This image may be the best sports metaphor of 2010:
Even the Air Force mascot had enough sense to flee the scene of the crime at yesterday’s Independence Bowl.
With the loss, Georgia Tech is on an impressive run.
… Tech finished with a 6-7 record, its first losing season since a 5-6 campaign in 1996. It lost five of its last six games and has dropped its past six bowl games, including the last three under Johnson.
It’s gotten bad enough that Paul Johnson, Mark Bradley’s resident genius, is looking back at the Gailey era with what sounds like a certain amount of nostalgia.
“I want to fix this and get us back to where we belong, where we’ve been,” Johnson said.
Chantastic! As a Georgia fan, I’m down with that.
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UPDATE: If you’re a Tech fan, Paul Myerberg has a depressing observation for you.
… Far from taking another step forward in Paul Johnson’s third season — history had shown the third year under his watch to be a turning point — Georgia Tech enters the winter nursing its wounds, eyeballing a cloudier future at the tail end of a 6-7 finish, the program’s first sub-.500 campaign since 1996. [Emphasis added.]
Maybe the program is bigger than the coach.
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UPDATE #2: Per the Wall Street Journal, TV viewers don’t like watching the Jackets any more than the falcon does.