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Saturday, December 2, 2006
Not enough for Gators
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
They went from up 17-0, to down 21-17, to up 31-21, to panting across the finish line with a 38-28 victory that exhibited everything that makes college football great, and occasionally goofy.
And now they’ll scream.
The Florida Gators will scream that they played 10 bowl-eligible teams and beat nine of them. They’ll scream that they won the championship of the SEC, and isn’t that sort of like conquering Rome? They’ll scream that Michigan already had its shot at No. 1 and the Wolverines blew it.
What they won’t try to do is make sense of how Michigan’s only loss coming by three points at No. 1 Ohio State could somehow be worse than the Gators’ only loss coming by 10 at No. 11 Auburn.
Florida woke up this morning as SEC champs for the first time since 2000 and won at the least a trip to the Sugar Bowl. They’ll scream they deserve more: a trip to the BCS title game, as illustrated by the “B-C-S!” chant that went up in the final seconds of Saturday night’s win over Arkansas.
They’ll scream until the voters either cover their ears or jump their team over Michigan in the rankings, setting up a title game against Ohio State.
Good luck with that.
If passion factors into this, Florida gained the several needed “style points” that coach Urban Meyer so detests. But to jump from No. 4 to No. 2 in the BCS rankings over idled Michigan — as well as losing Southern Cal — the Gators needed to make an emphatic statement.
I’m not sure a frenetic 10-point win over Arkansas qualifies. But it made for good theater, and it’ll make for good debate, and that’s what separates college football from everything else.
The Gators will bank on winning with drama. They’ll bank on winning with resolve. They’ll bank on just enough voters deciding, “You know, I just don’t want to see Ohio State-Michigan again.”
If it comes down to the latter, expect an inferno in Ann Arbor.
Houston Nutt, the Arkansas coach, was asked where he stood on the Florida debate. His answer was one of support for an SEC brother, but well short of “It would be an injustice …”
“I’m always for our conference,” Nutt said. “This is the toughest conference in America. If we were sitting on the other sideline, we’d say absolutely [we deserve to be in the title game]. I wish them the best.”
It appeared early that the Gators would have a stronger argument. They led 17-0. For Arkansas, it was a welcome back to SEC title Hades. They lost to Florida 34-3 in 1995. They lost to Georgia 30-3 four years ago. They were going on 10 quarters without a touchdown in the Georgia Dome and to that point had been outscored 81-6 in SEC championships.
Apparently, the Hogs weren’t up for another dismembering. Just before the half, the team not known for its passing attack clicked on a 48-yard touchdown pass from Casey Dick to Marcus Monk with 1:55 left in the half.
What followed was Chris Leak’s apparent attempt to channel Reggie Ball. On the first possession of the second half, the Florida quarterback had a pass picked off by Arkansas’ Weston Dacus at the Gators’ 32.
Seven plays later, tailback/quarterback Darren McFadden tossed a 2-yard touchdown pass to Felix Jones. Less than four minutes later, Leak found a worse way to start a drive: a feeble shovel pass that was intercepted by a defensive end, Antwain Robinson, who returned it 40 yards for a go-ahead touchdown.
“I felt like we had the momentum,” McFadden said. “The momentum switched.”
At this point, the Gators weren’t chasing style points for pollsters. Any points would do — and Arkansas made it easy on them. Reggie Fish foolishly attempted an over-the-shoulder catch on a punt return at his own 1-yard line and fumbled, and Wondy Pierre-Louis recovered to put Florida back ahead, 24-21. A few minutes later, Percy Harvin blasted off for a 67-yard touchdown run, jumping the lead to 31-21.
Gator Nation put a hold on the cyanide.
After the game, Meyer stood on his awaiting soapbox.
He’ll sleep on that soapbox.
“It’s not about style points,” he said. “We’re just trying to win games, and this team keeps finding ways to win.”
Winning by a little more would’ve helped.
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James makes Glavine unnecessary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
For those of you who do not survive by football alone, let me open the file on the Braves, resting quietly by their fireside while some of their associates apparently have money to burn. The Cubs roll out $100 million for Alfonso Soriano, the Dodgers invest $44 million in the hope that Juan Pierre can bunt his way on base, the Red Sox ante up $51 million for the mere privilege of interviewing a Japanese pitcher whose name I can’t spell. Meantime, reports wafting in from the north indicated that Tom Glavine was tilted southward, should the Braves be interested.
Glavine had been downgraded by the Mets. They dropped a $14.5 million option they held, so he operated as a free agent. But all he got from Atlanta was silence.
John Schuerholz, chief mechanic of the Braves, feels rather steady at the wheel when he says, “We have John Smoltz renewed, and we have signed Bob Wickman, so we have our book-ends. Mike Hampton will be coming back, and that’s like getting a new pitcher. It remains for us to decide how we will fill in the rest of our staff.”
Actually, these Braves appear to be pitcher-rich to me, and don’t pull me over on suspicion of DUI. Here’s how they stack up at this point:
They have six potential starters, with Smoltz and Hampton, now recovered from a surgical sabbatical, at the head of the class. Tim Hudson must re-establish himself, but he, Smoltz and Hampton have all been 20-game winners at one time or another. Horacio Ramirez and Kyle Davies are in hand, if their bodies hold up. But here’s the sleeper: Chuck James, who looks like the real thing to me after an impressive run in the farm system and an 11-4 report card last season.
Now, as Glavine goes, he has never left Atlanta in a political sense. He still votes here. It’s home when he leaves the Mets locker room. The sense is, he’d love to finish off here what he started here. On the other hand, as far as the Braves go, they already have their Glavine. James is a virtual carbon copy, but a 14 years younger carbon copy and several millions less expensive. Crafty, brilliant control, a cunning southpaw, as they used to say, in every way.
“Of course,” Schuerholz added, “you can never have too many good arms,” but that was as close any line of communication went. Thus, Glavine checked in with the Mets again.
James is one of these pitchers who come from out of nowhere, has had impressive earned-run averages wherever he pitched, was an ace in the hole when Horacio Ramirez and John Thomson crashed, struck out 91 batters in 119 innings, and though he doesn’t strike you as having a strikeout pitch, he struck out 419 batters in 339 innings in the minor leagues. Puts the pitch where he aims it, changes speed like a wily veteran, and just beginning to blossom.
He sort of sneaked in out of the wings while the young sluggers, Francoeur, McCann and LaRoche, were generating all the noise at bat. And when Hudson’s production fell far below his pay scale, without James the Braves season would have been more a disaster than it was. And let it not be overlooked that he is another home-grown, direct from the modest surburb of Mableton. And his progress has not gone unnoticed in the system. In 2005, he was the Braves Minor League Pitcher of the Year.
Obviously, Glavine preferred to come back to the Braves, but which it’s back to Flushing for him one more season, and all the commuting. Frankly, he has never looked at home in a Mets uniform, and you have difficulty understanding why he took leave of the Braves, if home means that much. All you have to understand is the power of money. All of a sudden both he and Greg Maddux were gone, and ever since the Braves have been trying to fill the vacancies with the likes of Hudson, the high-rent flop Russ Ortiz, the low-rent John Thomson, Ramirez, and raiding their own pantry for the services of John Smoltz. With Chuck James on hand, they had no urgent need for Glavine. Been nice to know ye, Tom.
Permalink | Comments (32) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Tech’s ‘D’ stands offended
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Jacksonville — The breakthrough season wound up broken. It came apart in the bleakest of games in the bleakest of settings, came apart so completely that the better part of Georgia Tech’s team didn’t disguise its disgust for the other half.
“I don’t forget anything,” said defensive tackle Joe Anoai. “Someday I’ll look back on this, and … it’s a lack of offensive production. The defense can’t do everything.”
With the ACC championship there for the taking, Tech didn’t score a touchdown. It saw a team of lesser gifts pull even and then ahead in the final 8-1/2 minutes. It saw the best season of Chan Gailey’s stewardship disintegrate over consecutive Saturdays — two massive games, two dispiriting losses.
Anoai again: “It’s pretty difficult to come down here and do what we did today.”
As happened against Georgia, Tech took a fourth-quarter lead and spat it back. As happened in Athens, Tech spent the first three quarters looking like the stronger team but never quite proving it.
The stout-hearted defense that yielded one scoring drive in Athens was touched for two field goals in the final period here, and those six measly points carried a gray and drizzly day that should have belonged to the Jackets.
Tech whiffed on three fourth-down tries inside the Wake Forest 33, Reggie Ball delivering an interception on the first and throwing to the wrong receiver on the third. On the other he was stuffed on a quarterback sneak. These failures kept the Deacons in the game at a time when Tech had established a physical superiority. Then again, the physical part isn’t what derailed this team.
The mental part did. Put simply, Jim Grobe outcoached Gailey. Grobe took the lesser side and won a championship with it. Gailey and coordinator Patrick Nix took an offense with the ACC’s best player (Calvin Johnson) and its leading rusher (Tashard Choice) and managed two crummy field goals. And then, with just over two minutes remaining and Tech facing fourth-and-13 after Ball scrambled out of bounds, Gailey chose to punt. The Jackets never touched the ball again.
“We didn’t get ready to play,” Gailey said, “and that’s my responsibility.”
Ball was better than he’d been against Georgia — he couldn’t have been worse — but completed only 9 of 29 passes and threw two more interceptions. The second changed the game. Leading 6-3 with 12:15 remaining and with Wake having bled out one second-half first down without benefit of penalty, the Jackets took possession at their 17. Run Choice and burn the clock, right? Uh, no.
Ball threw long for Johnson on first down. (It marked the seventh time on 11 second-half first-and-10s the Jackets had deigned to throw.) Johnson could have caught the ball but deflected it to Wake’s Riley Swanson instead. Wake took the turnover and drove to the tying field goal and soon to another.
Two Deacon catches — a third-down reception by backup tight end John Tereshinski, whose brother Joe caught a touchdown pass for Georgia on this field last season, and a deep ball to Willie Idlette between defenders Djay Jones and Jahi Word-Daniels — energized the drives. The Deacons, however, should never have been in position to win. Tech should have run Choice 31 times, not 21, and killed the game off. Tech should have played to its strength (Choice pounding), not its weakness (Ball flinging).
“It’s hard to go out there and give everything you have,” said linebacker KaMichael Hall, “and the last second runs off the clock and then you lose.”
Tech was talented enough to have beaten Georgia, to have beaten Wake, to be nuzzling up to the Top 10 as opposed to falling from the Top 25. As much as these Jackets did, they left too much undone. And they knew it.
“I don’t think it’s a breakthrough season,” said Hall, an icepack on his damaged ribs. “It’s not a breakthrough season if you can’t finish. We didn’t win a rivalry game and we didn’t win the ACC championship. It got away from us.”
Permalink | Comments (181) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
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