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Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Strange, sad end to Ball’s Tech career
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
His first collegiate home game ended with him being borne aloft in triumph. What should have been his last collegiate game will proceed without him, Reggie Ball having been declared academically ineligible for the Gator Bowl. In the history of college football, has there ever been a stranger career path?
(To address the obvious comparison: Yes, Quincy Carter’s time at Georgia was odd, too. But not this odd.)
Four years ago Reggie Ball became Tech’s starter at a time when nobody considered him a realistic candidate. He was a true freshman and not anything approaching a blue-chip recruit. Yet Chan Gailey saw something in Ball that made him bench incumbent starter A.J. Suggs and re-assign Damarius Bilbo to wide receiver. Sometimes for better and other times for worse, Gailey has had to live with that decision ever since.
Ball had his moments, more than a few. He beat Auburn twice (the first time in that aforementioned home debut). He beat Miami twice. He beat Virginia Tech. He beat Clemson twice (once in a truly spectacular midnight comeback). He took Georgia Tech to an ACC Coastal Division title. He won 29 games as a starting quarterback, as many as the great Joe Hamilton won, but the harsh reality is that almost nobody will remember the good things he did. What will stick in memory are the four losses to Georgia, the ACC title fizzle against Wake Forest, and now this whimper of an exit.
It wasn’t just that Ball seemed to get no better; judging by cold statistics, he was at his worst at the very end. (Somebody obviously did a terrible job coaching him.) He completed 15 of 51 passes, with four interceptions, in his last two games. Some Tech fans were looking forward to the Gator Bowl for no other reason than it would mark the last time they’d have to get mad at their quarterback.
Not many collegians have ever been subjected to this much abuse, both from cackling enemy fans and the supposedly friendly home folks. Not many collegians have ever been as scrutinized by the media. Perhaps not surprisingly, Ball fielded questions reluctantly, if at all. Tech publicists essentially gave up trying to make their quarterback available to the press, a move that did Ball no favors. It’s hard to seem sympathetic if you never tell your side of the story.
And surely there was (and is) something to tell. How does it feel to go from being Chan’s Chosen One to the sum of all Tech frustrations? How does it feel to play so hard — give Ball that much — and generate so little warmth? How does it feel to have presided over four consecutive winning seasons and to be branded a loser?
I can’t say I like Ball, but I was kind of hoping he would have a big game against West Virginia. Nobody, I thought, deserved to close a career the way he’d played against Georgia and Wake. But now he doesn’t even have the Gator Bowl as a finishing act, and that’s nobody’s doing but his. We can blame Gailey and Patrick Nix for not making him a better quarterback, but who else can be faulted for not making his grades?
His first collegiate home game saw him riding on the shoulders of his fellow students. His last collegiate game ended with Reggie Ball brushing past reporters and refusing comment. I wish I could say there’s some greater lesson therein, but I’m not smart enough to find one. I see only a strange story, a sad story, a story of potential unmet and opportunity gone sour.
Permalink | Comments (302) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Dogs a different breed since last visit to Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — When last Georgia played at Alexander Memorial Coliseum, the Bulldogs lost by 38 points and were relieved it wasn’t 50 or 60. Georgia Tech was eight months removed from the NCAA championship game, and Georgia was free-falling to its post-Jim Harrick low.
Two years later, the Bulldogs are rising as fast as they’d plummeted. Georgia will arrive at Tech for Friday’s date having won its past seven games and having toppled No. 16 Gonzaga. What seemed a perfunctory entity a month ago now bears the look of a major test for both programs. The Jackets were ranked in preseason but aren’t today; picked to finish last in the SEC East, the Bulldogs are close to crashing the Top 25.
“Things have changed significantly,” said Sundiata Gaines, the point guard who suffered through that 87-49 thrashing in December 2004. “We’ve got a lot of talented players now.”
Case study: Two years ago, the freshman center Dave Bliss started against Tech and fouled out in four official minutes. (“Less than that, actually,” said Dennis Felton, Georgia’s coach. “It was three-something.”) Today Bliss is Georgia’s 10th man. It isn’t that he has gotten worse — on the contrary, he has improved quite a lot — but that the Bulldogs keep adding.
With Harrick’s holdovers gone and probation setting in, Georgia finished 8-20 two seasons ago. Those Bulldogs averaged just 60.1 points, infamously managing an aggregate 75 in consecutive losses to Vanderbilt and Florida. Today an emboldened Georgia averages 91.8 points, third-most among Division I schools, and is a team transformed.
“We knew [in 2004-05] we had to shorten games just to have a chance,” Felton said. “Last year was the first time we had anything resembling reasonable depth, and we started to run more. That didn’t really work out then [the Bulldogs lost 12 of their last 17 games to finish 15-15], but it helped to make us a better running team now. Today our games are some of the fastest-paced in the country.”
A proud man, Felton is proudest of this: Georgia has bootstrapped itself without cutting a single corner, without even landing a McDonald’s All-American. (Tech has two in its freshman class.) “We’ve made progress without a lucky break,” he said. “There have been no home runs, no magic moments. Louis Williams [who signed with Georgia but entered the NBA draft out of high school] would have been a home run, but he didn’t come here. We’ve done it the old-fashioned way.”
For a time, it was possible to wonder if Felton was too old-fashioned. The attrition rate during his stewardship has been pronounced: Younes Idrissi was ushered out after last season, and Channing Toney, a two-year starter, just departed. Indeed, the Bulldogs might well be undefeated if transfer Takais Brown, the biggest inside presence Felton has had in his four seasons here, had been deployed in the season’s first two games. (Brown was academically eligible by Georgia standards, but not by his coach’s.)
With Brown, who has scored in double figures in every game since being cleared to play, Georgia has struck a balance that Gonzaga, which beat North Carolina last month, conspicuously couldn’t handle. The Bulldogs were already strong on the perimeter: Gaines leads the league in steals and is second in assists; Levi Stukes is a superior shooter, and Mike Mercer, who played alongside the more heralded Williams at South Gwinnett, is strong enough to take any collegiate defender off the dribble.
“Dennis has done a great job letting players mature,” said Cliff Warren, formerly Paul Hewitt’s assistant at Tech. Now Jacksonville’s coach, Warren was speaking after Georgia beat his Dolphins here Tuesday. “He put Levi Stukes and Mike Mercer out there as freshmen and said, ‘Go play.’ They’ve developed their players.”
The next three weeks should be instructive. After Tech, Georgia plays Clemson, Wisconsin and Florida.
The Bulldogs could lose all four — only the Wisconsin game is at home — but surely won’t. (Gaines sprained his ankle Tuesday but isn’t expected to be lost for extended duty.) Two years after not having a prayer against any opponent of consequence, the Bulldogs stand a chance against anybody anywhere.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Pro Bowl selection process flawed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
You look at another questionable year of Pro Bowl selections in the NFL, and it is enough to make those who know the difference between a goalpost and a resin bag raise a toast to Bowie Kuhn.
Bowie Kuhn? Yep. The old baseball commissioner got it right.
In 1970, Kuhn decided to return the voting of All-Stars in his game to the fans for a couple of reasons: He knew they could do as well as anybody else, and he knew it was the fans’ game anyway. Sometimes the fans blow a selection or three in baseball’s All-Star voting process, but they generally are omniscient in most years.
The point is, the Pro Bowl selection process has been a beauty pageant among NFL players and coaches. Yes, the fans are involved in the process, but their votes mostly are used to break a tie between the players and the coaches.
Anyway, what we’ve consistently seen through the decades is that NFL players and coaches are often as misinformed, biased or (fill in the blank) as fans supposedly are when it comes to voting.
You can do what we’re about to do with any team in any year. But since this is Atlanta, let’s look at the Falcons.
DeAngelo Hall was just selected to his second consecutive Pro Bowl despite more than a few underwhelming moments. For instance: Remember how Hines Ward toasted what supposedly is the NFL’s fastest man while wearing only one shoe? Not only that, Alge Crumpler was picked for his fourth Pro Bowl despite spending part of this season contributing to the Falcons’ epidemic of dropped passes.
Conversely, there is Michael Vick, the Falcons’ flawed quarterback, who nevertheless has thrown for a career-high 19 touchdowns. He also set the record for most rushing yards during a season for a quarterback. He didn’t make the Pro Bowl after doing so twice.
Keith Brooking didn’t make it, either, and he was shooting for a franchise-record sixth consecutive trip to Hawaii. He isn’t staying home because he isn’t as good as he was in the past at linebacker.
It’s because, well, it’s because the Pro Bowl selection process should make folks shut up about baseball’s All-Star selection process.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
