AJC > Blog > Archives > 2006 > November
November 2006
Football A-Wake-ning
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Surely this is an hallucination.
Wake Forest could have the best football team in the ACC and the worst basketball outfit at the same time.
What are they smoking in Winston-Salem besides Winstons and Salems these days? Shouldn’t there be an additional small-case letter squeezed into their helmet logos to render: WtF?
Tell me this isn’t happening, that I’m really typing these words in a mescaline-fueled mad rush, a la Hunter Thompson, and that I won’t remember anything after waking up from this hallucination.
Up front in the Wake media guide is the bold declaration that Wake is tops in I-A in graduation rates (96 percent): “Academic Excellence … This is Wake Forest.”
Yet the football a-Wakening going on at the third-smallest Division I-A program in the land (in terms of enrollment) surely is the feel-good story of Saturday’s conference championship game menu.
That’s how it’s being looked at in some corners. Wake is 10-2, its best record ever, going into Saturday’s ACC title tilt against your Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
This is prompting a number of previously unthinkable events from taking place, such as switching the start of Saturday’s hoops game against UGA to accommodate football. That’s gotta be a first.
Then again, Skip Prosser’s boys are truly awful, suffering their worst non-ACC loss in 62 seasons, a 36-point clunker to — ahem — Air Force?
Folks in Jax are frumpy that the game is far from being a sell-out. Lump that onto the Gator Bowl’s cooling to having the loser return, and it sounds like one inhospitable town for the ACC.
So how has Jim Grobe — a legitimate candidate for national coach of the year pulled off this feat? Sheer resourcefulness. Among the diamonds in the rough is ex-Harrison standout Jon Abbate, who really wanted to go to Tech. You’re probably already familiar with the grief his family has endured since the tragic death of his younger brother Luke. Wearing Luke’s favorite No. 5, Jon just got named All-ACC linebacker.
Wake also features a Tereshinski who gets to play — junior tight end John, little brother of Joe T III — a Bulldog who got away and is fourth on the team in receiving.
Predix:
What’s yours?
Permalink | Comments (58) | Post your comment | Categories: Tech
Sitting out Tech-UGA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is always the toughest time of year at Enemy Watch Worldwide Headquarters — and not just because this erstwhile blogger never knows what to get anyone for the holidays.
There was the decorative football that opened to the sounds of the Redcoat Marching Band playing “Glory, Glory to Old Georgia” that the stepfather enjoyed heartily. His son, recently departed, was such a big Bulldogs fan that he was laid to rest in a UGA cap, just days after returning from what was his last game, a bitter loss at Kentucky. They both despised Tech intensely. Mention Pepper Rodgers, and watch them break out into an instant, all-consuming rash.
Years ago, a Tech-loving uncle with an unyielding hatred for UGA howled with delight at the sight of a heaving 400-pound red-and-black uniformed player barely able to run on the field before a Dogs-Jackets freshman game: “Bow WOW! Is he gonna play for Ray Goof next year?”
There are other conflicting loyalties: Father likes anything in Auburn blue and orange, and the rest of his family bleeds Crimson Tide red.
Yes, the holidays are essentially a time of football consternation for Enemy Watch, who’s at least thankful there aren’t Vols or Gators hanging from the family tree. This probably prompted the career path to sportswriting more than anything.
So when it comes to what one author has entitled “Clean Old-Fashioned Hate,” Enemy Watch can’t work up any partisan fervor either way. It’s off to Switzerland for the weekend, watching from a distance and — forgive the hackneyed phrase — hoping for a good game. Something to stir the rivalry with some new energy.
After years of watching this game, however, there is one constant — why it isn’t on the same scale as other bitter or in-state feuds. Part of it is that Tech and UGA rarely have been together in the national elite in recent years. The Yellow Jackets are buzzing high right now, while the Dogs lack championship bite, their win at Auburn notwithstanding.
What will it take to raise Tech-UGA to the level of Florida-Florida State, for example? Auburn-Alabama? Duke-Carolina? Michigan-Ohio State? Red Sox-Yankees? Can this game ever get that big? Do you think it is anyway? Or does none of that matter to you?
Lots of questions, Mutts and Gnats, to be sure. But a dedicated impartial, near-native observer wants to know what you think.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Post your comment |
The Enemy Within
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For several weeks now — and aren’t the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati wins looking like aberrations? — Enemy Watch has entertained the notion of blogging about the Falcons finding their worst enemies inside their own camp.
That time has come.
With all apologies to Lions and Browns fans, it’s becoming apparent that the Falcons, to paraphrase the legendary Pogo, have met the enemy, and it is them.
And not just Michael Vick’s inexplicable fumble to snuff out any chance of clipping the Browns at the end. Or the inability of his receivers to hang on to ball. Or the reshuffled offensive line and a potent running game that has gone south. Or the questions being raised about the quality of the coaching.
The only troubling component that’s out of the Falcons’ control — injuries, especially on defense — well, everybody’s got ‘em. Their play was skittish even before players started going down. With all of those problems lumped together, they limp into Baltimore Sunday to face the surprisingly rejuvenated Ravens, who are at 7-2 a mirror image from a year ago.
The Falcons, on the other hand, look like they may be repeating last year’s dreadful performance in the second half of the season, where they flopped right out of the playoffs. It’s prompted a Falcons fan to wonder if his team has the Bird Flu.
Observers of no less girth and magnitude than Coach Madden are confused by the plight of Blank’s Birds:
“I have no idea what is going on with the Atlanta Falcons the last couple of weeks. It seems that if they can’t get things going they don’t seem to be able to maintain anything. They have to get the running going and if they get the running going then other things will follow, but if they are stopped early they seem to grab bag a little.
“They are a funny team. The minute you think they are good and they’ve finally got it, they look like they don’t have anything and then the week that you don’t think they have anything they may come back and do something. But one thing is for sure and it’s that Baltimore is always tough on defense.
What else is there to add to that? Shannon Sharpe tries, but doesn’t have much to say. He does rate the Ravens fifth in his NFL litter.
Yes, this is a big turnaround season for Baltimore’s Gridiron Birds.
So the Ravens are relatively unchanged, and yet they’re a whole new team. Meanwhile, the Falcons made a bevy of off-season moves and they’re in no better shape than a year ago.
Who would have thought that Steve McNair, discarded by the Titans, would be flying high, while Vick is only fluttering?
Ravens Pravda says all the right things, calling Vick a Rare Bird and a blazing-fast, rocket-armed gunslinger.
Baltimore does have some injury questions, most notably Ray Lewis, who’s not looking good for Sunday.
Yet the Ravens have adapted to their adversity while the Falcons have not. Therein lies the difference.
Sympathy for the Devils
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here it is mid-November, and Enemy Watch is assigned to write about everyone’s favorite subject this time of year:
Duke. Football.
Two words that seemingly don’t belong together on any date on the Julian calendar (Gregorian, too), much less the start of hoops season.
But this was when the ACC scheduling gods fated the Dookie helmetballers to meet up with Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are saying all the right things, not talking about this matchup with the 0-10 Blue Devils as the glorified practice it ought to be before the UGA and ACC championship games.
As hard as it was to watch that eyesore of a game in Chapel Hill last week, this one might be even worse. Will the Jackets play down to the level of competition for a second week in a row?
Thankfully, Reggie Ball’s home finale at Bobby Dodd Stadium — probably Calvin Johnson’s too — will not be televised live.
Duke comes in with 18 consecutive losses, the last one a somewhat spirited effort against Boston College. Ex-Techster Ted Roof has a young, but injured team. There haven’t been the rumblings out of Durham to make a coaching change, as already has happened in Chapel Hill, and that may transpire in Raleigh as well.
How much of this can you realistically pin on a coach at a school that says it cares about football, but doesn’t come close to backing it up? It’s enough for more than one pundit to suggest that Duke should stop this charade. Wasn’t this what used to be said about Wake Forest?
Enemy Watch isn’t suggesting there’s much reason to keep hope alive within the bowels of Wallace Wade Stadium. But the least cynical among us, the student press, is trying to usher out the graduating gridders on a positive note. Here’s the annual Seniors shoot for one last football victory account.
Money quote:
“We love this sport,” free safety Chris Davis added. “You can’t wake up at six-thirty every morning and not love it.”
The only thing that wakes Enemy Watch at that hour, without risking mortal injury, is a sweet kitty baying for breakfast. Yet the young lad’s dedication is highly admirable.
There was some recent football joy in Durham over the weekend, however — a big win by hometown N.C. Central.
Even before that occurrence, The Bottom 10 still rated the Dookies on top. But not even they deserve to be introduced with “lyrics” from Kevin Federline, soon to be Britney Spears’ Fed-Ex.
Have some sympathy for these Devils, would ya?
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Tech
Feeling Blue, and seeing Red
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No, the headline’s got nothing to do with this week’s elections, but the moods of the two underdogs in Saturday’s games involving the biggie state college football teams.
In her rather limited edition of The Best Campuses Rated Almanac, Enemy Watch has lovely Chapel Hill very, very high on the list. Just about at the top, in fact. UNC-Chapel Hill is about as bucolic as it gets, folks, and not just the leafy grounds and The Old Well landmark.
And not necessarily for the Deandome Hoops Emporium, which actually sticks out like something of a sore thumb.
Several years ago, when Enemy Watch trod the ACC beat, she was dazzled by the then-newly refurbished Kenan Stadium, complete with an unbelievable football locker room and training facility. State O’ the Art, i’twas.
This was during the Mack Brown Era, when Tar Heel football was respectable nationally, but the coach was itching to go to a place that wasn’t overshadowed by basketball. And so he did.
A coupla coaches later, Carolina’s got the Gridiron Blues again. Saturday’s game with Georgia Tech could be the ACC Coastal clincher for the Yellow Jackets, and it will be the last Homecoming tilt at Kenan for outgoing coach and alum John Bunting, who wasn’t able to recruit or win.
Now the name most likely mentioned as his successor is drawing some second thoughts from folks who think the Heels shouldn’t have to settle for second-rate footy.
Will ex-U. Miami and Browns coach Butch Davis really be a savior, or is he even the right fit? There are suspicions he may be a short-timer, using UNC as a springboard back to the college game.
For the most part, however, the Carolina media are pinin’ for a big name to take the reins. Here’s one major endorsement, while this one says the school should go the Full Monty and really make the gridders big time.
If UNC officials had taken action a couple years back regarding the perpetually embattled Bunting, they might be on their way. One of the names tossed around in some circles then was the Ol’ Ball Coach, who’s toiling at the Other Carolina.
Still, Helmetball’s getting some attention at the start of what should be another stellar Hardwood season. And that’s something of an upset.
As for the game, itself, The Hivesters are warning not to take this one for granted. That’s very wise advice.
Down on the Loveliest Village on the Plains, the setting isn’t quite Chapel Hillian, but there’s no doubt football’s the main course.
Georgia. Auburn. South’s Oldest Rivalry. Usually with SEC stakes on the line.
But not this year, at least for one team. The lowly Bulldogs are seeing Red, the prospects of a bad bowl or none at all, and the most jarring lack of confidence in the Richt Era that before the season was declared as possibly even surpassing Doolian Days.
We know now that was highly premature, but Tuberville’s Tigers aren’t exactly roaring like they have in the past.
Auburn’s got just one loss, but needs some help to reach the SEC championship game that for the moment is advantage, Arkansas.
Despite that one hiccup, there’s still plenty of worrying: How good are the Tigers?
Will the emotions of this rivalry stoke the Dogs, much like the Heels may be moved to win one for their departing coach? There always is that playing-your-in-laws feel to this game.
Is that UGA’s best shot at stopping the bleeding?
Lions without a roar
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As the Falcons continue their travels to Felineworld, here’s a bit of old business from last week to tie up: Chad Johnson has zapped the Mohawk. Still waiting for photographic confirmation. While we do, Enemy Watch has four words to say to Ol’ Ocho Cinco:
Go away, would ya?
It’s one thing to jab at DeAngelo Hall. But now the Bengals’ widemouth wideout says he’s ready for a piece of Ray Lewis, and states his objective against the All-Pro LB stud succinctly: “Hit him in the mouth.”
Be careful what you wish for, Chad. Especially if the Ravens star suggests a meeting place in a dark alley in Buckhead.
All of this seems a whole lot more interesting than the Falcons meeting the 1-6 Lions. But it now seems like D. Hall is having a bit of verbal sparring with receiver Roy Williams, the best deep threat for an increasingly potent Detroit offense.
According to Hall, Williams started it all Wednesday by saying the Falcons CB might need some help covering deep pass routes. Hall called it “a good little Chad Johnson-like comment,” then added, “I play the game. I’m a Pro Bowler, he’s not. I’m considered one of the best at what I do, he’s not. So, all the other stuff, we’ll see on Sunday.”
Guess last week’s team orders to clam up about Johnson doesn’t apply here. Or D’s about to get in some trouble.
It’s no time to panic for the 1-6 Lions — but this pundit suggests that they MUST win 3 of the next 4 games No, no panic at all.
And what about the game against Falcons? “It’s also winnable because, well, they have the inconsistent Michael Vick at quarterback.”
Must not have seen No. 7’s show against the Bengals.
No, most of the attention given to the Lions is about how simply awful they are, and how worse they continue to get.
Here’s a vote for second-year wide receiver Mike Williams as “The most useless player in the NFL.”
The ex-USCer, a first-round pick last year, is blowing out the salary cap with his huge contract, and he’s appeared in only two of seven games thus far. He’s never gotten himself into proper playing shape and has shown dismal professionalism.
But the Lions, who can’t dump him, released instead veteran Az-Zahir Hakim this week without offering an explanation. He was dispensable in what’s being referred to as a “roulette” situation at receiver.
Surely, they must be aware of some of the Falcons’ secondary problems.
Much of the finger-pointing in Detroit is directed toward the front office, where GM Matt Millen is “still employed,” much to the chagrin of Lions Nation. Ex-UGA Bulldog LB Boss Bailey has been benched from what is already a very bad defense.
Some think the Lions should be in prime position to make a GOOD draft pick next year. Then again, there’s Millen’s “accrued incompetence.” That’s one of the kinder things Enemy Watch unearthed about him. Somewhere in the Lions HQ somebody is saying: “You’re doing a heckuva job, Millie!”
Bird Babe is warning to watch out for the Lions, especially with new offensive coordinator Mike Martz starting to get in a groove.
Indeed, “Lions players believe in Martz.” They have to believe in somebody. Says fullback Cory Schlesinger: “Once Martz figures out the defense, it’s hard to stop us.”
But will it be enough to turn around what’s looking to be another forgettable season in Motown?
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Falcons
Goodfellas and ‘Cat Scratch Fever
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Enemy Watch has a soft spot in her normally cold little heart for embattled N.C. State coach Chuck Amato, and not just because he’s a dead ringer (sort of pun intended) for the Joe Pesci character in “Goodfellas.” Come to think of it, ditto for the Joe Pesci character in “My Cousin Vinny.”
So she wondered if the fine folks at Raleigh’s Premier Newspaper had gone a bit over the top in depicting Amato rather unsparingly in a wicked ‘web cartoon,’ basically implying the guy’s stealing money to perpetuate a mediocre program.
But this was done before the season. N.C. State’s results thus far make this interactive bit quite a gem.
And these multimedia whizzes spared no generosity to soon-to-be-ex-North Carolina coach John Bunting, and the regal Coach K, dancing around with his ‘kPod’ and shilling for a relationship service called ‘dHarmony.’ Devilishly delightful, indeed.
The Amato “character,” with the voice coming from The Notorious B.O.B. (is this a real rapper?) insists that “I am the man,” which is essentially what Pesci’s character thought in “Goodfellas” on the day he was supposed to be a “made guy.” Moments later, he gets whacked.
Which is what the Howling Wolf-pack Hordes are crying for right now with N.C. State at 3-5, coming off an inexplicable loss to Virginia, which followed inexplicable wins over Florida State and Boston College, which followed an inexplicable loss to — ahem — Akron of the Mid-American Conference.
This is the Amato Era, in a nutshell, and the puzzling environment into which the 20th-ranked Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets will plunge on Saturday, the trickiest of their final three conference games. Call it a Bermuda Triangle of gridiron grotesqueries, with North Carolina and Duke rounding it before the Bulldogs beckon.
Deftly navigate this encounter at the revamped Carter-Finley Stadium — The House That Chuck Had to Have Built — and a spot in the ACC title game is all but assured. Right?
The Jackets aren’t saying that, but in Raleigh the thinking isn’t about a bowl game, but trying to establish something better down the road — with or without Chuck.
The Head Goodfella tries to describe his team’s wacky ways, but is stumped himself: “We have a hard time explaining it to ourselves.” One factoid mentioned here worth pointing out is an N.C. State defense that’s forced only six turnovers ALL SEASON.
The Wolfpack is its own enemy, sez this blogger, especially after the Virginia debacle.
Fans chime in on what changes should be made — namely, everything.
Yes, the only thing Wolfpackers are cheering these days is that George Steinbrenner got sick in Chapel Hill.
As for another ex-FSU coach wondering wha’ happened, Mark Richt couldn’t have done better on the schedule than face Kentucky before the Auburn-Georgia Tech finale. Or could he?
There is a big game in the Commonwealth this week, but it isn’t in Lexington. Has the Kentucky sporting epicenter shifted to Louisville — Thursday’s Cardinals-West Virginia whopper is drawing more attention even than the Breeders Cup and Big Blue Basketball for the moment.
The gridiron Wildcats are resisting the urge to talk big about their chances against Georgia after a 34-31 thriller over Mississippi State.
“I don’t say (Georgia is) down,” UK wide receiver Keenan Burton said. “I say they’re hungry, more than anything. I think Georgia’s the same team they’ve always been.”
He watched his words because a teammate who ran his mouth last week against Rich Brooks’ orders has been muzzled. It’s hard to talk to the media when you’re busy doing wind sprints. Quoth the coach: “I’m old, so I’m old-fashioned. I believe you respect your opponent.”
But the chance to feel something resembling giddiness over UK football is in the air. Are they smelling bowl eligibility, or at least the chance to craft a winning record, with a 4-4 slate and home games after this against Vandy and UL-Monroe? Winning two of the three before meeting the Vols could have them dancing in the streets.
This fan blogger is hopeful and some others think the UGA game represents the “biggest opportunity” in the Brooks era for the Wildcats to do something meaningful.
Services »
