Auburn, without the bad deflection

Mark Bradley haz a sad. A big one.

Game day thoughts: if hating Tech is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Random things that have bopped into my head over the past few days:

• It was lost in all the great things Georgia Tech accomplished last season, but Tevin Washington managed to end a lengthy streak by completing over 50% of his pass attempts.  Luckily for us, Vad Lee is more of a traditionalist at the position.  His completion percentage going into today’s game stands at a robust 47.1%.
• Speaking of Mr. Lee, if the Jackets have to put the game in the hands of their passing attack in the fourth quarter, you can go ahead and light your cigar.
• That being said, I have a funny feeling that the Georgia defender to keep an eye on today is Leonard Floyd.  If Georgia can’t set the edge and hold it, Tech’s going to get its share of decent gains running the ball outside.
• I don’t think it takes any deep insight to recognize that Mason is the story on offense.  How the coordinators handle deploying and defending him will be the chess match of the day.  I expect lots of blitzing from Roof.
• One thing to be nervous about:  Georgia Tech’s offense in the red zone.
• Another thing to be nervous about:  Jeremiah Attaochu against Georgia’s offensive tackles.
• We know Georgia’s struggled on the turnover margin front, but Tech is no great shakes there either, at minus-2 on the year.  If you take out the 1-AA opponents, the Jackets are minus-nine.
• One other thing about Murray’s absence, aside from the fact that he absolutely owned Georgia Tech, is that the offense was really making strides in adjusting to the absence of a true deep threat.  I’m hoping the offense doesn’t miss a beat with Mason, but we’ll see.
• Does Miami’s win yesterday affect Tech from a motivational standpoint?

Georgia is more talented and the Dawgs have been the more motivated team under Richt.  Ordinarily, that’s been enough, but 2013 has been a weird year, to say the least.  So I’ll say Georgia wins but doesn’t cover.  Which means I’m looking forward to another enjoyable walk out of BDS.  I’ll be the guy dressed in red with a shit eating grin.

The thread is open, guys.  Jump on in.

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Proof that Paul Johnson surfs the Web

The genius, on Hutson Mason:

“We won’t know if he’s as good vertically as Aaron Murray until he plays for a bit,” Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson said. “He’s clearly very accurate when you watch the tape in the little bit he’s played in. Everything that I’ve heard in the state for the last two or three years since he’s been there every time there’s a scrimmage or every time there’s practice, they’re always raving about him. I know a couple of years ago when they were struggling a little bit, people were yelling for him to be the quarterback. So clearly, he’s talented.”  [Emphasis added.]

I’ve gotta think that last sentence there was pure sarcasm.  If so, that’s not badly played, if you think about it.

Oh, the things you can learn at The Hive!

And here I was thinking that Gurley kid’s pretty special.

Friday lunch buffet

No turkey in this buffet.

• Harvey Updyke’s rehabilitation hasn’t exactly taken hold.
• With all the bad luck with injuries we’ve seen in Athens, I’m kind of surprised this happened with the other Bulldogs.
• Speaking of injuries, it’s hard to believe that Todd Gurley’s still got a decent shot at another 1,000-yard rushing season.
• Gene Chizik reflects.  Yawn.
• If you haven’t heard, next year Georgia plays Arkansas in Little Rock.
• One reason we always seem to hear about patience and Georgia quarterbacks is because Bobo and Richt are good at developing their starters at the position.
• Tennessee refuses to release information about whether Maurice Couch or Tyler Bray committed any NCAA violations, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law designed to protect student privacy.  Wait, what?

Analogy of the day

If you’re a Georgia defender, Paul Johnson is just like Jimmy Williamson.

Defensive players don’t like dealing with triple-option offenses like Georgia Tech (7-4) and Georgia Southern run, and specifically don’t like having to keep their eyes out for pesky offensive linemen who consistently dive at their knees.

“It’s just like being out on the streets: you’ve got to keep your head on a swivel and watch your surroundings,” Smith said. “Protect yourself at all times.”

Sometimes players can’t play because of suspension and sometimes they can’t play because their knees are suspended.

Smith’s first substantial playing time actually came as the result of an illegal chop block that knocked DeAngelo Tyson out of Georgia’s 2011 win over the Yellow Jackets. Smith, then a green sophomore, replaced Tyson in the lineup and recorded seven tackles and 1.5 tackles for a loss, earning SEC Co-Defensive Lineman of the Week honors in the process.

Scooters and cut blocks.  I hate ’em both.

It really never gets old.

WordPress just reminded me that GTP celebrates its seventh anniversary today.  It was Georgia’s ’06 win over Georgia Tech that inspired me to start blogging, and this post was the result.  (Thanks for the memories, Reggie.)

And while I’m reminiscing, I can’t help but share my favorite post about Tech over that seven years.

When you say “Tech fan base”, you’ve said it all.

Math? Nobody said there’d be math!

The AJ-C surveys the stats for Georgia and Georgia Tech and concludes that the “numbers suggest close game”.  Eh, maybe.

The paper is hanging a lot on the fact that Tech sits at a lofty 16th nationally in total defense – hey, Ted Roof’s on the Broyles watch list! – but that ranking is a trifle misleading in that the Jackets have faced not one, but two 1-AA offenses this season.  Now that’s not totally their fault, as they had to deal with a last-minute scheduling hole created by conference expansion, but it’s still the hand they’ve played this season.

So guess what happens when you look at the total defense rankings against only D-1 opponents?  Georgia Tech drops to a still solid, but less impressive 29th.

But even that doesn’t tell the real story.  The real story is that Tech’s defense has been on the field for fewer plays than all but one team in the country.  That’s because Georgia Tech’s offense does a very good job keeping the defense on the sidelines.  This brings me to something that drives me crazy, people who argue that time of possession is a meaningless stat.  It’s not meaningless if dominating it is part of a team’s philosophy, which is clearly the case with the Jackets.

And it’s a big deal when you look at how defenses rank in the context of yards per play.  Georgia Tech is decidedly mediocre by the standards of that metric, at 5.81, which ranks 77th nationally.  How do I know that’s mediocre?  Because Georgia is 66th, at 5.55 ypp.

The offensive story is a little more lopsided, perhaps surprisingly.  Despite all the injuries which have plagued them, the Dawgs still rank 14th nationally in total offense against D-1 teams; generating about seventy yards less per game, Georgia Tech ranks 56th.  It’s not explained by the number of plays each offense has run – Georgia is 68th and Tech is 105th, but GT has played one less game against FBS teams than Georgia, so when you average it out, the Jackets have run about one play per game more than Georgia.  It’s chalked up to offensive yards per play, as the 10th-ranked Dawgs average an entire yard per play more than Georgia Tech.

All of which suggests rather loudly to me that the biggest key to Saturday’s game is Georgia Tech keeping Georgia’s offense off the field as much as possible.

The difference between wanting to look smarter and wanting to win

Dan Mullen showed some cojones in last night’s Egg Bowl.

Then, in overtime, came the boldest decision of all: on fourth down with the ball on his own 3-yard line, Dan Mullen decided to go for it. Everything in college football overtime conventional wisdom says to kick the field goal and avoid allowing the other team to win with its own kick. But Mississippi State defied the wisdom, and the once-injured Prescott plunged into the end zone for the go ahead touchdown.

Of course, all he’s got to show for that is an upset win over the in state rival.  That hardly compares to this:

Tech people walked away from that game feeling good about themselves, which never happens when Tech loses to Georgia in any sport. But it happened this time. It happened because Techies, who pride themselves on brainpower, were tickled at having outsmarted Big Brother.

OK, I know what you Bulldogs are saying. I’ve read the responses to this little missive from late last night. To paraphrase the stance of (some) Georgia folks: “If Paul Johnson is such a genius, how come he lost to Mark Richt again? Isn’t the name of the game to win?”

Well, yes. But there can be honor in defeat, especially when the defeat is so hard-fought and cleverly wrought.

Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.  I still think I’d rather have the W, but then maybe I ain’t that smart.

“The way it happened kind of reminded me of the Final Destination movies.”

Malcolm Mitchell tells Chip Towers he’s at as much of a loss to explain the rash of injuries the team has suffered this season as anybody else.

Q: So if I’m counting right, that’s seven knee injuries for the Bulldogs this season. Any thoughts that the team’s practice and training methods could be making guys more susceptible?

A: “I have no idea. That question comes up from everyone. For me, I just think it’s a freak accident that happens to somebody on every team. I just happened to be the person it happened to. Keith got hit. He’s been having knee problems all the way through. Justin, freak accident, just running and turning. I watched his and I don’t even see how that happened, and his was a lot more serious than mine was. He had other stuff done. Aaron’s happened when he was just running. You watch the play and you’re like, ‘where did it happen?’ Final destination, man.

“Our training program is the best it’s been since I’ve been here. Maybe it’s other things; maybe it’s not. I mean, everybody doesn’t do the same thing in the weight room or in conditioning. So you can’t blame it on that set-up. Everybody does something specifically for their position. Aaron works with Sherman (Armstrong). I don’t work with Sherman, Jay doesn’t work with Sherman or the person that I work out with. You can’t connect the dots to the weight room. And we’ve been doing basically the same practice routines since I’ve been here. So it has nothing to do with the way we practice or the way we’re lifting. Maybe there’s something we need to add? Or maybe it’s just freak accidents.”

It’s been a “shit happens” season.  Glad to see he plans on coming back next year.  Hopefully regression to the mean will be good news for the 2014 team.