Greensboro — Georgia Tech's Andrew Gardner made a prediction Sunday at the ACC's preseason football gathering. The senior left tackle said opposing defenders will hate playing the Yellow Jackets.

With "the amount of cut-blocking we're going to be doing, I think just about every team is going to not be looking forward to the week they play Georgia Tech," he said. "They know theyíre going to get their legs blocked out from underneath them about a million times so they've got to watch out."

The style preferred by co-offensive line coaches Mike Sewak and Todd Spencer is similar to that of long-time NFL line coach Alex Gibbs, who brought the style to the Falcons in 2004.

"There's a lot more running," Gardner said. "A lot of plays you're expected to run 20 yards downfield and block a safety. We have a conditioning test that we have to do before [summer] camp that we didn't have before. Some linemen they felt werenít quick enough and weren't in good enough shape they put on a weight-loss plan."

A jersey to remember

There's a Georgia Tech jersey at Virginia Tech. It is the No. 7 Jackets jersey worn by Hokies quarterback Sean Glennon last season, when a handful of Virginia Tech jerseys went missing before the teams played in Atlanta on Nov. 1. Glennon, a senior now, wore the Tech jersey that day and completed 22 of 33 passes for 296 yards and two touchdowns in a 27-3 win. He also rushed for a score.

"It's hanging up in our little [football] Hall of Fame area," Glennon said of the Tech jersey he wore.

FSU to be short-handed

Not all details are clear, but about a dozen Florida State players will miss the Seminoles' first three games — all at home, against Western Carolina, Chattanooga and Wake Forest — as fallout from an academic fraud scandal at the school late last fall.

Senior quarterback Drew Weatherford said, "If we can make it through the first three games, to have so many guys come back that are completely healthy that are hungry and excited about playing, that could give us a little boost. And all those guys will get three games under their belts. That experience will help them and us."

Comparing QBs

Boston College quarterback Chris Crane is 6 feet 4, 239 pounds, but at least one teammate described his as swift when asked to compare him to predecessor Matt Ryan, whom the Falcons drafted No. 3 in April.

"Chris is a different type of quarterback so it ís going to be hard to draw comparisons," said senior tight end Ryan Purvis. "He's a more mobile, out-of-the-pocket, take-off kind of guy where Matt made things happen with his arm."