AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2007 > October > 31
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Army stiff-arms Tech, etc.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s kind of hard to know what to think about Army opting to cancel its game with Georgia Tech next year — AT ARMY! I was looking forward to that trip, and I imagine quite a few fans were as well. West Point is supposed to be one of the great venues in college football.
Apparently, Army officials have decided that consecutive games against schools from major conferences (the Black Knights were to play at Texas A&M the game before Tech; two weeks earlier) has left them with a high number of injuries that are damaging to the “athletic and military careers” of the cadets, according to a letter from the Army AD to Dan Radakovich.
Hmmm. I wonder if Army had a similar option to cancel out of its trip to Texas A&M instead? Or maybe the Black Knights actually stand to make more money from that trip than from a visit by Tech? I dunno at this point. Strange, though.
Army routinely schedules BCS schools. They have the Texas A&M game, a game with Vanderbilt, a home and away with Ohio State, games against Notre Dame, and others in coming years. I don’t know if other games are in danger or not.
Scheduling is a strange thing. Ohio State is/was to play Army in 2009 and 2010, and Southern Cal in ‘08 and ‘09. Why Ohio State would go to Army I don’t know.
Moving on, Tech may learn good news on a few recruits in the next few weeks, and they will have a slew of prospects on campus for the Georgia game.
I think Jamaal Evans is going to be better than a lot of folks might expect Thursday night against Virginia Tech. Dwyer, too. I just have a hunch, no great insight.
If I were a betting man, I’d suggest that the game will come down to special teams and/or defensive scores. I don’t think either offense is going to get rich against the opposing defense.
Now, as for graduation rates … some folks suggested a few weeks ago that a better measure of student-atheltes’ progress would be to measure their graduation rates against the student body at large. Now that information is available, and it’s not very good news. I was surprised to learn that 77 percent of the 2000 freshmen at Tech went on to graduate in six years. That number is high, considerably higher than several ACC and SEC schools, which given the difficulty of Tech caught my eye.
The gap backward to student-athletes graduating in six years, 55 percent picked up their degrees, was large, the largest in the ACC. That surprises me, too. I figured Tech would have a lower overall graduation rate because it’s so tough, and the gap between athletes would therefore not be so large.
I wonder how this will impact academic support systems at Tech?
Matt
