don't sweat the technique...would've been a great recruiting pitch to the human highlight film
In a lot of ways, UVA and Georgia Tech are as different as two D-IA schools can be. UVA has the Lawn, GT has Northside Ave. Scott Stadium has among the most picturesque views in all of college football, while Bobby Dodd Stadium has Thursday Night Lights. The average DZ at GT spends their Friday night downloading, while their counterparts at UVA spend theirs downing load.
But the last two decades have seen UVA and GT engage in one of the more exciting under-the-radar rivalries in the ACC, all the better because it's purely about football. Perhaps it's just the fact that UVA losses tend to be far more memorable than wins, but the most important games of this rivalry have been devastating for UVA, both times with the Hoos coming in undefeated and losing by scores of 41-38 due to last-second field goal attempts. On that fateful day in 1990, Scott Sisson booted a the game-winner to knock off the only UVA team to ever reach #1, and continue their run to a shared national title (and I've spent countless hours of my life looking for the "Hoos #1?" t-shirt on ebay). UVA hasn't forgotten; GT is winless in Charlottesville since then, the most bizarre win of late coming on a last second hook-and-ladder play in 2001. And at this point, the less said about 1998, the better.
So, in order to keep our eyes on our enemy, I've got Nathan from Golden Tornado to answer some questions in regards to GT. In the upset of the century, there was no need to correct his English.
1. I think outside of Atlanta (and even inside), people look at Georgia Tech's 5-2 record and think to themselves, "heh...well that's news to me." But then you figure that it's about right for a team that ended Auburn's unbeaten streak in their own house, but also suffered the worst beatdown of any top-25 team this year at the hands of Virginia Tech. So, really...where do you guys fit on the ACC totem pole?
We're actually 6-2 (4-2) and bowl eligible for the 9th straight year. That touches on a deeper problem with GT football, people just don't think of the school as a football powerhouse, despite a long history of excellence. When I tell people out here (Kansas City) that we've won 4 national championships, and one as recently as 1990, there's always a slight shocked reaction followed by "wow, I never knew that". The player of the year and coach of the year awards (Dodd and Heisman) are both named after GT coaches. GT has the all-time highest bowl winning percentage, and is one of the very schools to have won each of the 4 traditional "major" bowls.
Somehow the GTAA and the coaching staff need to be able to leverage the history and success of the program into some better national exposure. GT is a very good (no longer great) football program that should be challenging for ACC titles a couple of times each decade and consistently winning 7-9 games. I think that's people's greatest frustration with Gailey, they just don't feel like he's getting us over that hump of mediocrity which leaves you in the back of everyone's mind but never in the front. Beating ND at home next year to open the season is a huge opportunity for national recognition, by the way.
2. Before the Wake game, I met a lawyer who graduated from GT as an undergrad and went to Emory Law in part because he couldn't imagine going to UGA. Keep in mind that Emory and UGA Law are pretty much equals in terms of prestige in Georiga, and Emory kids pay three times as much money for tuition. So that's a pretty pricey grudge. Anyways, he said his dream scenario for this season would be to lose everything except the Georgia game so Chan Gailey would move ever closer to scouring monster.com for his next meal ticket. Is this an accurate portrayal of the GT mindset, and how much longer do you think Gailey has with this program?
I'm not from Georgia orignally. I grew up in North Carolina, so I don't have the same gut level hatred for UGA that many Tech fans do. I would rather go 9-3 and lost to the 'dawgs than go 3-9 and beat them. I would prefer that Chan won 2 of our 3 final games and showed he has the program going in the right direction instead of having to go through the hiring process again.
Quite frankly, there's a group of GT fans who just want George O'Leary back, and he's not coming back. They did not like Gailey from the moment he was hired, and losing 4 in a row to a suddenly resurgent UGA has compounded the problem. O'Leary beat UGA, and not just beat them, he beat them several years in a row. He played an exciting brand of offensive football, and we just forget the horrible losses (Wake) that he had. Gailey plays a "boring" brand of football, can't beat UGA and loses one game a year to the bottom of the ACC (Duke, NCSU, etc). If Gailey beats UGA this year, a lot of things will be forgiven, if he loses to them again a certain portion of the fanbase probably will never come to his side, even if we finish 8-3.
For me? I'm cautiously on his side, based on what I see on the defensive and offensive lines for the next couple of years. I think we have the potential to be very good for the next two seasons, and I don't understand wasting a chance at that by firing him and causing a huge mess in the football program. Part of this problem is also Reggie Ball, but I'll touch on that in a future question you asked.
3. Despite the fact that P.J. Daniels and Calvin Johnson are clearly better at their positions, I still consider this to be Reggie Ball's team. Do you think Reggie is playing on borrowed time, or do you still believe he's the guy that can lead GT to glory?
Reggie Ball. Man, if you could take his heart and leadership and put it into a 6'3" body with an accurate arm, you'd have one of the best QBs in college football. The guy is a winner, and lays it all out on the field each Saturday. Unfortunately, he is what he is, and that is a short QB who can't really throw over the middle and isn't very accurate as a passer. This is truly unfortunate too, because we have one of the best WR corps in the nation.
I don't think his decision making is as poor as some people have made it out to be, you have to remember that he's only a junior and many of those mistakes were just typical of a young QB having to play right from the start. He's bright, and hasn't made those boneheaded plays this year as he's matured. But his weaknesses are still there physically, and I'm not sure those can ever be overcome, unfortunately for
him.
Ball is the QB who will refuse to let you lose more than 5 games in a year - there's no way GT has a losing season with him as QB. That being said, he probably can't get you to that 10 win level either, because the proper gameplan by a good team can seriously limit what he does. I cannot fault him personally for our roller coaster ride of the past 3 years, but it has been a contributing factor.
4. Just about everything you've written about UVA to this point has been adorned with the word "pretentious," which kind of amuses me since it's also the first thing Virginia Tech kids try to use as an insult against us when they want to justify going to their second-class school. Keep in mind that unlike Georgia Tech, VT can't possibly make the claim of being the academic superiors of the state or the "little guy," seeing as how they have twice our enrollemnt. And OK, they're not handy with big book learnin' words, so they just call us "snobs." We take that as a compliment, because they're calling us out for thinking we're better than VT students, and we are in every way that matters. So yeah, maybe we're pretentious, but that's kind of what everyone at UVA loves about it. By that token, you wouldn't mind if I always used the words "socially awkward" in conjunction with Georgia Tech, would you?
UVa and UNC are the schools of the southern elite. They are old, built on gorgeous campuses and populated by the cream of young southern aristocracy. They are "Public Ivies" and extremely well respected as liberal arts institutions. Kids going to UVa or UNC have opportunities in the business and legal professions that don't exist for students at any other public southern universities. GT is not, and has never been, one of those schools. It was the North Avenue Trade School, where kids from Atlanta learned how to rebuild the southern infrastructure after the Civil War and Reconstruction. The "Tech Man" can fix things with his hands, is a respected member of society and a hard worker - and he's certainly not someone who would fit in in Charlottesville or Chapel Hill. As engineering has changed over the past 100 years, so has the student body, but the deeper hands-on vs. ivory tower rivalry is still in place.
Georgia Tech has a very large foreign and minority student population, and this isn't the last bastion of the old south like a number of other schools in the south cling to. So yes, UVa is a bit pretentious in our eyes - and I'm sure we're socially akward in yours. That's not a comment on the quality of school UVa is (it's one of the best in the country), but more of just a difference in philosophy and outlook. Our two schools are among the best at their respective areas of study in the world, but there is a huge seperation in worldview and campus environments between them.
But the last two decades have seen UVA and GT engage in one of the more exciting under-the-radar rivalries in the ACC, all the better because it's purely about football. Perhaps it's just the fact that UVA losses tend to be far more memorable than wins, but the most important games of this rivalry have been devastating for UVA, both times with the Hoos coming in undefeated and losing by scores of 41-38 due to last-second field goal attempts. On that fateful day in 1990, Scott Sisson booted a the game-winner to knock off the only UVA team to ever reach #1, and continue their run to a shared national title (and I've spent countless hours of my life looking for the "Hoos #1?" t-shirt on ebay). UVA hasn't forgotten; GT is winless in Charlottesville since then, the most bizarre win of late coming on a last second hook-and-ladder play in 2001. And at this point, the less said about 1998, the better.
So, in order to keep our eyes on our enemy, I've got Nathan from Golden Tornado to answer some questions in regards to GT. In the upset of the century, there was no need to correct his English.
1. I think outside of Atlanta (and even inside), people look at Georgia Tech's 5-2 record and think to themselves, "heh...well that's news to me." But then you figure that it's about right for a team that ended Auburn's unbeaten streak in their own house, but also suffered the worst beatdown of any top-25 team this year at the hands of Virginia Tech. So, really...where do you guys fit on the ACC totem pole?
We're actually 6-2 (4-2) and bowl eligible for the 9th straight year. That touches on a deeper problem with GT football, people just don't think of the school as a football powerhouse, despite a long history of excellence. When I tell people out here (Kansas City) that we've won 4 national championships, and one as recently as 1990, there's always a slight shocked reaction followed by "wow, I never knew that". The player of the year and coach of the year awards (Dodd and Heisman) are both named after GT coaches. GT has the all-time highest bowl winning percentage, and is one of the very schools to have won each of the 4 traditional "major" bowls.
Somehow the GTAA and the coaching staff need to be able to leverage the history and success of the program into some better national exposure. GT is a very good (no longer great) football program that should be challenging for ACC titles a couple of times each decade and consistently winning 7-9 games. I think that's people's greatest frustration with Gailey, they just don't feel like he's getting us over that hump of mediocrity which leaves you in the back of everyone's mind but never in the front. Beating ND at home next year to open the season is a huge opportunity for national recognition, by the way.
2. Before the Wake game, I met a lawyer who graduated from GT as an undergrad and went to Emory Law in part because he couldn't imagine going to UGA. Keep in mind that Emory and UGA Law are pretty much equals in terms of prestige in Georiga, and Emory kids pay three times as much money for tuition. So that's a pretty pricey grudge. Anyways, he said his dream scenario for this season would be to lose everything except the Georgia game so Chan Gailey would move ever closer to scouring monster.com for his next meal ticket. Is this an accurate portrayal of the GT mindset, and how much longer do you think Gailey has with this program?
I'm not from Georgia orignally. I grew up in North Carolina, so I don't have the same gut level hatred for UGA that many Tech fans do. I would rather go 9-3 and lost to the 'dawgs than go 3-9 and beat them. I would prefer that Chan won 2 of our 3 final games and showed he has the program going in the right direction instead of having to go through the hiring process again.
Quite frankly, there's a group of GT fans who just want George O'Leary back, and he's not coming back. They did not like Gailey from the moment he was hired, and losing 4 in a row to a suddenly resurgent UGA has compounded the problem. O'Leary beat UGA, and not just beat them, he beat them several years in a row. He played an exciting brand of offensive football, and we just forget the horrible losses (Wake) that he had. Gailey plays a "boring" brand of football, can't beat UGA and loses one game a year to the bottom of the ACC (Duke, NCSU, etc). If Gailey beats UGA this year, a lot of things will be forgiven, if he loses to them again a certain portion of the fanbase probably will never come to his side, even if we finish 8-3.
For me? I'm cautiously on his side, based on what I see on the defensive and offensive lines for the next couple of years. I think we have the potential to be very good for the next two seasons, and I don't understand wasting a chance at that by firing him and causing a huge mess in the football program. Part of this problem is also Reggie Ball, but I'll touch on that in a future question you asked.
3. Despite the fact that P.J. Daniels and Calvin Johnson are clearly better at their positions, I still consider this to be Reggie Ball's team. Do you think Reggie is playing on borrowed time, or do you still believe he's the guy that can lead GT to glory?
Reggie Ball. Man, if you could take his heart and leadership and put it into a 6'3" body with an accurate arm, you'd have one of the best QBs in college football. The guy is a winner, and lays it all out on the field each Saturday. Unfortunately, he is what he is, and that is a short QB who can't really throw over the middle and isn't very accurate as a passer. This is truly unfortunate too, because we have one of the best WR corps in the nation.
I don't think his decision making is as poor as some people have made it out to be, you have to remember that he's only a junior and many of those mistakes were just typical of a young QB having to play right from the start. He's bright, and hasn't made those boneheaded plays this year as he's matured. But his weaknesses are still there physically, and I'm not sure those can ever be overcome, unfortunately for
him.
Ball is the QB who will refuse to let you lose more than 5 games in a year - there's no way GT has a losing season with him as QB. That being said, he probably can't get you to that 10 win level either, because the proper gameplan by a good team can seriously limit what he does. I cannot fault him personally for our roller coaster ride of the past 3 years, but it has been a contributing factor.
4. Just about everything you've written about UVA to this point has been adorned with the word "pretentious," which kind of amuses me since it's also the first thing Virginia Tech kids try to use as an insult against us when they want to justify going to their second-class school. Keep in mind that unlike Georgia Tech, VT can't possibly make the claim of being the academic superiors of the state or the "little guy," seeing as how they have twice our enrollemnt. And OK, they're not handy with big book learnin' words, so they just call us "snobs." We take that as a compliment, because they're calling us out for thinking we're better than VT students, and we are in every way that matters. So yeah, maybe we're pretentious, but that's kind of what everyone at UVA loves about it. By that token, you wouldn't mind if I always used the words "socially awkward" in conjunction with Georgia Tech, would you?
UVa and UNC are the schools of the southern elite. They are old, built on gorgeous campuses and populated by the cream of young southern aristocracy. They are "Public Ivies" and extremely well respected as liberal arts institutions. Kids going to UVa or UNC have opportunities in the business and legal professions that don't exist for students at any other public southern universities. GT is not, and has never been, one of those schools. It was the North Avenue Trade School, where kids from Atlanta learned how to rebuild the southern infrastructure after the Civil War and Reconstruction. The "Tech Man" can fix things with his hands, is a respected member of society and a hard worker - and he's certainly not someone who would fit in in Charlottesville or Chapel Hill. As engineering has changed over the past 100 years, so has the student body, but the deeper hands-on vs. ivory tower rivalry is still in place.
Georgia Tech has a very large foreign and minority student population, and this isn't the last bastion of the old south like a number of other schools in the south cling to. So yes, UVa is a bit pretentious in our eyes - and I'm sure we're socially akward in yours. That's not a comment on the quality of school UVa is (it's one of the best in the country), but more of just a difference in philosophy and outlook. Our two schools are among the best at their respective areas of study in the world, but there is a huge seperation in worldview and campus environments between them.
posted by Ian at 12:02 PM
<< Home