December 19, 2004

If we are to believe what we read in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, athletic director Dave Braine supposedly has told Gailey that there must be improvement in this season’s 6-5 record. Does this mean that if Tech doesn’t finish with at least a 7-4 record next year that Gailey will be dismissed? No. Braine has made it clear that he considers Gailey to be one of his best hires – better even than Paul Hewitt. I suspect that he’s going to give Gailey at least five years, maybe more, as head coach before he even thinks about dismissing him. I don’t necessarily agree with that – hell, I’m one of those who thought Gailey should have been fired after that 51-7 fiasco in Athens two years ago – but that’s the reality of the situation.

Given the fact that Gailey is going to be here for a while, is there hope that the situation will get better? Let’s do a little historical research.

Gailey’s record after 37 games as head coach is 20-17. Ron Zook, who got the Florida job at the same time Gailey came to Tech, had a better record at 23-14 and was fired. Tyrone Willingham was 21-15 at Notre Dame, also a higher winning percentage than Gailey, and was fired. By those standards, Braine should be signing the pink slip.

How does Gailey stack up other Tech coaches? After his first 37 games, Bobby Dodd had a 28-9 record (and that includes a 4-6 mark in his first season). Bud Carson was 17-20. Pepper Rodgers was 19-17-1. Bill Curry was 8-28-1. Bobby Ross was 16-21. George O’Leary was 18-19. (Bill Fulcher and Bill Lewis never made it to 37 games.) In the context of Georgia Tech’s football history, Gailey’s early record compares well to everyone except Dodd.

We also have to consider what I will call, from here on out, the Tuberville factor. Auburn wanted to fire Tommy Tuberville last year, to the point where school officials interviewed Bobby Petrino about taking the job. Tuberville stayed on, and Auburn only went 12-0 to finish number three in the polls. Tech fans should also be well acquainted with the example of what Dave Braine did as the athletic director at Virginia Tech – he kept Frank Beamer on the job after six mediocre seasons, and Beamer justified that patience by building a program that has been consistently Top-25 caliber for the past 12 years.

To go to another sport: what if Braine had fired Paul Hewitt after three seasons? Remember, Hewitt was only 48-44 during that period, a lower winning percentage than Gailey’s for his first three years as football coach.

The pertinent question here is, after having three years to get his system in place, is Gailey in a position where Tech’s performance will start to show rapid improvement? After Bobby Ross’s first three seasons, Tech won a share of a national championship. After O’Leary’s first three seasons, Tech ran off a three-year record of 27-9 that included three victories over Georgia. Does it look like Tech will move up to the next level of achievement next season?

In other words, will Tech do better than 6-5? I’m just not sure of the answer to that question.

The defense should be in good shape next year, even if defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta takes a job somewhere else. Tech appears to be losing only one starter, James Butler at safety. The other 10 starters should be back. Those returning starters include impact players like Gerris Wilkinson, Chris Reis and Eric Henderson. I think Tech’s defense will be good enough to make a 7-4 record possible.

The question marks, and there are plenty of them, are on the other side of the ball. The offense has been one of the least productive in the nation for the past two seasons, and we all know who’s been calling the plays. Tech’s offensive line was mediocre at best and loses three starters, which means it will be even more inexperienced next year. Tech loses two of its top three receivers, Nate Curry and Levon Thomas, although the returning starter, Calvin Johnson, will be possibly the best wide receiver in Division I-A next year. The Jackets do return the three best running backs – Daniels, Woods and Grant – although, as we have seen, all of them are susceptible to injury.

That leads us to the biggest question of all on offense: Does Reggie Ball deserve another chance to be the starter at quarterback?

Just as the conventional wisdom holds that a team makes most of its improvements between the first and second games of a season, it also holds that a player improves the most between his first and second years in the program. Let’s ignore our personal feelings here and look strictly at Reggie Ball’s numbers from his freshman and sophomore seasons.

In 2003, Ball completed 181 of 350 passes, a completion rate of 51.7 percent. In 2004, he completed 152 of 311 passes, a completion rate of 48.9 percent. His completion rate dropped by nearly 3 percentage points in his second year as a starter.

In 2003, he gained 1,996 yards passing, an average of 153.5 yards per game. In 2004, he gained 1,940 yards, an average of 176.4 yards per game (remember, we’re talking about 13 games for 2003 compared to 11 games for 2004). His yardage per game was up by about 23 yards.

In 2003, he gained an average of 5.70 yards per pass attempt, a key indicator of a quarterback’s efficiency. In 2004, he gained an average of 6.23 yards per pass attempt. That’s a fairly significant improvement of more than half-a-yard per pass attempt.

In 2003, he threw 10 touchdown passes, an average of one for every 35 passes thrown. In 2004, he threw 14 scoring passes, an average of one touchdown for every 22.2 passes. That’s a significant improvement.

In 2003, he threw 11 interceptions, or one for every 31.8 passes. In 2004 he threw 17 interceptions, or one for every 18.2 passes. That is a very steep drop-off in year two as a starter.

Ball’s passing efficiency rating was 102.8 in 2003 and 105.2 in 2004. That’s an improvement, if a very small one, in his sophomore year.

I see a quarterback whose numbers were better in some areas and worse in other areas. The improvements in seem to be nullified by dropoffs. When you put them all together, there basically wasn’t much difference in his overall numbers as a sophomore than as a freshman. That tells me that this is a player who is not growing and maturing on the job – something that Gailey more or less confirmed when he said that Ball was “inconsistent” in the decisions he made under game conditions. Gailey has said that the quarterback position will be wide open to competition from Taylor Bennett and presumably anyone else during spring practice. I think we all understand why.

Taking all of those factors into consideration, I believe that any offensive improvement next year will be determined by what Gailey does in the off-season. He will have to get the quarterback position stabilized during spring practice. He will have to hire a qualified offensive coordinator who’s capable of putting together a game plan and calling the plays. He will have to hire a new offensive line coach. He will have to put someone else in charge of coaching the quarterbacks. If Gailey does all of this, then it is possible that Tech’s offense can improve to a 7-4 level. If Gailey does not make these personnel moves, the offense will continue to stagnate and Tech’s record will go south. Simple as that.

Let’s take some questions:

1. I know I should be grateful that Tech beat the spread almost pulled off an upset of Georgia in Athens, but you know something? I’m not. I’m disheartened and depressed by how the game between Tech and Georgia played out. You go into your archrival’s home stadium as a 15-point underdog, do almost nothing on offense, get slapped around during the first half, and still are within one play in the last minute of the game of winning it all. And you botch it at the end with a dumb mistake. Disheartening. Depressing. Disgusting.

   Having said all that, I do want to pay tribute to the Tech defense and what it was able to do for at least part of the game. For all of the third quarter and a portion of the fourth quarter, the defense absolutely dominated Georgia like they owned them. It has been a long time since I have seen Tech’s defense so overpowering – and against a Top 10 team at that. It was very satisfying to see Georgia stopped cold and to watch D. J. Shockley get pounded by Tech’s pass rush. That almost – but not quite – made up for the disappointment of the rest of the game.

   This defensive dominance, of course, helped give Tech the opportunity to put 13 points on the board and stay within striking distance of victory. That victory was very, very close when Tech got the ball for the last time. It all came down to one series, one play.

   Reggie Ball hit Levon Thomas deep down the middle for 38 yards, putting the ball on Georgia’s 21 with less than a minute to play. Time enough for Tech to take four shots at the end zone. Close enough that Ball could find one of his receivers for the necessary yards on just one play. A huge upset win over Georgia, at this point, was not only doable but seemed to be in the cards for Tech fans who have ridden the ups and downs of this season.

   But here, alas, is where each of Tech’s weaknesses came into play and gave the game back to Georgia.

   First down and 10. Throughout the game, Georgia had been most vulnerable defensively to the deep pass over the middle that split the safeties, or any pass thrown in Calvin Johnson’s direction. Levon Thomas ran that pattern down the middle for the 38-yard pass that put Tech on the 21 yard line. Thomas had also been wide open on a similar pattern in the first half and would have scored a touchdown if Damarius Bilbo hadn’t thrown the ball 10 yards over his head. Thomas and Johnson were both on the field and ready to run their patterns as Tech lined up on Georgia’s 21 in the last minute of play. So what did Chan Gailey call? He called a screen pass to P. J. Daniels, who could barely make it back to the line of scrimmage because that was one play that Georgia’s defense was able to defend. This was just another example of Gailey’s questionable play calls: instead of attacking the area where Georgia was vulnerable, he played to an area their of strength. Tech went nowhere.

   Second down and 10. Ball drops back to pass but is sacked for an 11-yard loss before he can even look for a receiver. This was yet another example of the inconsistent pass blocking that we saw all season from Tech’s offensive line. From the Clemson game through the Georgia game, Reggie Ball’s deficiencies were aggravated by an offensive line that many times didn’t give him time enough to throw. On half the plays in Athens, David Pollack was roaring into the backfield without an offensive lineman even trying to stop him.

   Third down and 21. Time is ticking away, but there are still about 20 or 21 seconds left. Tech could have tried to run a quick sideline pattern to one of its receivers to try to make up some of the yardage lost on the previous play. If the ball had been caught, the receiver could have stepped out of bounds to stop the clock with plenty of time for one more play. Instead, “offensive coordinator” Patrick Nix was gesturing for Ball to spike the ball and stop the clock without attempting to gain even a few yards. Nix has not impressed me as either a quarterback coach or an offensive coordinator. Why was Chan listening to his wrong-headed advice at this most crucial of times?

   That brought us to fourth down and 21. This was the final chance for Tech to shoot for a victory, and everything rested with Reggie Ball’s judgement. Once again, a lack of decent pass blocking forced Ball to roll out to the right and throw on the run. Ball, thinking it was still third down, threw the ball out of bounds. Game over. Tech’s last opportunity was gone.

   I understand that the Sanford Stadium scoreboard indicated it was still third down on Tech’s last snap. Ball may have seen the scoreboard and gotten confused about the down and distance. Well, maybe so. But a good quarterback knows the down and distance in every situation, on every play, and adjusts accordingly. What does it tell you about a quarterback who loses track of it when the game is on the line and there is no more margin for error?

   That quartet of plays, I think, summed up most of Tech’s shortcomings for this very disappointing season. Poor play calling by Gailey. Poor pass-blocking by the offensive line. Questionable thinking by the person who is designated as your “offensive coordinator.” Bad decisions by the person running the game at quarterback. That’s your whole season, right there.

   One of the few positive things about the Tech-Georgia game was that it showed, once again, what a complete dunce “20ozBulldog” is. When are people going to stop listening to this jerkoff? Here is the prediction he posted on the Hive prior to the game:

   “1) Athletes . . . Forgive me for saying so and if it gets folks upset then so be it. I have long said and been proven right YEAR AFTER YEAR that the only way you win big is by having ATHLETES. Raw ability. Pure ATHLETES. GT simply does not have enough to compete with UGA. It gets more pronounced with the reserves. Athletes . . .

   “2) Mental block. It exists. Mental block. Under the helmet. Remember last year how I called the GT basketball team to lose to UGA WEEKS before the game? Only person anywhere who could see it. I put Rembrandt to shame with that one. Mental block. Remember the 2002 game? Mental block. GT truly can't get UGA out of its head. Fans, too. (Admit it, guys) It impacts so much (As much as 40% - 45%) of how GT plays. Go back to the Virginia game. I could see it coming because the UGA game was approaching. It impacted the Virginia game and I called it EXACTLY right. Was able to see what was happening and was able to change the previous held belief that the NC State game would serve as a catalyst. Not to brag, but can you guys name ANYONE else who could have seen that outcome coming? Anyone? Anyone at all? Exactly. I was the only one anywhere who could have pulled it off.

   “GT will show TWO flashes of great play – once in the first half and once in the 2nd half. But the problem is that the Dawgs are steady. Seasoned. Cerebral. Stoic, perhaps. Something like that. UGA wins by between 15-28 points.”

   Once again, 20ozBulldog is exposed as a complete ignoramus. But then, most of us knew that.

1. Yes I do. There’s a book that’s available in most Atlanta bookstores called “Kim King’s Tales from the Georgia Tech Sideline.” It’s a book of reminiscences about Tech football that King put together with AJC sportswriter Jack Wilkinson in the months before Kim’s tragic death from cancer. There are some fascinating inside stories about the hiring of various Tech coaches, which I won’t spoil for anybody by repeating here. King also recounts how, as a highly recruited quarterback out of Brown High School, he was invited to meet Bear Bryant in November 1962 at the Georgian-Terrace Hotel just before Alabama played Tech at Grant Field. Here’s how King describes it:

   “He was sitting by the window. You could see Grant Field from there. He was sitting there with a pack of Chesterfields and with a pack of Benson & Hedges. He was chain-smoking, smoking one from one pack, then one from the other. He kept looking out the window at the rain, and saying, “This is Dodd’s weather, this is Dodd’s kind of weather.

   “He said, ‘Mrs. King, excuse my language, ma’am. But that damn Dodd’s gonna beat my butt today.’ He said it about 10 times. My father said, ‘Coach Bryant, you’ve got a national championship team. You’ve got all these players back.’

   “Bryant said, ‘It’s raining. It’s a sloppy field. This is Dodd’s weather. He’ll figure out how to play in this weather. He knows how to win in this kind of weather.’”

   As we all know now, the Bear was absolutely correct. Tech beat Alabama 7-6 on that wet day at Grant Field. I didn’t know, until reading King’s book, that Bryant had been so worried about the game beforehand. Anecdotes like that make the book worth buying for any Tech fan.