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Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Jackets best in state, ACC
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The writers’ poll has Georgia Tech No. 13 to Georgia’s No. 16. The coaches’ poll has Georgia No. 14 to Tech’s No. 15. The writers have it right. For the first time since 2000, Tech has a better football team than Georgia.
(We pause here while the governor drafts another letter to the editor.)
Tech is better on offense, better on defense. Tech is better everywhere except at making field goals and tackling kickoff returners. (And Georgia, it should be noted, just lost its field goal kicker.) We really shouldn’t be surprised: Even in preseason it was clear this was Chan Gailey’s most talented Tech team, and signs pointed to this being the least imposing Georgia aggregation since Mark Richt’s first season. The more the two play, the clearer the demarcation becomes.
Tech looks like the strongest team in the ACC. Georgia appears fifth- or sixth-best, depending on what you think of Arkansas and/or Alabama, in the SEC. The Jackets seized on their opening loss to Notre Dame and have gotten better. The Bulldogs, who still haven’t fulfilled the basic requirement of finding a No. 1 quarterback, are more addled now than when they began. Nobody could have imagined that a program with Reggie Ball as its on-field leader would come to be categorized as more composed, but how else to describe it?
The Jackets are learning to play to their offensive strengths: They’re having Ball run more and throw less, and when he does throw it’s most often to Calvin Johnson, who is — pronouncement alert! — the best collegiate player in the land. Georgia has no offensive strengths save Kregg Lumpkin. Georgia scored fewer points in eight quarters against Colorado and Ole Miss than Tech managed in 45 revelatory minutes in Blacksburg, Va.
The Virginia Tech game changed the dynamics not just of the ACC’s Coastal Division but of college football in this football-obsessed state. It was the sort of comprehensive performance — the Jackets led 38-13 before three quarters were done — that identified this as a team capable of much more than the occasional upset. The Bulldogs, by way of contrast, waited five games for a true test — and then flunked it. From 17 points up to 18 points down, the loss to Tennessee was the most deflating of the Richt era because it undercut the foundation thereof.
For the third time in 11 months, Georgia’s defense collapsed. The defense, constructed under Brian VanGorder, was always the unit on which the Bulldogs could rely, but the big-game performance of Willie Martinez, VanGorder’s successor, has left Georgia not knowing what to expect. When a team yields six offensive touchdowns in one game on its field, it can no longer be said to be playing championship defense.
Even with the ballyhooed Quentin Moses and Charles Johnson, the Bulldogs couldn’t trouble Tennessee’s Erik Ainge. Contrast this with the rush — really, more like a whirlwind — generated by Tech’s Michael Johnson and Darrell Robertson with Maryland inside the 10 with the game on the line. Said Gailey: “They were flying off the edges, and that’s a lot to have left late in a game.”
Surely there’s a lot left in these Jackets, who are playing with an assurance unseen in Gailey’s wax-and-wane tenure. The assumption is that Georgia will get better — it can hardly do worse than against Tennessee — and it’s possible the Bulldogs could nose ahead by Thanksgiving.
That said, Georgia hasn’t thrashed Tech lately when it was clearly the stronger side — the Bulldogs won 19-13 in 2004 and 14-7 last season — and it’s hard to imagine Gailey’s best team losing to maybe Richt’s worst. It’s hard to imagine anything, even a statewide executive order, denying Tech this time.
Permalink | Comments (324) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Tuberville’s whining must cease
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
I have nothing against the Auburn Tigers in football. I do have something against eternal whiners in sports.
Why can’t Tommy Tuberville just let 2004 go? Hey, it’s over. Yes, your Tigers went undefeated back then and didn’t reach the BCS title game. No, they didn’t deserve it over undefeated Southern Cal or Oklahoma, not with Auburn playing the Division I-AA likes of Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana Tech and The Citadel.
Still, there was Tuberville spending last week doing what he is obsessed with doing, and that is complaining that college football needs a playoff system.
Guess the whining stops here for Tuberville – or it should. His previously undefeated Tigers were smacked around on Saturday at home by a less-talented Arkansas team.
Permalink | Comments (87) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
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