head coach, Erk was invited to speak to the Eagles squad at practice. He accepted, his first time on the field since before relations became strained. Both he and VanGorder had been defensive coaches at Georgia, both head coaches at Georgia Southern. It must be considered that the wound had been healed before death looked up Erk Russell on Friday morning. He was 80. (Oh, and by the way, “Erk” is short for Erskine, three letters that describe a remarkable man.)
Permalink | Comments (46) | Categories: Furman Bisher, UGA / SEC
College football doesn’t need playoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Those still whining over the lack of a playoff system in college football haven’t been paying attention. We’re entering the second week of the season, and we’ve already had the yearly slugging match between heavyweights Miami and Florida State. Not only that, Notre Dame had to prove its worth as a title contender by surviving punches and counterpunches in Georgia Tech’s hostile ring.
Added Dick Bestwick, among the all-time wisemen in sports, including a stint as an assistant athletics director at the University of Georgia, “Here [Saturday night], we’ve got Ohio State at Texas playing. That’s pretty darn big. Penn State is playing at Notre Dame [Saturday], and that’s pretty darn big. They’re all involved in a playoff right there. They [the whiners] just don’t get it.”
No, they don’t. Even beyond the fact that the Bowl Championship Series is a somewhat flawed but mostly adequate way of determining a national champion, college football is doing just fine, thank you. We needn’t go further than what we’ve already alluded to, and that is, given the do-or-die, tension-filled nature of the sport nearly every week, more than a few top-15 teams have several unofficial playoff games built into their schedule. Oklahoma versus Texas. West Virginia versus Louisville. Virginia Tech versus Miami. Nebraska versus Iowa State. Cal versus Arizona State. Georgia versus Florida. Notre Dame versus everybody. LSU versus Auburn. Tennessee versus Alabama.
I mean, what do you want? And we haven’t even mentioned the riveting matchups each November during Rivalry Weekend, ranging from Columbus, Ohio, or Ann Arbor, Mich., to The Flats or Between the Hedges. In other words, to all of those whiners: Just sit back, enjoy the wonderful ride from now through those other unofficial playoff games called conference championship games and shut up.
“Every year, there is another half dozen to a dozen schools increasing the size of their stadium, putting on new sky suites, new sky boxes, so I have to believe that you’re already doing something right in college football [with no playoffs],” said Bestwick, now retired in Athens. Just so you know, according to NCAA statistics, attendance at the Division 1-A level of football has increased during each of the past 12 years — you know, without a playoff system. “If attendance was plunging, and if they weren’t building all of these kind of things, then you’d have to look and say, ‘Well, maybe, regarding the lack of a playoff system, we don’t have the right model here.’ “
Instead, it is the right model that showed its worth last weekend by exposing Cal as a fraud. After enjoying the summer with West Virginia as a chic favorite to come out of mostly nowhere to contend for greatness, the Golden Bears spent their first game becoming the Tarnished Bears after getting smacked around Neyland Stadium by Tennessee. It also is the right model that likely will turn West Virginia into this year’s Auburn.
Maybe you remember the silly furor over Auburn missing the BCS championship game after going undefeated in 2004. Well, here’s the rest of the story: Southern Cal and Oklahoma also were undefeated, and they were ranked higher than Auburn, and they rightfully played for the title. Plus, neither Southern Cal nor Oklahoma had anything resembling the Division I-AA likes of Louisiana-Monroe, The Citadel or Louisiana Tech on their schedule.
Auburn did. As for West Virginia this season, all you need to know is that in addition to the Mountaineers facing mighty East Carolina, UConn and Marshall, they are playing Washington. Not the University of Washington or Washington State, but Eastern Washington.
What a waste, especially since the NCAA went to a permanent 12-game schedule this season to give teams more of a chance to add an unofficial playoff game. Or at least something in the vicinity.
“Even better, any conference that doesn’t have a playoff at the end of the year, then the winner of each of those conferences should have to play each other in a game at the end of the season before the bowl games start in December,” Bestwick said. “That would shake, rattle and roll that thing, too. In those situations, it won’t change what bowl game the winner or loser goes to, except when it comes to the national championship game.”
Then Bestwick paused, chuckled, before saying, “As long as I’m living, there will be at least one anti-playoff guy around.”
Make that two.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Tip your cap to the Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The streak that began on the giddy afternoon of Oct. 5, 1991, is days from its end. The Braves are four losses — or four Mets victories, or any combination thereof — from elimination in the NL East race. Yes, the issue was essentially decided months ago, but the official attachment of what John Schuerholz calls “that funny mark by your name that means you can’t win anymore” should have a special and somber resonance here.
Not since September 1990 has that unfunny mark been affixed to the Atlanta Braves. Not since 1991 has this franchise completed a full season and finished anywhere but first. Not since Schuerholz arrived from Kansas City in October 1990 has a team of his making failed to win its division. And how, with the run of titles about to conclude at 14, does the architect feel?
“Disappointed,” he said Thursday. “And saddened. And proud.”
The Braves assembled a team this season that was, for reasons ranging from design flaws to rotten luck, not good enough to finish first. Such seasons befall other organizations all the time, but for 14 seasons every other group of Braves overrode injuries and down years from individuals and challenges from beefed-up rivals and even Old Lady Luck to finish first every blessed time.
The people — and there are some out there, wrong-headed though they be — who came to insist that division titles didn’t mean anything simply don’t understand the nature of baseball. Those who do regard the Braves and the hallowed 14 as an outrageous benchmark. Said Schuerholz: “You don’t know how many general managers and managers and star players have said to me, ‘You can’t do what you’ve done. What you’ve done may be the most remarkable feat in sports history.’ “
Certainly it qualifies for consideration. No other franchise in the four major sports based in the U.S. and Canada — not the Yankees, not the Cowboys, not the Celtics, not the Canadiens — has finished first 14 times running. Over that ridiculous span, the Braves moved from the West to the East and saw seven organizations finish as runners-up, but the team atop the standings never changed. The players did, the Braves remaking themselves a half-dozen times, but each batch of players produced the same outcome.
Until this bunch. But the wonder of it isn’t that this one team failed — it’s that all the others found ways to succeed. “We’ve had problems and we’ve fixed them and we’ve patched them and we’ve found alternate strengths,” Schuerholz said. “Last year we jettisoned Plan A and went with 18 rookies.”
No player was an active part of all 14 titles. (John Smoltz missed the 2000 season after surgery.) Chipper Jones arrived in September 1993 as part of the vaunted Next Wave of Braves — Ryan Klesko and Javy Lopez were classmates — and has since seen several more waves come and go. For 14 seasons, it didn’t really matter what names the Braves ran out there; what mattered was that they were Braves.
Just being the Braves wasn’t enough this season. (Schuerholz holds out hope of his team winning 20 of its last 23 games to grab the wild card, but even he concedes the improbability of that.) “If reality sets in,” he said, “we’ll deal with it. … It just didn’t work this year, but that doesn’t mean the spirit is broken or the mechanism is broken.”
Maybe next year will be better than this one, but nothing in our lifetimes will ever approach the extended splendor of what we’ve just beheld. Said Schuerholz: “When the disappointment of this season passes — and it will, though it’s palpable now — I should think that any honest-thinking person would say, ‘What a remarkable accomplishment.’ “
If a player gets a hit every third time at bat, he winds up in the Hall of Fame. The Braves hit their target 14 times in 15 seasons. That’s a batting average of .933, and that’s not just Cooperstown material — that’s Valhalla stuff. We around here have been honored to bear witness to the longest run of excellence pro sports has seen, and in its passing we should tip our figurative caps.
Permalink | Comments (138) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Weekend predictions: Birds upstage panda
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Before getting to this week’s blue-chip indicators, this update from the Weekend Predictions Animal Planet, a disturbed subsidiary of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which Thursday devoted 7,000 column inches to a panda bear’s artificial love child. (Coming next week: Itsy Bitsy Spider denies eating disorder. Also, Lun Lun fumes while Yang Yang claims he and Paris Hilton are “just friends.”)
An actual factual: A cow in Harriet, Ark., this week gave birth to her fourth set of triplets. “Faith” has now given birth to 22 calves over nine pregnancies, which is believed to be a record in Arkansas, which of course doesn’t have an NBA team.
“She is huge before giving birth,” said Jenny Williams, the cow’s owner. “We can tell if she will have twins or triplets by her size.”
There was absolutely no reason for me to use that quote, except that it created the easiest transition to Grady Jackson and Falcons of lesser girth.
It’s the first week of the NFL season, and the Falcons open in Carolina. According to several publications, the Panthers already have made it to this year’s Super Bowl, and lead 13-10 at halftime.
OK. They’re good. But if they’re not missing Steve Smith, it’s because he’ll be running pass routes with three layers of duct tape wrapped around his hamstrings. That should make things easier on Falcons cornerback DeAngelo Hall, who I think expects to be inducted into the Hall of Fame by Week 6. (If Hall pats himself on the back one more time, he’s going to tear a rotator cuff.)
Carolina likely will have to depend more on its running game, which is where the 674-pound Jackson should help. He steps into a spot previously occupied by nobody.
The Falcons are getting five points. Take them as a gift. They should be able to run. Michael Vick also has looked more under control of late. Maybe he just hadn’t heard the news about the panda. The season starts with an upset. Grab the points, but Falcons win this straight up.
Faber College (Where Knowledge is Good) Georgia at South Carolina: Matthew Stafford probably won’t start, but then nobody even thought he would play last week. Then Mark Richt discovered that everybody else pretty much stinks. But see, if Richt can’t figure out his quarterback rotation, there’s no way Steve Spurrier can defend it. Wait, that didn’t come out right. Georgia barely covers 3 (final score: 6-2).
Samford at Tech: The schedule goes from college football’s most storied program (Notre Dame) to Alabama’s Lollipop Guild (Samford and Troy). Welcome to Chan Gailey’s nightmare. Anything less than twin dismemberings and the questions start all over. No official line. So let’s say, Jackets by 18 2/3.
Ohio State at Texas: Jim Tressel claimed he voted Texas No. 1 in the USA Today Weasel Coaches Poll, which seemed noble, until USA Today reported Tressel actually voted his own team No. 1. It was the paper’s greatest journalistic moment, eclipsing the previous high: the color weather map. Fact is, neither of these teams should be sniffing No. 1. But for now: Take the Buckeyes and 2 1/2, and in a straight upset.
Duke at Wake Forest: Something is wrong when Wake Forest is a 19 1/2-point favorite. Duke just got shut out by a I-AA team (Richmond). Ted Roof has managed the impossible: He lowered the standards of Duke football. Wake big (but won’t cover).
Mississippi State of Confusion: Sylvester Croom lost his starting quarterback in the first game, so he has moved a starting wide receiver to backup QB. Maybe it’s time to schedule a game against Duke. Auburn covers 20.
NFL Five Pack (I drank one)
Manning Bowl: The last time Eli beat Peyton in anything was a pickup basketball game. I’m guessing that won’t make a difference when his team is unmasked as another creation of the New York media. Colts cover 3 1/2.
Chargers at Raiders: Oakland signed Jeff George, then cut him four days later. Sorry, too late. It’s sort of like a guy drinking 17 beers, spotting Rosie O’Donnell across the room and saying, “Wow, she’s hot.” Can’t take it back. And the Raiders just confirmed the obvious. San Diego covers the trey.
Cowboys at Jaguars: Terrell Owens hasn’t played a game in over 10 months. No wonder he’s been low-keying his return. That was a joke. Jags win but take the Pokeys and 2 1/2.
Eagles at Texans: When Philly makes the playoffs and Dallas doesn’t, will Owens say, “This wouldn’t have happened if Donovan McNabb was my quarterback”? Philly covers 41/2.
Vikings at Redskins: T.J. Duckett: 27 yards, one TD, three missed blitz pickups resulting in sacks. Skins win but take Minny and 41/2.
Financial report
Opening week: 5-2 straight up, 3-4 against the line.
Next week: Better, I think.
Locks: Bagels.
Permalink | Comments (50) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
How soon we (choose to) forget
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It was the record everyone wanted to see broken. Remember? Or is it more convenient to forget?
On Aug. 30, 1998, Mark McGwire hit his 55th homer of that season off the Braves’ Dennis Martinez. It traveled 501 feet to dead center in the old Busch Stadium, and it gave the Cardinals the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. I was there, and the roar of the crowd when McGwire connected remains the greatest noise I’ve ever heard at a sporting event. And afterward McGwire said: “I’m going to do my best to give America what it wants.”
Eight years later, will anybody in America admit they rooted for McGwire to hit 62 that year? (Pushed by Sammy Sosa, Big Mac wound up with 70.) Will anybody admit that the issue of steroids was one we all simply chose to ignore?
Today we act righteously indignant and say things like, “You know, Ryan Howard just might break the REAL home run record.” As if 61 remains the untainted benchmark. As if McGwire and Sosa — and Barry Bonds, who bettered both with 73 in 2001 — were figments of the collective imagination. As if Sports Illustrated never dressed McGwire and Sosa in togas and laurel wreaths in naming the two co-Sportsmen of the Year.
Today we try not to think of Big Mac and Slammin’ Sammy at all, and it’s not that hard to do. The two have dropped from sight, de facto fugitives from their own accomplishments. (Bonds remains in full view, but Bonds has always been a contrary cuss.) And we the people try to act as if we knew, or at least suspected, that the big hitters were juiced and their feats bogus from the start, but the cold truth is that, in the golden summer of ‘98 when the balls were flying over distant fences, we didn’t care what propelled them.
Eight years ago, we wanted desperately to see someone hit 62. Eight years after two men went above and beyond that famous number, we seek to deny their existence. We the people are a fickle lot.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Blank finds he can’t fix everything
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
All you need to know about Arthur Blank is that he types his e-mails in red. It’s true that red happens to be one of the Falcons’ colors. But I get the feeling even if their uniforms were mauve trimmed in powder blue, Blank wouldn’t be selecting from among pastel fonts.
Like most driven salesmen and self-made billionaires, Blank speaks in red and thinks in red. He commands in red and fully expects his employees to react as if their boxers are filled with coals that glow red. When there was a problem at Home Depot, he either eliminated it himself or he told somebody else to. Yesterday.
It follows that from this point forward, Blank is about to enter the most difficult part of his work year: the games. Because all he can do is watch. When he ran that little global empire, he could cut the price of hammers and move the duct-tape display on Tuesday and hope for a spike in sales on Wednesday. In the NFL, he can eat popcorn.
“It is frustrating,” Blank admitted. “In my days at Home Depot, if things didn’t go well at the store, I’d go in and fix it. You’d do whatever you had to do. You always had the opportunity to go in the next day to make it better. In football, I can still talk to the customer. But the reality is that once the roster is set, all I have to do is sit back and be a cheerleader. If we don’t play well, I can’t go in and fix it. Look at what happened last year. With the safeties we had, we were dead in the water after the first game. Well, maybe not dead, but you know what I mean. The reality is, once the season starts, there’s not much I can do.”
The significance of that is that the Falcons are three days from opening the season in Carolina, and they’re coming off a year far more tumultuous than anybody, certainly the owner, expected.
When a team goes from 6-2 to 2-6, red-typing owners make the most of their offseason. Publicly, Blank’s persona is, “No, you just sit right there, Bob. I’ll get the hot dogs.” Behind office doors, he has employees scrambling to justify their existence.
Understand that this is Blank’s fifth season and he hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet. That hardly qualifies as a professional sports drought, but in his world that’s relatively four years of failure. So he vents.
“Actually, I don’t do that too much,” he said.
Yeah, you do.
“No, really. I don’t. Not too often. But I can be intense.”
Intense?
“Yeah, intense.”
Would you work for you?
“Sure, I think I would. But I admit I’m not always a 10.”
Blank tried to make the most of the offseason, knowing he would be in handcuffs by September. He mandated improvement on defense, even distributing pictures of Ray Nitschke to his staff. He pressured coaches and personnel people. Players were acquired (John Abraham, Chris Crocker, Ashley Lelie, Wayne Gandy), signed (Lawyer Milloy, Grady Jackson), drafted (Jimmy Williams, Jerious Norwood) and kept (Matt Schaub).
Now the doors fly open and Blank is helpless. In the retail world, there was no real offseason, only some more important. So when would Blank reassess and change things?
“Daily,” he said, laughing. “That’s one of the things my wife will tell you — I can be a real pain in the [butt]. I’m never really happy. Never. I’m always thinking of ways we can get better. I’m kind of like a gerbil on a wheel. One day we’re going to win a Super Bowl, and I know I’ll be thinking, ‘What can we do better next season?’”
In the early days of Home Depot, Blank handed out $1 bills in the parking lot to entice people to browse around the store. But if the Falcons have problems this season, it won’t be because nobody’s in the store watching. Everybody will be watching. And if things don’t work out, it’ll be months before the owner can do much about it.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Wise up: Selig’s brilliant
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Once again, despite more than a few folks trying to place a dunce cap over his head through the years, baseball honcho Bud Selig looks smarter than the rest of us.
Seriously.
Among other things, the commissioner was right about interleague play. Matchups like the Braves versus the Yankees or Red Sox continuously attract larger than normal crowds.
Selig also was right about switching from two to three divisions in each league and adding wild cards to the playoffs.
See the NL, which began Wednesday’s action with the Braves and six other teams sitting no more than five games from the wild card lead. The AL had three teams sitting no more than six games from the wild card lead.
In addition, the NL West remains close between the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants. And the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox stay within striking distance of AL-central leader Detroit.
That’s a lot of teams involved with a pennant race in early September. Just as Selig envisioned it.
I wonder if he has any lottery numbers.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Vick fightens foes and friends
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Finally, after five seasons of mostly silence or denial in public on the matter from those around the Falcons locker room, we have the truth from somebody who knows. The daredevil ways of Michael Vick scare his teammates to death. They have this feeling that their Flying Wallenda of a quarterback is going to expire moments before themselves with an ugly crash to earth.
They actually prefer the Boring Wallenda of a quarterback, just as long as he helps the Falcons win. “The fear is that [Vick] is so explosive, and that he makes so many plays, and that he’s so willing to throw his body around that one of these days he’s not going to get back up,” said Chris Draft, a linebacker for the Carolina Panthers, the Falcons’ foe on Sunday in Charlotte to open the regular season. This is the same Draft who played with the Falcons from 2000 through 2004, and who still lives in Atlanta, where he remains highly civic minded, primarily when it comes to working with the American Lung Association regarding fellow asthma sufferers.
Draft confessed this week that he always thought Vick was on the verge of becoming a victim of his style. He said he cringed on the Falcons sideline with everybody else during Vick’s flips, twists, zips, rolls, tumbles and dives.
Translated: I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t a problem with Vick’s clumsy but wise attempt last season to become more of a pocket guy. Added Draft, his voice rising for emphasis along the way, “I’ve seen him take some, well, shots. And we’re over there watching and saying, like, ‘No, no, no. Get down. Please, Mike, get down.’ Whereas you have the crowd standing up and cheering and yelling and not realizing that he’s about to get killed.”
Oh, the crowd realizes as much. That’s why you have the crowd. Just like the high probability of somebody crashing into something at nearly 180 mph isn’t exactly keeping folks from packing NASCAR grandstands in record numbers.
The thing is, contrary to popular belief, Falcons coach Jim Mora and his offensive coordinator, Greg Knapp, had it about right by trying to make Vick adopt to their version of the West Coast offense instead of letting Vick be Vick. Now, courtesy of Vick’s celebrated struggles in a more structured offense, and given the hollering regarding it all, from the slew of television experts to those in the cheap seats, you just hope the Falcons brain trust doesn’t budge too much this season.
So much for hopes. Said Draft, who regularly is approached by Falcons fans during frequent walks from his condominium in downtown Atlanta, “You always hear people say, ‘You can’t teach Mike to get down. That’s just how he plays.’ Then they come back with, ‘Just let Mike be Mike,’ and I’m like, ‘What?’ I mean, what are these people saying?”
Here’s what many of those people are saying after reading Draft’s comments: Is this just a psych job by the Stanford graduate to get inside the head of an old teammate? Not only do the Panthers reside in the NFC South with the Falcons, but Carolina has a world championship on its mind. As a result, this loaded team is pursuing home-field advantage with every game, and prior to the Panthers’ two-game sweep of the Falcons last season, the Panthers had lost 12 of their previous 14 games in the series, with much help in recent years from Vick.
“Just as I had those fears watching as one of Mike’s teammates, I also have fear as somebody from the other side of the perspective trying to stop him,” Draft said. “What you fear the most is that he can just make something out of nothing. It’s a fear that he might just jump over you out there and score a touchdown on fourth down and win the game for them.”
Even so, Draft said his fear of Vick as an opponent doesn’t cause him to shiver as much as others.
“The advantage I have is that, since I played with him, I know him and I’ve seen him as a man,” Draft said. “Sometimes I think he gets pumped up [by the media] to almost be more than a football player. People swear that he was actually flying through the air, and that makes it like he’s almost more than a man.”
He’s mortal all right. He had that broken leg for nearly a whole season to prove it.
Permalink | Comments (70) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Did Stafford force the issue?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: I never thought the Miami-Florida State rivalry would cease to be entertaining. But it’s getting there.
9: Great football games don’t have to be high scoring. But offenses should at least hint they’re good enough to lead you to conclude, “Wow. They can’t score. Must be the defense.” But that hasn’t been the case the last few years. The Hurricanes and Seminoles can’t score - because the Hurricanes and Seminoles can’t score.
8: The final scores of the last three Miami-FSU games: 13-10 (FSU), 10-7 (FSU), 16-10 (Miami in overtime, so really 10-10 in regulation). Compare that to the scores of the previous five meetings: 31-21, 27-24, 49-27, 28-27, 22-14.
7: Larry Coker gets more grief than he deserves. But something is seriously wrong when a Miami offense produces one first down, five punts and one interception in the second half.
6: So it turns out Marcus Giles doesn’t have a heart condition. He has acid reflux. On a related note, if anybody out there has a yard in need of weeding, I know of a former cardiologist looking for work.
5: Less than 24 hours until our Fantasy League draft and I just passed a new rule: Any quarterback who wrecks a motorcycle, needs to be peeled off the pavement and undergo an emergency appendectomy before opening kickoff probably is not destined for a great season. Take a seat, Ben.
4: Because I’m all about sunshine: The Braves’ win over the Mets Monday means their magic number to rally and win the East Division still stands at eight.
3: OK. So what are the chances that Matthew Stafford or Papa Stafford let Georgia coach Mark Richt know, “Um, coach, red-shirting wasn’t really in our plans.”
2: Get your hands off the blog button. I’m not suggesting anything was dictated to Richt. But it makes no sense to bring in the top recruited quarterback in the country and have him sit for an entire season if you don’t have an obvious starting quarterback on the roster. And, guess what Joe T fans, Georgia doesn’t have an obvious starting quarterback.
1: Drops or no drops, seven-for-17 for 90 yards against a Division 1-AA defense is not going to get it done as a starting quarterback. And Western Kentucky was the last I-AA team on Georgia’s schedule.
Did Stafford force the issue?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: I never thought the Miami-Florida State rivalry would cease to be entertaining. But it’s getting there.
9: Great football games don’t have to be high scoring. But offenses should at least hint they’re good enough to lead you to conclude, “Wow. They can’t score. Must be the defense.” But that hasn’t been the case the last few years. The Hurricanes and Seminoles can’t score - because the Hurricanes and Seminoles can’t score.
8: The final scores of the last three Miami-FSU games: 13-10 (FSU), 10-7 (FSU), 16-10 (Miami in overtime, so really 10-10 in regulation). Compare that to the scores of the previous five meetings: 31-21, 27-24, 49-27, 28-27, 22-14.
7: Larry Coker gets more grief than he deserves. But something is seriously wrong when a Miami offense produces one first down, five punts and one interception in the second half.
6: So it turns out Marcus Giles doesn’t have a heart condition. He has acid reflux. On a related note, if anybody out there has a yard in need of weeding, I know of a former cardiologist looking for work.
5: Less than 24 hours until our Fantasy League draft and I just passed a new rule: Any quarterback who wrecks a motorcycle, needs to be peeled off the pavement and undergo an emergency appendectomy before opening kickoff probably is not destined for a great season. Take a seat, Ben.
4: Because I’m all about sunshine: The Braves’ win over the Mets Monday means their magic number to rally and win the East Division still stands at eight.
3: OK. So what are the chances that Matthew Stafford or Papa Stafford let Georgia coach Mark Richt know, “Um, coach, red-shirting wasn’t really in our plans.”
2: Get your hands off the blog button. I’m not suggesting anything was dictated to Richt. But it makes no sense to bring in the top recruited quarterback in the country and have him sit for an entire season if you don’t have an obvious starting quarterback on the roster. And, guess what Joe T fans, Georgia doesn’t have an obvious starting quarterback.
1: Drops or no drops, seven-for-17 for 90 yards against a Division 1-AA defense is not going to get it done as a starting quarterback. And Western Kentucky was the last I-AA team on Georgia’s schedule.
Permalink | Comments (56) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Talented roster puts heat on Mora
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Jim Mora took the Falcons to the NFC championship game in his first season and hasn’t yet finished with a losing record. That right there would seem to stamp him as one of the three best coaches in the history of this mostly forlorn franchise. But the belief here is that Mora needs to win big this fall or he might not be working for this franchise next year.
The Falcons are among the league’s 10 most talented teams. To the six Pro Bowl veterans already under contract, Rich McKay added John Abraham, Lawyer Milloy, Ashley Lelie, Chris Crocker, Jimmy Williams, Jerious Norwood and Grady Jackson. That’s the sort of bountiful offseason that comes along once in a generation. We can quibble about the youth of the starting wideouts and an offensive line that still doesn’t seem first-rate, but the cold truth is that this roster has as few personnel holes as any in the salary-capped NFL.
If you’re the coach, that’s a good thing. It becomes a bad thing only if you don’t win 10 games. “We have a sense of urgency to do better now,” Arthur Blank said before training camp convened. “We’re ready to make that move.”
The chief reason Blank hired Mora — over, say, Lovie Smith, who was the NFL’s coach of the year in 2005 — was that Mora knew exactly what he wanted to do and whom he wanted to hire as coordinators. Two years on, it’s possible to wonder if Greg Knapp and Ed Donatell are the right fits for a franchise that (a.) employs Michael Vick and (b.) is based in the hard-running NFC South. Is Knapp’s West Coast offense a proper allocation of Vick’s singular skills? Is a light-but-mobile defense apt to stop DeShaun Foster and Cadillac Williams and Mike Alstott and Deuce McAllister and Reggie Bush?
The Falcons have moved to get bigger on defense — nobody comes much bigger than the two-ton Jackson — but the matter of Vick and the WCO remains no more settled than the day Knapp was hired. (A purely geometric concern voiced by a former NFL defensive coach: The short drops required by this system don’t work as well with a smallish quarterback, Joe Montana apparently notwithstanding.) Given that Vick is without precedent, there might not be an ideal coach for him. But is Knapp even close to the optimum?
Blank was clearly frustrated with the disintegration of his beloved team last fall, and he has moved heaven and Earth to prevent a similar collapse this time. Speaking of McKay and Mora in the AJC’s preview section, Blank said: “I’ve given them the resources.” Translation: “Better win now.”
Of the two, Blank seems more comfortable with McKay than Mora, and for good reason. McKay keeps finding talent at a dizzying rate; it’s time now for Mora to make this assemblage win. He did it two seasons ago, but his inability to arrest last season’s slide made you wonder if 2004 was beginner’s luck. And certainly his tantrums and his word games — we witnessed another in the starter-less final exhibition last week — don’t fit the image Blank wants his franchise to project.
But here’s the thing: Win 10 games and the tantrums and the semantics, if not fully forgotten, will be forgiven. Bill Belichick is the antithesis of a charmer, but he’s the NFL’s best coach because he gets the maximum from his players. Mora has enough talent to be in the playoffs come January; anything less would be taken as an indication he isn’t up to the job.
Yes, Blank just extended Mora’s contract through 2009, but this owner has the means to buy out a contract extended through 2099 if he chooses. It didn’t take long for Blank to sour on Dan Reeves — one broken leg and one lost season — and Mora, for all his cleverness, hasn’t done half the things his predecessor did in the NFL. If he wants his tenure here to last into 2007 and beyond, he’d better win 10 games in 2006. Otherwise the boss could throw a tantrum of his own.
Permalink | Comments (70) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
A new era of TV football
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
The scene was Romanesque, the glaring light from the lamps above Bobby Dodd Stadium turning Grant Field into a grassy stage. Fifty-five thousand or more jurors in their pews, and not an impartial one among them. Georgia Tech matched against Notre Dame, the lead item on the menu of a new era in television football.
“Saturday Night Football” is the intercollegiate spinoff of ABC’s aging Monday night commodity, but the network tables were turning. This was the first of “ESPN on ABC.” ESPN, the wimpy little sports production that shyly began with a diet of lacrosse, field hockey, soccer and other “non-revenue” sports gasping for a whiff of air time. That was about 27 years ago, or thereabouts, and now the tail is wagging the dog, not to coin a phrase.
There hasn’t been a football season opener to match this in these parts in a lot of memories. This was more than another football game, it was a match of the gladiators. The town had been breaking out in a rash, and the rash had developed into shingles as kickoff grew nearer. Notre Dame came to Atlanta ranked No. 2 in preseason polls, Georgia Tech somewhere down the line. But there was serious support for the home team, and not just a few of the wise foresaw the Yellow Jackets as winners. And the way the game began, they were beginning to look wiser.
Chan Gailey and his debuting play-caller, Patrick Nix, opened logically. They threw to Calvin Johnson, the “Pride of Sandy Creek,” and soon led, 7-0, on his jump-ball catch in the end zone. (A few years ago Notre Dame had a co-captain from Sandy Creek, defensive end Jabari Holloway.) Meanwhile, Notre Dame went to its strength, the thrown football, going for the bomb, the killer strike, in which it was only killing itself. You’ll rarely see more wild pitches than Brady Quinn threw in the early going. What many of us, both in the house and at the tube, couldn’t fathom was where was Darius Walker, Charlie Weis’ ace running back.
Meantime, in the ESPN booth, Brent Musberger, Kirk Herbstreit and Bob Davies were getting in their promotional licks for this historic telecast. Davies is of particular interest here, for nine years ago he broke in as head coach at Notre Dame on a Saturday in South Bend against Georgia Tech, then coached by George O’Leary. With the help of some Midwest officiating, the Irish won that one.
There would be some reference to some of the same after this one in Atlanta, but that’s getting ahead of the story. Travis Bell kicked a field goal, Tech led 10-0 but would not score again. Meanwhile, Weis, who calls his own plays, finally discovered Walker, cut the kid from Buford loose and the offense opened up. On the other hand, Georgia Tech lost track of Johnson and Reggie Ball began taking off on his quarterback draws, and that suited the Irish fine. They could handle that, Johnson would have been more a problem.
I’d suppose you might say there were a couple of points on which the game evolved. When Georgia Tech came to a crucial fourth-and-one, Gailey backed down and punted. When Weis came to an even more crucial fourth-and-one, he called timeout for consultation, then sent in Quinn for a dive over the middle for the first down. Quinn later took matters into his own hands, called his own number and ran a draw of his own for a touchdown that pulled Notre Dame to 10-7. Walker would score in the third quarter, and the final 14-10 score was fairly representative of the wrestle that the game turned into. More wrestle than finesse.
From Georgia Tech’s point of view, I’d surmise that the outcome didn’t settle anything. The Yellow Jackets still feel they’re as good as the Irish. They’d like to have a few plays back and insert a few that didn’t get called, and they surely question some of the officiating, but I’ll have to say the Big Ten crew did a pretty even job.
Offhand, I’d say “ESPN on ABC” had a fairly smooth night, though Davies in the booth is hardly an improvement on Davies on the sideline. And, I might add, I’ve never seen as many weird commercials in one stretch of television as that one, which is neither here nor there. Somebody had to pay for it.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Good first step for Jackets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The question of whether Georgia Tech will be a seven-win program again this season wasn’t answered Saturday. If anything, it was reaffirmed that it doesn’t have to be.
Hang with Notre Dame? Then you can hang with Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech. Hang with Notre Dame? Then suddenly everybody else in the ACC should worry about hanging with you.
There were no complaints Saturday about high academic standards or unreasonable expectations. Nobody whined about being dwarfed by an opponent with perceived recruiting advantages. There was only Tech in a football game, leading the second-ranked Irish into the third quarter, with a chance to win on its final possession.
What does that tell you?
“I don’t know anyone who comes to work here every day who carries those excuses with them,” Jackets athletics director Dan Radakovich said Sunday. (I can only assume he didn’t get the memo from his predecessor, Dave Braine.)
“We’re all looking to try to do what we can do, within the circumstances we have. Yeah, it’s more difficult here than other places. But we’re not going to make excuses. We also have so many positives to work with.”
I lived in the Bay Area when Stanford was a doormat in basketball. Some used academics as an excuse. Then Duke became Duke. When the question was posed to then Stanford AD Andy Geiger, “What’s the difference between Duke’s academic standards and Stanford’s?” his basic response was, “Not much.”
Funny. Then Stanford got better.
There are no limitations at Tech. To think otherwise is a crutch. One day after a 14-10 loss to Notre Dame, Radakovich was asked if there’s a realistic comparable for Tech.
“I’m not saying this just because we played them, but Notre Dame has a lot of the same academic requirements that we do,” he said. “They’re not in a major city but they’re near one, and they have a great history. There are some parallels that we can point to. It’s true Notre Dame is a national team. They’re a brand. They’re like the Coca-Cola of college football. But being in the ACC is great for us. With the conference going to 12 teams, and the SEC being here, the best college football in the country is being played [in the South] and we’re in the middle of that. That’s a positive for us.”
This season will not be defined by what happened Saturday. This season will be defined by what happens next. Indeed, Chan Gailey’s critics always have been fueled by what has happened next.
The Jackets upset Auburn and Miami last season but went 5-5 in 10 other games and finished in something called the Emerald Bowl. How does that happen?
Three years ago, Tech opened with a loss to BYU. Then it upset Auburn and went to Tallahassee and nearly stunned Florida State (losing 14-13). That was good. Then the team came home and got drilled by Clemson 39-3. That was bad.
When a program lives on a roller coaster, it’s not because of academic standards. It’s coaching, preparation and resolve.
The next two weeks finds Tech at home against Samford and Troy. Anything less than lopsided wins would be a warning that little has changed. Then comes the meat of the schedule: Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Clemson, Miami.
If Tech can duplicate Saturday’s performance in those games, then you have a season. Then you have a program.
“I see the players as they are today — I can’t look at what went on in the past,” Radakovich said. “I look at these young men and see they want to win championships. Last night doesn’t derail our season and it doesn’t keep us from reaching one of our goals, which is to win the ACC championship.”
No excuses. Just high expectations.
What a nice change of pace.
Permalink | Comments (53) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Tech can’t finish what it started
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
This was Georgia Tech’s moment to conquer everything. The dwindling clock on a gorgeous Saturday night over Bobby Dodd Stadium. The 14-10 deficit after dominating what supposedly was the No. 2 team in the country early and often before an absolutely delirious packed house. The mystique that is Notre Dame in these situations, when something often happens to make the Fighting Irish the Lucky Irish.
Too bad for Tech that there isn’t the Lucky Jackets. At least not this time, with the Notre Dame offense converting in the clutch near the end, and with the Tech offense vanishing after doing all sorts of wonderful things against the Notre Dame defense during much of the first half.
In the end, after Tech came a Calvin Johnson something away from pulling another Auburn or Miami, somebody asked quarterback Reggie Ball if he was proud of the Jackets’ effort. “I’ll never be proud to lose,” said Ball, inconsistent during his previous three seasons, but mostly decent against Notre Dame. “A loss is a loss. Proud? Nah.”
Good answer. Tech always plays adequately in these types of games. It’s those other types of games that the Jackets will encounter the next three weeks against Samford, Troy and Virginia that traditionally make them look ordinary. Not only that, Notre Dame is slightly flawed, with no kicker, a Heisman Trophy candidate (Brady Quinn) who was spooked for long stretches against Tech and a defense with holes.
Tech could have won. Tech should have won. Instead, the Jackets had the Tech Nation grumbling less about how they couldn’t find ways to pad a quick 10-0 lead and more about an official’s call (involving Philip Wheeler’s questionable blow to Quinn’s head) that contributed to Notre Dame’s winning touchdown drive. Said Tech coach Chan Gailey, clearly peeved, “What did I see? I saw both guys in bounds, and I saw a guy going to make a tackle. You call helmet to helmet every time two helmets hit, you’re going to call it every time. That’s the game of football.”
What’s also the game of football is overcoming an official’s call. That is, if you’re a championship team. Tech remains a good team in progress. In fact, for the longest time, the evening was overwhelmingly flavored old gold and white, but with five minutes left before halftime, a couple of things happened that signaled woe for Tech. First, after Patrick Nix showed frequently that he gets it when it comes to Johnson (you know, you keep calling plays for the gifted receiver), the Jackets offensive’ coordinator suffered brain lock or something.
I mean, here was Tech on third-and-11 from the Notre Dame 13 with a chance to increase their 7-0 lead by a bunch, and Nix didn’t call for a pass to Johnson.
Nix didn’t even call for a pass. Tashard Choice rushed for a yard, and Tech settled for a field goal and a 10-0 advantage. Moments later, Quinn ended the half by plowing into the end zone from 5 yards out on a draw with no timeouts left. The combination of Nix’s conservatism and Quinn’s guts sent Notre Dame toward a burst of momentum in the second half. The Irish methodically moved 64 yards on their first possession ahead for good on mostly runs and that official’s call.
Something had to happen to push Tech back toward a miracle. That “something” had to involve their historically underused miracle named Johnson. Still, as has often been the case, Johnson was the invisible man down the stretch. According to Gailey, Notre Dame’s double teams against Johnson were to blame. But here’s the thing: Tech should have stayed with its early checklist that involved Johnson, Johnson, Johnson. All you need to know is that Nix became the smartest man in recent history among Tech coaches by calling a play for No. 21 on the Jackets’ first series. It was a 6-yard completion with the greatest of ease.
Suddenly, all things were possible. Not only for Johnson, but for the entire Tech team that also flashed more than a few nice things on defense to confuse Quinn and Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis. So, with the wildest crowd in decades on this side of North Avenue heating the warm night even more, the Jackets just needed to hold their noses and adopt a slogan from the hated Bulldogs: “Finish the drill.”
The Jackets didn’t.
Permalink | Comments (103) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Tough situation for Tereshinski
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — Poor Joe T. Here he’d done the thing he’d waited all his life to do — start for the team of his dreams and win a game between the hallowed hedges — and it wasn’t enough to satisfy his constituency or stifle all inquiries. Afterward, he kept being asked if he still felt like Georgia’s No. 1 quarterback, and finally someone asked if Joe Tereshinski III wasn’t tired of that question.
“I’m ready for it to be set,” said Joe T, meaning his depth-chart status. “I’m ready for it to be set in stone.”
But it isn’t yet, and it might never be. If anything, Saturday’s game rendered it a bit less likely that Joe T will make it through the season as the starter. Matthew Stafford played against Western Kentucky, and now that Stafford can’t be redshirted there seems little reason not to play him more as the season unfolds. And such is the curious hold Stafford has thrown over Georgia fans that the flash memory of this game wasn’t of Joe T making his first home start but of Stafford’s last drive — long scramble, three completions, the last a touchdown pass.
Before Saturday, Stafford still wasn’t sure he was going to play this season, let alone this day. Being redshirted had, he said, crossed his mind, and 13 days ago Mark Richt was leaning toward shelving the heralded rookie. But the coach changed his mind after watching Stafford respond to being named co-No. 3 — Richt: “He didn’t pout; he didn’t mope” — and there seems a chance Stafford will be No. 2 when the Bulldogs arrive in Columbia.
“I don’t know what we’ll do,” said Mike Bobo, the quarterbacks coach, “whether we’ll go co-No. 2s or whether Joe [Cox] will be No. 2 or Stafford will be.”
Said Richt of Stafford: “From the time we made the decision [Aug. 20], he’d probably practiced second-best. I think he’ll help us win. And we know Joe T is a senior, and we know somebody besides Joe T is going to play next season, so we just thought it was in [Stafford’s] best interest to get reps now.”
You’d have thought Joe T — a third-generation Bulldog — would be the people’s choice in his hometown, but no great ovation greeted Georgia’s No. 1 quarterback when he took the field Saturday. The ovation was saved for Stafford, who took the first snap of his collegiate life on the first play of the fourth quarter. His first two passes were incomplete. His last three were not. All were delivered with a zip Joe T cannot approximate.
For the record, Tereshinski completed 7 of 17 passes for 90 yards and one touchdown. At least three of his deliveries were dropped. “I thought I threw better than my statistics will probably show,” he said, “but I need to speed up my footwork and my decision-making. I need to give the receivers a better ball to catch.”
Understand: Joe T hasn’t lost the job he’d waited so long to win. He’ll start against South Carolina, but you wonder how long Georgia’s coaches can go with this process of re-evaluation. Another month? Three more months? Said Bobo: “We’re not going to sit here and announce who’s going to be where week-to-week.”
“You can never close the door on competition,” said Tereshinski, but Stafford’s heartening drive only served to open the door of uncertainty even wider.
“Even if I was going to be redshirted,” Stafford said, “I’ve kept the same attitude. I was going to prepare like I was going to be the starter.”
A prediction: If Georgia uses two quarterbacks in Columbia, Stafford will be the second, Stafford as opposed to Cox. And if Georgia needs a fourth-quarter rally, Stafford will be designated to lead it.
Funny how things change. As of noon Saturday, the smart money was on Stafford being redshirted. With one mop-up appearance, a quarterback controversy was stoked anew. Asked if Stafford might start before the season is done, Bobo said: “I can’t answer that right now.”
But he didn’t say no. And he didn’t offer anything that could be taken as a blanket endorsement of the incumbent. Poor Joe T. He waits 23 years to be Georgia’s quarterback, and here comes Matthew Stafford, already closing ground.
Permalink | Comments (87) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Tech in an upset? Don’t be foolish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
(The following is not affiliated with Bill Campbell, who is in jail; Linda Schrenko, who’s on her way there; the Atlanta Spirit, which remains at-large; Mel Gibson, who is free, but, I mean, who among us hasn’t had one or two beers and suddenly broke into a goose-step; Pluto, which has been dropped into the NAIA and home of wayward SEC nonconference opponents; or the NCAA, which continues to astound and amaze, most recently claiming that donations to a Clemson player, who is caring for his 11-year-old brother, constitute an illegal benefit, even though their mother is a drug addict. OK. Who’s been sipping from Mel’s beer?”)
Hello. I am back. The AJC considered replacing these weekly financial tips with “MarketWatch,” but then read excerpts of this week’s column. Quoting, ahem: “… The Russell 2000 is a small-cap index, and small-company stocks historically have delivered returns superior to their much larger brethren. Gold can be a world-beater in the short run but often tends to lags stocks and bonds. Small-cap stocks tend to perform at the top of the security pool …”
AAAAAAGH!
Team A covers vs. Team B.
Isn’t that a lot easier to digest?
As always, here’s how it works: Every week, I give you the winners. It’s your job to find them. “Losing” selections (wink, wink) are merely plants to throw off competing investment firms that always seek to steal our winning formula. Those of you who require the updated key code to decipher the winning games from the “losing” ones, please send a self-addressed envelope and a $250 check made out to: “Weekend Predictions Non-Profit Tax-Deductable Fund For My New Car.”
We start with this week’s big game between Georgia Tech and Pope Weis. After finishing 9-3, Charlie Weis got a book deal, a lifetime of riches and deity status. After all, he won two more games than Chan Gailey.
Funny. Ty Willingham went 10-3 his first year at Notre Dame, but I don’t remember fans handing over the keys to their daughters and beach houses.
That said: Notre Dame’s not bad. I know: Danger game. Tech wins games it shouldn’t. Tech has a great defensive coordinator (Jon Tenuta) and a new guy calling plays (Patrick Nix). Tech has Calvin Johnson.
What’s Latin for blahblahblah?
This could be one-sided. It could be close. But if it’s one sided, Notre Dame’s winning. If it’s close, it’ll come down to a play by the quarterback. So who do you want? Brady Quinn (32 touchdowns and seven interceptions last season) or Reggie Ball (11 and 12, respectively).
This has become too many people’s upset special. The line is down to seven.
I’m going the other way. See ya. Irish cover.
Side orders
(Do these picks make my butt look big?)
• Meat at Georgia: Mark Richt said he’s more fearful of playing a winning Division I-AA opponent than a losing Division I-A school. It’s a nice sound bite. Just don’t try to sell it to the booster who’s carpeting your program. Lose to Western Kentucky and you’ll wish you had the excuse of losing to Temple. Not that it’ll happen. No official line, so let’s just say Doggies by 97.
• FSU at Miami: The Canes will be short four convicts, including receiver Ryan Moore, who kicked a woman’s car door, grabbed her by the throat and threw her to the ground, according to a police report. Coach Larry Coker said Moore’s actions violated team policy. Wait. Since when can’t Miami players kick car doors? Windbags cover 3.
• Washington State at Auburn: The Tigers’ athletic department has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the scandal that found football players being given A’s in sociology for showing a pulse. On a related note, Jim Harrick Jr. has been named compliance director. Auburn covers 14-1/2.
• UAB at Oklahoma: The first 50 fans get a free Chevy. No, wait. That’s the team meetings. Never mind. But Sooners could beat UAB with half the roster tied behind their backs. The 21-1/2 is covered.
• Southern Cal at Arkansas: I realize being the USC quarterback now gets you on the pass list at Hef’s hot tub. But would you really want to be John David Booty about now and have to follow Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart? They leave behind titles, Heismans and a pregnant basketball player. Punt the eight, take Troy.
• Cal at Tennessee: Word is Phil Fulmer became so upset about those bothersome player arrests in the spring that he started throwing water bottles during a team meeting. It’s nice that Pumpkin Boy has actually started spraying weed killer on his troubled program. But when you’ve played doormat to Vanderbilt on the way to going 5-6, are the problems limited to two or three dolts? Vowels buy an L. Take Cal and the gift 1-1/2.
Scorecard
• Last season: 71-19 straight up, 53-35-2 against the line. Late Summer Blowout! Buy any three selections and win a copy of “CBS Evening News For Dummies.” Chapter 1: “After getting caught air-brushing Katie Couric’s hips and caboose to make her look 20 pounds lighter to boost ratings, network executives desperately tried to turn her into a serious journalist. Unfortunately, attempts to air-brush Eric Sevareid’s head onto Couric’s body did not take.”
Permalink | Comments (53) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
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