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September 2006
Back to the Nether Lands
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Will Saturday’s winner in Blacksburg have a smooth ride to the ACC title game? That’s one of the pre-game memes heading into the Georgia Tech’s clash against Future Falcon Draft Picks, both Top 25 teams.
In the Commonwealth they’re touting this game as the key to a big season. After feasting on a junk-football diet of Northeastern, UNC, Duke and Cincinnati, Beamer Ball gets its first legitimate test, even though the Bearcats availed themselves well. In fact, that non-fearsome foursome is a combined 0-9 against Division I-A foes.
The Yellow Jackets are coming off an easy pasting of Virginia, and will be facing a Va. Tech team missing two defensive starters who have been suspended. But the Hokies’ top receiver says he’ll be ready for Saturday despite having had an appendectomy last week.
Frank Beamer’s unhappy with bad Hokies. Not necessarily the ones who aren’t very good on the field, but very bad off it.
But Va. Tech does graduate more jox than the sporty types at Mr. Jefferson’s University, according to the latest NCAA calculations.
Here’s who the Hokies are having cover Calvin Johnson after his sterling performance against the Wahoos. The odds have gone down. Va. Tech is only a 9-point favorite now. Are you buying this, Jackets fans?
This slice of Hokie Nation isn’t bullish on the home team, predicting the Jackets will walk away with a 17-10 win. Unless lightning strikes twice.
When the Jackets last visited Blacksburg a year ago, getting waxed to the tune of 51-7, UGA was laying it thick on the other SEC Bulldogs in Starkville. This Saturday night, Richt’s Dawgs will return to the Magnolia State, favored just as heavily against the struggling Ole Miss Rebels.
While Richt is being coy about whether Joe Cox or Matthew Stafford will start, the Rebels are sticking with Brent Schaeffer, whose convoluted ordeal after transferring from Tennessee via a California junior college is looking like a lot of wasted energy. His understudy, however, is trying to stay sharp.
A 27-3 loss to Wake Forest? In Oxford? Ed Orgeron’s first season is crashing and burning at 1-3. Rebel loyalists are already debating what he can do with program, or if he can do it. (This is the only SEC West team never to have reached the conference championship game.) His first recruiting class is drawing notice. “We’re building a team for the future,” he says. “I believe in this team. I believe in Ole Miss.”
Some friendly advice for the new coach on the hot seat: Get fired up, Big Ed, fired up. The Dawgs coulda, shoulda been had by the Buffaloes last week in Athens. You’ve got ‘em at Vaught-Hemingway in a charged-up, prime-time atmosphere. There might not be a better chance to salvage something of the season.
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A few Cavalier notions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So it’s quite obvious that the ACC reeks of overripe limburger this year, and just from looking at some of the results and near-misses.
But delving a bit into the numbers, and examining the lack of progress of some of its supposedly on-the-move programs, reveals that the stench goes deep into the old pigskin olfactories.
Prime example being the Virginia Cavaliers, the Loyal Opposition for ESPN’s unslakable Thursday night ACC football thirst against Your Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at Bobby Dodd.
Back in the days when The Enemy Watchwoman made regular sojourns up down the league — when its northerly point was College Park — she used to hear that George Welsh couldn’t recruit, and the Wahoos would never be a big-time college football power as a result. Then they went out and slayed Florida State in its first ACC loss. UVa made a regular habit of participating in fairly decent New Years Dayish bowl games, including the Atlanta Bowl Formerly Known as the Peach. Welsh produced a good number of players now competing in the NFL, such as Tiki and Ronde Barber.
Indeed, the heavenly autumnal visits to Mr. Jefferson’s University in Charlottesville were occasions to watch good football as well as the magical changing of the colors in the Blue Ridge. When Coach Welsh was ushered off into retirement, Al Groh was brought in from the NFL to take the Cavs into FSU-Miami-Virginia Tech company.
But on Thursday, he’ll start redshirt freshman Jameel Sewell, one of three quarterbacks he tried in last Saturday’s homecoming loss to — Western Michigan?
Groh’s not happy with any of them. Yes, these would be QBs he recruited. Well, Al, even the student press isn’t happy with you.
There is a top QB prospect on the UVa roster, cornerback Vic Hall, signed as the top prep passer in Virginia high school history, more prolific than Michael Vick, even.
But Groh, who pouted that good Cavaliers fans shouldn’t boo after a loss — even to a I-AA team — says Hall isn’t an option under center.
While UVa’s decline as a program may be turning heads, the current offensive woes are being trumped as not much of a surprise.
Yes, Virginia, there are a few teams worse than you in Division I-A in offensive statistics across the board. But not many.
As Tech fan Dr. Football sez, the Jackets have no excuses not to put on a command performance. Keep this in mind, however: Tech’s lost 4 of its last 5 Thursday night affairs, including that unfortunate heartbreaker to N.C. State last season.
Yes, Jackets fans, that was the same Wolfpack team led by the soon-to-be former N.C. State Chuck Amato, who’s part of the lineup of what’s being referred to as the Atrocious Coaching Conference.
This take doesn’t hold out much chance for the Cavs to have a decent season, with apologies to ‘Mr. and Mrs. Wahoo’ out there.
There is a glimmer of hope, however:
“There are still games to be won. The ACC, if you haven’t noticed, isn’t overflowing with talent.”
As they always say at Duke, and at an increasing number of other campuses now stringing from Coral Gables to Chestnut Hill, October 15 is only 26 days away.
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Falcons-Bucs: No spin required
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nice spin on the Tampa Bay Bucs’ official website previewing Sunday’s clash at the Dome:
“… neither team puts too much stock in past results.”
Ahem.
This is the same official Bucs site that last season featured a sassy little animated slide show of Ronde Barber knocking on Vick’s door — “Can Michael come out to play?” — only to find No. 7 shrieking in horror, given his misery in previous games against Tampa Bay.
As the King of Cable Blowhards likes to bellow: “I’m not buying it!”
I’m not buying this downplaying of history now. It’s a convenient ruse to sidestep the present: The Bucs’ lousy start to the season and the Falcons’ most impressive one.
T.B. has won the last three encounters between the two, and six of the eight games since both teams were put in the NFC South in 2002. The Bucs have won nine of the last 11 meetings since 1997, predating the Blank Era.
The above story even goes so far as to quote Vick and Mora saying the past is behind them.
AHEM.
Those are talking points, of course; you hear them every week. If last Sunday’s win over Carolina was satisfying to the Falcons — and it was — imagine what topping Tampa would be in the home season opener this Sunday.
It’s been a while since the Bucs were sputtering like this and the Birds were flying rather high, no matter Abraham’s status.
Taking most of the heat in Tampa this week has been Bucs QB Chris Simms, who has been making Jon Gruden a most unhappy coach.
Simms offers his own thoughts after that 27-0 spanking by the Ravens, and takes a lot of the blame.
He is the second lowest-rated passer in NFL, and this account points the finger at him for the fact that wide receiver Joey Galloway did not touch the ball Sunday and running back Carnell Williams only touched the ball 13 times (eight rushes, five receptions).
Some teammates naturally stood up for the guy, as good teammates should.
Bucs fans yak about which Falcon has hurt them the most in recent years, and they cite a variety of names.
As usual, the out-of-town press flew in this week to do another take on Michael Vick. This time, the headline reads: ‘Same flash, new glow.’
Great Mora quote from the same story:
“He’s like the Lindsay Lohan of the NFL,” Mora said of No. 7. “He’s always in the news.”
This story is about the Falcons’ prowess running the ball, with a clever header tied to the state of our lives stuck in gruesome traffic: “It’s always rush hour in Atlanta.”
The NFL’s formidable site leads its Week 2 preview analysis with the Falcons vs. Bucs.
That site’s leading numbers-cruncher has the Falcons at the top of his power poll after the first week of the season.
Another pundit places the Birds at No. 7, and the Bucs at No. 28.
Given the rivalry and the very important early-season stakes, this one’s is going to be a brawl. What great games to start the season! There’s no other way to spin that.
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‘Shakeout’ in the Peach State?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The headline in today’s newspaper (you know, what you hold in your hand and get inky fingers from) says this is “Shakeout Saturday” in college football. So it must be true.
But for a couple of late touchdowns pulled off by Florida State last week, The Enemy Watchwoman avers that we could have had it already. And, no less from her alma mater, a mid-to-lower level state institution with virtually no academic standards whatsoever (thus prompting her unchallenged enrollment and, shockingly, the conferring of a diploma four years later) and close to nothing but the ground. And since its foolhardy rise from Division II mediocrity to I-AA national champ to I-A wanna-be, a program that usually pretends at being big-time in football.
For 54 minutes in Tallahassee, it actually was one. Troy University (sans the State, which disappeared without your humble blogger, Class of ‘82, knowing about it) has had only two major construction projects since her departure. One was the expansion of what is now Movie Gallery Stadium to 30K. This was a place that not long ago proudly flailed “Dixie” as its fight song, but now trumps up more universal lyrics.
Can the absurd become frighteningly real for Georgia Tech? Now that the Yellow Jackets have had some Bulldogs they can beat, you would think not. Yes, Samford was a crummy I-AA team. But Troy has two 5-foot-11 corners to go against Calvin Johnson. The Trojans are small, but very speedy, led by an elusive juco transfer quarterback who might have been able to steer a shocking upset, had he not gotten ill.
This is supposed to be the middle of a three-game pick-up-the-money-and-get-your-butt-kicked swing for Troy, which plays at Nebraska next week. Except the Trojans aren’t getting their butts kicked.
Perhaps looking ahead to the Bowden Bowl, FSU had only 45 rushing yards, seven fumbles, and heard something a whole lot stronger than “dadgum” from Bobby afterward. One ‘Nole said: “They’re a for-real team.”
The odds give Tech a 17-point advantage. That sounds about right. But with the Jackets having a quick turnaround into ACC play against Virginia next Thursday, this one could be intriguing. I say the Trojans cover, but Tech avoids the FSU pitfall (as well as N.C. State’s ridiculous loss to Akron) and comes away relatively unscathed.
The Athenians at UGA are no less settled about the prospect of playing a UAB team that fell only 13-10 back in 2003. This is Matt Stafford’s first game in charge as the starting QB, and this too could be a tricky encounter.
The Blazers pulled out a tough win over East Carolina last week in a win that earned some props from Mark Richt. A Georgia boy will start at QB for UAB in a contest apparently determined by his native son status.
Some Bulldogs who played in that 2003 game said they remember it well and are trying to avoid it being so tight again.
Some Dogs fans (and beat writer bloggers) might be bemoaning the lack of exciting non-conference games, but for those of us from the Troys and UABs of the college football world, this is our LSU-Auburn and Florida-Tennessee.
Permalink | Comments (55) | Categories: Tech, UGA
Finally, some real football
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to the papers and the scoreboard, the college football season has begun. Actually, games have been played, but that’s not the same thing.
But they weren’t real games, in the mind of Enemy Watch, which didn’t bother paying much attention to Thursday’s farcical lineup:
Connecticut 52, Rhode Island 7
Boston College 31, Central Michigan 24
Minnesota 44, Kent State 0
Even South Carolina’s 15-0 win over Mississippi State has to be kept in perspective: In Starkvegas, they will play any night of the week if television’s interested in picking up the sounds of the clamorous cowbells.
Gimme a break!
This is not how major I-A programs in BCS conferences should start the season. No, Enemy Watch blew off the Thursday Night Thumpings in favor of another Turner Classic Movie reprise of “Double Indemnity,” in which Fred MacMurray repeatedly calls chain-smoking, sunglassed Barbara Stanwyck “baby.” The AJC’s own The Movie Guy rates this as first-tier film noir, charactized by the “rotten sweetness of corruption.”
Which is the perfect segue back to big-time college football. Take a look at Saturday’s listings on the official first day of the season:
Idaho at Michigan State.
Vanderbilt at Michigan.
Akron at Penn State.
Western Kentucky at Georgia.
Yawn.
California at Tennessee, UAB at Oklahoma, Utah at UCLA, Washington State at Auburn, a bit more competitive.
But not good enough.
Most of these openers are about picking up easy wins and shelling out pittances to the mid- and low-level schlumps who agreed to take such beatings.
That’s why Enemy Watch has nothing but admiration for Georgia Tech. For the second consecutive year, the Yellow Jackets will be opening with one of the elites. Last year’s win over Auburn set off an unpredictable year, and Gailey’s Guys may be no less confounding again.
But bravo for putting the Irish on the schedule, and Notre Dame for accepting. Even if their fans are a bit too full of themselves. Yes, wrapped up in Gipper mythology and Touchdown Jesues whatnot, the South Benders are about as unbearable as any fans can be. Especially for this Midwestern Lutheran harkened by the cry: “Let’s Go, Valpo!”
(As in Valparaiso University, also in northern Indiana, home of the Crusaders.)
However, they have been diligent in visiting this website for news about the Jackets. Here now is a chance to see what they think about Tech and the game.
One. N.D. fan’s bold prediction: Irish 35, Tech 20. One more point than the whupping Notre Dame took from Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, natch.
If you’ve got time, here’s a radio take on Tech on the Irish Eyes website. The guest is Jonathan Leifheit of gojackets.com.
The South Bend Tribune introduces its readers to Calvin Johnson.
This member of the Mainstream Media predicts an Irish-Auburn clash for the BCS national championship. Oh, this is MacMurray falling for Stanwyck, silently knowing he’s going to be fatally deceived. He just can’t help himself.
Enemy Watch says he is wrong from the start: Tech 17, Irish 13.
What do you say to that, Baby?
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